History Guide
American History
35 Historical facts you never learned in school.
Browse state by state through all 250 killer digital libraries.
Links/articles on U.S. historical events, subjects, and themes.
Collected papers of the Adams family. John Quincy Adams Diaries.
Search engine of 25,000 “greatest lives”.
Americana
Cornell University and the University of Michigan have put together sites that combined contain over 1 million pages of 19th Century Americana; This page (Cornell) links to Atlantic Monthly (18), Harpers (1850-1899), and Scientific American ( 1846-1869); From Michigan you can browse Catholic World (1860-1901), Overland Monthly (1868-1900), and Southern Literary Messenger (1834-1864)
Massive collection of historical data that contributed to the American ideals, culture and politics; from 500 B.C. to 1800.
Explore American exploration from eyewitness accounts.
Online magazine: chock full of articles/resources.
The history of the American conservation movement housed at the Smithsonian.
Browse through the various collections found at The Library of Congress.
Indepth look at all 43 U.S. Presidents + bio’s and pictures.
Library of Congress site chronicles the history of baseball; cards, panoramic photos, even a section for teachers.
California’s early years, 1849-1900.
YouTube video from Harvest Moon Studios for Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library mixes “Ken Burns music” with mappable graphics.
Alexander Hamilton
The founder of American finance. Bastard. Immigrant. Federalist. Philanderer. Industrialist. Duelist.
Digital scans of American Milestone Documents (e.g. Constitution, George Washington’s Correspondence, Lincoln’s Assassination Papers).
Both general American and more specific Missouri history found at the University of Missouri.
Unlock the digital vaults at the National Archives; interactive site hosts 1200 of its 10 billion records. The Digital Vault at the National Archives has a Pathways tool to test your connections between events and people. You can even create a movie or poster with the images you’ve clipped along the way.
New Deal web guide from the Library of Congress.
Paleopsych - Dean Keith Simonton estimates presidential IQs; Bush scores low, John Quincy Adams tops the list.
Delve into the history of the Quakers at the Earlham College Friends Collection.
Texas Beyond History is an archaeology and early human history buff’s dream focused on Texas.
Emphemera (mostly print) from the Vietnam War era (browsable) at the U of Washington.
Newspapers of the Washington territory.
Collected papers of Booker T. Washington.
Civil War
Photographic history of the Civil War, in 10 volumes. Or try Son of the South, a truely extensive collection of Civil War resources.
Selected Civil War photoraphs by Mathew Brady stored in The Library of Congress.
Video depicting major events in a very quick overview.
Steven Mintz of the University of Houston’s site is impressive; includes up-to-date US history textbook, annotated primary sources on US, Mexican American and Native American history.
“It’s about how America got born.” In the works, but check out the trailers.
Site of the complete writings of Benjamin Franklin.
Liberty: An American Revolution on PBS web exhibits supplement individual shows; includes interviews with soundbites, glossary and links to relevant sites.
National Museum of American History
At the Smithsonian (http://www.si.edu is home).
Cartoonist from civil war era (illustrated Alice in Wonderland) and his cartoons of Civil War.
Ancient History
Rome Reborn: Rome digitally reproduced at the height of its power in AD 320.
Interactive Giuseppe Vasi’s Grand Tour of Rome
Information on the ancient world, including archeology, atlas, texts and translations.
Online portal to many ancient cultures; Chile, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Romania and Spain.
Catchpenny Mysteries of Ancient Egypt, for your edification and amusement.
Theoi Greek Mythology encyclopedia contains over 1500 pages on Greek myth characters; from gods and goddesses, nymphs, titans and monsters, and even family trees, as well as an artwork gallery that’s worth a look.
The Code of Hammurabi (also known as Codex Hammurabi) is one of the earliest and best preserved law codes from ancient Babylon, created ca. 1760 BC (middle chronology). It was enacted by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi.[1]
Ancient Greek science and technology; Olympics; biographies of ancients; literature in antiquity.
Ancient history fans need to meet Tim Spaulding, creator of this and 48 other sites. In tandem, try Metrum or Elbruz. Start with the library page, then go wherever; Largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island, Archaic Didymaion (the key to ancient architecture) and The Deluge as Metaphor.
Architecture History
Open directory project contains over 907 links to architectural history, from architects (580) to travel (16).
Art History
Prof. Whitcombe’s gateway to links for researching art history on the web.
5000 years of art history, all here.
Interactive timeline that covers art history, and opens eyes.
Astronomy History
Links to astronomy history sites from A-W.
Aviation History
Links and articles on the history of aviation.
European History
Largest database of Russian and Romanov history on the net.
Nice interactive timeline of British history.
Prehistoric and ancient Europe, Medievil and renaissance Europe, Europe as Supranational Region.
Map of Europe in 1000, from Euratlas.
Resource for England in the Victorian era (1837-1901).
The heritage of the Great War is covered at Great War.
General History
Historical Anatomies is a large database of anatomies.
Award winning site for everything to do about history.
Omnibiography holds biographies on over 110,000 people from antiquities to present.
A collection of Arabic, Persian and Ottoman calligraphy housed at the Library of Congress. Check out: Calligraphers of the Persian Tradition, Ottoman Calligraphers and their works, Qur’anic Fragments, and Noteworthy Items.Color Wheel
History of the color wheel, from Newton forward (ColourLovers)
History of mechanics and machine drawing database from early Middle Ages up to 1650.
Resource of historical and literary diaries and diarists.
Great online tool for historians and students, up to date textbook, essays, et al.
A historical perspective of historians at play; Yerba Buena weighs in; a look at some of their commemorative plaques; if you’d just as soon cut to the chase, here’s a short history.
A place to explore myths.
For instance, The History of Coca-cola on paper, or A Clue to Crossword Origins
The sequences are from the PBS NOVA film “The Vikings” and offer a fascinating look at Birka, a medieval Viking village that archeologists recently excavated near modern-day Stockholm.
History through the eyes of those who lived it, presented by Ibis Communications, a digital publisher of educational programming.
Reportret is a gallery of reconstructed portraits of people throughout history.
is a site for history buffs. They’ve entered into an agreement with The National Archives to digitize every document in their collection.
National Geographic’s atlas of human history.
Open access to Columbia University Press history ebooks, such as The Creation of Color In Eighteenth Century Europe.
a large recording database of famous speeches, many from the 20th Century; site also hosts animal and entertainment sound recordings.
History of religion in 90 seconds (animated map).
Information graphics on historical subjects embedded into intense graphics; genealogy of pop/rock music.
internetmodernhistorysourcebook
searchable source of most anything historical.
Learn about the trials of Salem witches, Scottsboro Socrates and much more.
An irreverant online look at history, and trivia.
Internet source for copy permitted historical texts (ancient, medievil, modern, women’s and Islamic among others).
Including Propoganda by Edward Bernays (1928), A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, essays by Bill Clinton and Mark Twain among others, and much more.
More than 400 topics; then there’s chronology, timelines, tours thru time, interactive tours, what when where, etc.
Thomas Jefferson sought to separate the ethical teachings from religious dogma and other supernatural elements that are intermixed in the account provided by the four Gospels.
Library of Congress podcasts; such as End of European Colonial Empires, Robert E. Lee, and 1507 Waldseemuller World Map.Logo History
Modern Mark Maker is a post covering the history of brand logos that’s wonderfully concise about the origins ala Wilhelm Deffke.
Site dedicated to everything mining-related.
History of money from ancient times to present.
Discover Mayan culture; the Mayan calendar; history; archaeology.
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Archeological sites and historic buildings - check out the interactive preservation atlas
The origins of numbers.
Beautifully illuminated bible from 1489.
Illustrated history of recording music technology.
International Institute of Social History site; among their collections - Secret Societies: Documents and illustrations of Freemasons, Jesuits, Illuminati, Carbonari, Burschenschaften and other putative secret societies and clandestine organizations.
Medieval manuscript beautifully illustrates the medieval worldview; check out translations for The Cherub with Six Wings, The 10 Commandments and The Tree of Virtue and The Tree of Vices.
History of Visual Communication tackles the long and diverse history of a particular aspect of human endeavour: the translation of ideas, stories and concepts that are largely textual and/or word based into a visual format, i.e. visual communication.
Weird history
Learn the derivation of such phrases as “raining cats and dogs,” and “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” And such terms as “threshold” and “wake.”
Survey of the history of the Western philosophy.
Medical History
U.S. National Library of Medicine
History of medicine in the U.S. - Books and Journals, Archives and Manuscripts, Prints and Photographs, Films and Videos, Digital Collections.
Military History
Links to military history sites.
A virtual tour through the Maginot Line…a line of concrete fortifications, tank obstacles, artillery casemates and machine gun posts and other defences which France constructed along its borders with Germany and with Italy.
From 5,000 years of religeous history in 90 seconds to Imperial History of the Middle East.
American military history, especially a “public institution for the study of the citizen-soldier as an essential element for the preservation of democracy.”
One of most comprehensive and best sites to research military history of WWII
Natural History
Academy of Natural Sciences - Philadelphia
Features collection databases and links to other museums.
American Museum of Natural History
Features fossil halls, amber exhibits and the Audobon Gallery.
Berkeley Natural History Museum
A collection of 6 museums and 12 million specimens.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
The 6th largest natural history museum in the U.S.
World-class museum and home of “Sue” the Trex.
National Museum of Natural History - Smithsonian
Exhibits change frequently.
Science History
Science, history, and the history of science.
History of science, technology and industry (links to over 5000 websites).
Technology
The “History of Spam” is all about junk email, and quite a fascinating read.