In California, the Modern World History curriculum begins with a study of the intellectual foundations of Western political thought. The standards require students to understand “selections from Plato's Republicand Aristotle's Politics” and the role that these ideas have on the making of our political system. By starting the academic year with this emphasis on Western liberal thought, the standards set up a narrative that will allow students to explore the development of liberal democracies, the growing inclusion of these political systems, and a comparison between these and other dominant political philosophies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Teachers often find this standard challenging to integrate into a course that is otherwise very chronological. Given the drive of the standards to privilege the modelof Western liberal democraciesthis lesson allows teachers to begin the course by asking students to first define and then consider the significance of tyranny and the rule of law. In this 10thgrade lesson, students will define tyranny by examining a variety of primary sources. They will then consider how early American leaders’ fear of tyranny and preference for the rule of law influenced the development of our own system of government.