Studying modern history in the early-90s I was naturally among the first students to eagerly grasp the potential of new technologies for my studies. I was head of the queue to get go on the Independent’s archives on CD-Rom to supplement my micro-fiche marathons and trials by archive when studying the then (very) recent history of the demise of the Soviet Union and various US presidential races.
There was some “Web” about and some internets too. Some news groups and something called “Gopher”, but besides CD-Roms, a pokey word-processor and email to my early adopter Dad, friends and fellow students I’d met in the US and Netherlands, my studies were decidedly low-tech.
But oh, to be a history student today. I would probably be wittily blogging about history 2.0 and bamboozling professors with insights gleaned from toys like these too (and I’m sure there are many, many more out there):
- Google Earth historical layers: You can take a look at old world maps layered onto Google Earth. Below is a shot of the 1840s map for London, which I’ve left the modern tube stations on for fun. Via CNet. To access look in the layers menu under Rumsey Historical Maps in the latest version of Google Earth.
2. A tag cloud of US presidential speeches: moving the slider you can see the changing topics and emphases of keywords in US presidential speeches since the Declaration of Independence. Amazing! Watch “economy” appear with the 20th Century, “soviet” wax and wane, “terror” appear suddenly in the past few years. Via Mark Higginson.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.