The History Box.com is a non-profit, educational website devoted primarily
to New York City and New York State history, though it also contains an
extensive exploration of American history in general.
Its main features are the New York State and New York City Directories that
offer more than 600 articles of historical interest and thousands of web
links, organized under topics such as Arts, Biographical Sketches,
Architecture, Business Matters, Immigration, Education, Women and Historical
Tid-Bits . Though its reach is large, thehistorybox.com focuses a
particularly long lens on the early history of political and economic
events, panics, riots and other related matters affecting or contributing to
New York City's development and growth. Extensive research of public
records, newspapers, books and web links comprise the site's primary and
secondary sources. The website is continually updated with new articles and
web links, which can be found in the What's New section. It is a source of
quality information for researchers, literary scholars, writers, historical
societies and academic institutions.
The historybox.com is cited in the September 15, 2005 newsletter of The
Center for Teaching History With Technology. The THWT newsletter is produced
by Tom Daccord, veteran history teacher, academic technology specialist for
the Humanities, webmaster of Best of History Web Sites and Teaching
Literature & Writing with Technology, and President of the Center for
Teaching History with Technology.
One of the newest addition to thehistorybox.com is "Resources For A Great
Classroom Day".Thehistorybox.com has selected websites that are of
substantial educational value and scope , many of them maintained by
recognized institutions. Such universities or governmental bodies help
guarantee the quality of the information maintained on their websites.
Exceptional independent websites that have proven their accuracy and
sustained a high quality for their primary and secondary sources are also
included.
Websites that are currently promoting thehistorybox.com include the
following: History Matters, American Heritage.com, Virtual New York, U.S.
History.org, Colgate University, gothamgazette.com, gothamcenter.org,
3quarksdaily, History of Harlem New York, and University of Michigan's
Internet Public Library.
"The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) is based at the University of Oxford. So far it has made accessible, via the World Wide Web, more than 350 literary works composed in the Sumerian language in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) during the late third and early second millennia BCE." http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/
Historical Map of the Twentieth Century
Geography has always been a good teacher of history, and that happens in
new ways in this Website, as the interactive maps give reinforcing area
definition to events taking place in time. There are six contemporary
context buttons, one each for: cities, government, war, international
relations, living conditions, and economics. The maps have colored
legends, are often clickable, and many link to explanatory text. Move here
around the twentieth century for an intensive right-hemisphere global workout.
Union Pacific Railroad History --US history--
A century and a half ago, the railroads were pushing across new frontiers, and like the Internet today, connecting
people in exciting new ways and changing commerce forever. Today, Union Pacific is right on track with a new
kind of connection: making a handsome contribution to the trend by industrial Webmasters to include educational
materials on their sites. The results on this UP history page are fresh, interesting, authoritative new study
resources on a wide variety of subjects. There are railroad chronologies and biographies. One can trace the
growth of railroad technology and poke around in historic locations and abandoned lines. The extensive History of
the UP Logo begins with Victorian designs and includes a Union Pacific Shield Glossary. There are also railroad
museums, a photo gallery, and, to conclude: A Brief History of the Caboose.
Civil War -- US HISTORY
Sophisticated, state-of-the-art Web exhibit from the Museum of
American Financial History.
The exhibit is divided into three sections: Origins, Northern & Southern Strategies, and a Conclusion. This is an
excellent place to study economics, history, and biography through the lens of the war that preserved the Union --
at enormous cost.
Columbus Letter US History
The Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education,
University of Southern Maine, has put these pages online, making one of
the most influential documents of all time accessible on the Internet.
The letter written by Christopher Columbus to announce the success of
his first voyage became one of Europe's first widely distributed "best
sellers." The text, translations, and history of this extraordinary
document can all be explored here.
Columbus' engaging descriptions include this one: "There are besides
in the said island Juana seven or eight kinds of palm trees, which far
excel ours in height and beauty, just as all the other trees, herbs, and
fruits do. There are also excellent pine trees, vast plains and meadows,
a variety of birds, a variety of honey, and a variety of metals,
excepting iron."
Today in History
The Internet is always new, and this page from the Library of
Congress epitomizes the freshness and depth which digital
technologies have brought to academic research. Every day a new
interactive, illustrated essay becomes the main page here, featuring
an event in American history which occurred on the current date of
the month. Highlighted are words in the text which are linked to
related sources and essays.
Each topic of the day is a jumping off point into the American
Memory collection of the Library of Congress, where one interesting
thing leads to another. On May 8, for example, Zachary Taylor won a
victory on the Rio Grande, and this links us to the online exhibit
of the Treaty of Hidalgo. We also learn that Dr. John S. Pemberton
sold the first Coca-Cola on May 8, 1886, at Jacob's Pharmacy in
Atlanta, Georgia, and from that fact move to an exhibit of 1938-1944
advertising signs with Coke, Orange Crush, and Royal Crown.
Atomic Archive
Recounting the greatest blasts of all from the human past, this Website
does an outstanding job of describing the complex and dangerous atomic
age. From the birth of atom science, to the latest nuclear news, the
pages are attractive and informative. The timeline begins in 1919, when
June-Rutherford created oxygen from nitrogen, and carries through the
chain of atomic events to the non-proliferation efforts of the 1990s.
Reference pages include primers on nuclear fusion and nuclear fission,
biographies, and a glossary. A section called Example: New York City is
a dramatic graphic of the Cold War decades when across the United States
buildings were marked as shelters, and Friday noon by air raid sirens.
Medieval Technology Timeline
This timeline traces technological innovations in Europe from the early
dark ages to the threshold of the technological revolution. Inventions
and discoveries are entered on the timeline at the earliest point when
they were probably know, and each can be clicked for a descriptive
essay. We begin by learning that the heavy plow, which was essential in
the efficient use of the rich, heavy, often wet soils of Northern
Europe, was in use in Slavic lands by 500. A thousand years later, the
first blast furnaces were used in Sweden, we learn from a timeline entry
which links to a comprehensive article on the history of iron working.
In hyperlinked, dimensionless cyberspace, timelines are coming into
increasing use to give backbone as well as chronology to bodies of
knowledge.
US History
Ronald Reagan Speech Archive
Townhall.com , Conservative News & Information
History of the internet and www
ORB Online Encyclopedia for Medieval Studies
Hats off to the Medievalists for cleaving through the Gordian knots on the Web and giving us a premiere site with
knowledge that is up front and manageable. "Setting Out on Orb" is the entrance page, which provides an
interactive outline of topics and articles, laid out in chronological order. The highlighted subjects lead directly to
new essays on matters Medieval. Many of the subjects are not yet highlighted because they await a
submission from a top historian from the relevant field. In a lively academic area like this one, where new
discoveries and ideas are galloping off in all directions, the introductory essays bring a student
immediately up-to-date. The Internet frustration of being dissipated by multiplying links is reversed: summary
first, with sources moving out from the knowledge. For example, the Anglo-Saxon essay in the "Before 1000"
section already includes a scholar's paradise on Saint Bede the Venerable. There is a Bede biography revised
most recently four months ago, along with a choice selection of other Bede reference, including the famous
passage describing the flight of the sparrow and the conversion of the Northumbrians.
The site is a simple timeline list of all the emperors, with essays and images for the more important ones. It is a place where students can visualize the sweep through history of the Empire, and begin a to acquire a sense of the imperial personalities.
Health & Medicine in Ancient Cultures
Treated here in rich detail are the three major civilizations which we know to have developed medical arts: Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and Greece. At this University of Indiana Website, it is now possible to view images of ancient
medical instruments, read the medical writings of Homer and Hippocratus, and study Egyptian medical papyri and
cuneiform medical texts from the library of Asshurbanipal. For specialists, this is a definitive source. For general
practitioners in historical studies, it offers an interesting way to visit the ancient world.
Resources for the Ancient and Medieval Studies
"Argos is the first peer-reviewed, limited area search engine (LASE) on the
World-Wide Web. It has been designed to cover the ancient and medieval worlds.
Quality is controlled by a system of hyperlinked internet indices which are managed by
qualified professionals who serve as the Associate Editors of the project. The same
procedures that govern quality also serve to limit the scope of Argos to the ancient
world. " SEARCH RIGHT HERE!
World-Wide Web. It has been designed to cover the ancient and medieval worlds.
Quality is controlled by a system of hyperlinked internet indices which are managed by
qualified professionals who serve as the Associate Editors of the project. The same
procedures that govern quality also serve to limit the scope of Argos to the ancient
world. " SEARCH RIGHT HERE!
Kirke: Katalog der Internet-Ressourcen für die Klassische Philologie aus
Erlangen
Edited by Ulrich Schmitzer (Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg), Kirke (in
German) is an extensive index of internet sites relating to the classical periods of
Greece and Rome.
"...is an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). "
Cold War: The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
Chile and the United States
Declassified Documents Relating to the
Military Coup, September 11, 1973
World History Archives "A repository for documents for teaching and understanding contemporary world history and the struggle for social progress. These archives are associated with Gateway to World History- a collection of resources for the study of world history, and with Images of World History- a pre-modern image archive."
Tombs of the Nobles
These University of Cambridge pages can be explored for an
introduction to the famed Egyptian Valley of the Kings, and one
can poke around here in the latest activities at the venerable site.
Archaeology has become available to everyone through the
Internet, as archaeology sites have morphed into Web sites with
uncanny naturalness. Pushing the analogy a bit, one can see a lot
of similarity between the diagram on this site entitled "Where are
the Tombs of the Nobles?" and the navigation sketches of
Webmasters.
In this introductory presentation for the Tombs of the Nobles,
students can get a fine basis for Egyptology. The New York
Times recently described the lure of the subject:
"Perhaps no other branch of archaeology has fascinated the
general public longer and deeper. Tourists flock to the massive
pyramids outside Cairo and the temple ruins of Thebes up the
Nile. At museums people stand in awe before the graceful form
of Nefertiti and all the mummies carefully prepared long ago for
the afterlife." (NYT 12/28/99)
History of American Agriculture
A bountiful harvest of agricultural history can be gleaned from
this United States Department of Agriculture Web page. It's both
a good place to look for a specific report topic, and a general
reference for the study of agriculture and American history.
Decades of the past two centuries form vertical columns and
major topics provide the horizontal axis. Clicking on the chart
opens one of the eleven underlying timelines; there is one for each
topic at the left. This knowledge arrangement would be
impossible in print or video. It's a sample of the fresh new ideas
sprouting up for learning environments in the Web medium.
A Short History of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
Few institutions have continued in existence through the length of two
millennia; the Patriarchate of Consantinople will achieve that in 2033.
This summary of that history is from the official Website of the
Patriarchate, and is written by Deno Geanakoplos, Professor of Byzantine
History and Orthodox Church History at Yale University. The Website offers
students of religion the history of Greek Orthodoxy from the most
direct possible source. The essays are scholarly and short. Students of the
history of civilization can research this source for material about the
early Christian Church, the Roman decline, the spread of Islam, the modern
Middle East, and other Byzantine matters.
French Soldiers: 1775
Here is a beau source for history and writing composition topics. The
Internet often lets us view widely around the world, but this Website bores
deeply into the details of a war long past. For general interest and
background, there is a section providing the history of the French and
Indian War, and another with brief descriptions of related historical
places to visit in the Lake George area.
The Website is dedicated to the French soldiers who came to New France
between 1755 and 1760 to fight in the French and Indian War. There are
soldier lists, and a new document about the soldiers is posted
every month. One of these documents is interactive, allowing you to find
the equivalents in heights of soldiers from Old French pieds, pounces and
lignes to Modern American feet and inches. The center of this
project is the collection of contemporary documentation of the individual
soldiers -- stirring them to attention in imagination. Meet, for example.
Fusilier Antoine Blanchet: Hair: chestnut. Face: plain
with a large forehead. Eyes: grey. A scar on the right side of the mouth.
He has a large finger on the left hand that had been broken. Enlisted 1745,
re-enlisted 1749. This soldier married in Canada.
Civil War at Charleston
Learn about the Civil War from the place where the first shot was fired on
April 12, 1861. At the Fort Sumter page on this Website, see the federal
flag which was hauled down on that date, and four years later, raised
again. The Civil War Military Actions Around Charleston, SC section has a
timeline of the war years, with many clickable subjects: battles, famous
ships, and key events. In Charleston's War on the Water, the Ironclad
Gunboats and blockade runners are described and depicted. The
distinctly local flavor of this Website warmly presents its biographies of
Charlestonians in the War. Among those you meet here are: Dixie diarist
Mary Boykin; Confederate engineer John Johnson who repaired Ft. Sumter;
Charleston slave Robert Smalls who piloted the ship Planter to freedom;
and, blockade runner George Trenholm.
Blast from the Past
Displayed here by the National Museum of Natural History is a deep-sea core
which contains convincing evidence of an asteroid impact sixty-five million
years ago. Scientists say that the mass distinction of the dinosaurs was
caused by months of darkened skies in the aftermath of Earth's collision
with the six-mile wide asteroid. This Website is authoritative,
well-illustrated, and a fine primer on the asteroid hypothesis -- which
received recent global concern with the prediction of a near fly-by thirty
years from now.
Historical Map of the Twentieth Century
Geography has always been a good teacher of history, and that happens in
new ways in this Website, as the interactive maps give reinforcing area
definition to events taking place in time. There are six contemporary
context buttons, one each for: cities, government, war, international
relations, living conditions, and economics. The maps have colored
legends, are often clickable, and many link to explanatory text. Move here
around the twentieth century for an intensive right-hemisphere global workout.
The story of Hitler's remains: http://www.thirdreich.net/Hitler_s_Death___Body_Parts.html
http://www.benecke.com/hitler_express.html
