World History AP®

The AP® World History: Modern course helps students build exam-ready historical thinking and evidence-based argument skills.
The curriculum includes lesson plans, readings, activities, writing supports, and student materials for easier teaching and learning.
OER Project aligns the course to the AP framework and exam expectations from c. 1200 CE onward.
Teachers can deliver AP World History materials digitally or in print with free access and progress tracking.
The course serves teachers, students, schools, and districts needing a full-year standards-aligned world history curriculum.

Our free, full year AP® World History: Modern course helps students build key AP skills and strong evidence based arguments. Students study world history from c. 1200 CE to the present with lesson plans, readings, DBQ practice, and exam prep. Teachers can use digital or print materials, assign work, and track progress. The course aligns to the AP framework and supports flexible pacing for classrooms, schools, and districts.

Teaching Tools

Designed to align with the AP® World History: Modern Course and Exam Description, this comprehensive year-long course provides a cohesive approach to learning and understanding the history of the world, while simultaneously preparing students to take the AP® World History: Modern exam.

Unit 0 • 5 Lessons

Intro to World History

Before you begin learning about the world in 1200 CE, it’s important to know what came before this year. Learn the context you’ll need to succeed in World History AP®.

Unit 1 • 8 Lessons

The Global Tapestry

Welcome to the year 1200 CE, a time of sprawling trade routes and mighty empires. A diverse collection of societies linked huge world regions across a web of interconnections.

Unit 2 • 8 Lessons

Networks of Exchange

If the world is indeed a tapestry, then networks of exchange were the threads that wove it together. See how the merchants who roamed these routes moved goods, ideas, and diseases across continents.

Unit 3 • 5 Lessons

Land-Based Empires

The bigger an empire gets, the more difficult it is to rule. How did the colossal land empires of the early modern period conquer and maintain their territories? Explore the expansion of empires and the administrative and religious systems used to control them.

Unit 4 • 9 Lessons

Transoceanic Interconnections

After 1492, transoceanic voyages linked the hemispheres in sustained connection for the first time, setting the stage for an exchange that forever changed the lives of people in Afro-Eurasia and the Americas.

Unit 5 • 11 Lessons

Revolutions

Beginning in the eighteenth century, an age of revolutions shook the foundations of global power and industry. Enter an era of revolutionary ideas and innovations as new nations formed and new forms of production were created.

Unit 6 • 9 Lessons

Consequences of Industrialization

Industrialization fueled empires. Thanks to innovations like steamships, trains, and machine guns, industrial empires spread their borders further than ever, opening new markets and resources to fuel their factories.

Unit 7 • 10 Lessons

Global Conflict

The transformations of the long nineteenth century set the stage for an era of unprecedented warfare, atrocity, and threat to our species’ survival.

Unit 8 • 10 Lessons

Cold War and Decolonization

As World War II ended, new global conflicts emerged. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and decolonization movements reshaped the world order.

Unit 9 • 10 Lessons

Globalization

What does it mean to live in a global world? Explore the promises and problems of global connections, and how nationalism and identity continue to shape how people experience the world.

Teaching This Course

World History AP® Course Overview

Learn about the approach, structure, and materials in OER Project: World History AP—a course fully aligned to the AP® World History: Modern Course and Exam Description (CED).