History

Best of History Sites
The 'Best of History Web Sites is an award-winning portal created for history teachers, students, and general history enthusiasts.' This site links you to web sites on 'Prehistory, Ancient/Biblical, Medieval, U.S. History, Early Modern European, 20th, World War II and Art History.' (Each category also has sub-categories.) There are links to 'K-12 history lesson plans, teacher guides, activities, games and quizzes.' Worth your time.

Census Quick Facts
This web site is billed as 'quick, easy access to facts about people, in business and geography' in the USA. You can select quick facts about counties, states and the USA courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau. Use this site for such topics as population changes, racial backgrounds, median income and land area. For further details go to http://www.census.gov. This is the 'gateway to the 2000 census' and, to use an appropriate hackneyed cliché, a goldmine of information on USA people, business and geography. Includes population projections. Facts R Us.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
"The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is making primary source documents and educational resources from all eras of American history available for free online. Features available on the web site include podcasts of historians discussing their work, lesson plans on major topics in American history, a searchable database of more than 60,000 primary source documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, featured documents with printable images and transcripts for classroom use, and online exhibitions." (Site recommended by Mary Slowinski, Faculty Resource Center)

History Channel
The History Channel is part of the A&E Television Networks. You can look at the 'History of the World Timeline' by year, decade or century. Don't miss the database with 25,000 biographies. Tidbit: Julia Roberts outranks William Shakespeare in terms of how many people have searched for their biographies. Look at 'What Happened on This Day' in crime, entertainment, literature, Viet Nam, Old West, Wall Street, Automotive, Civil War and WWII. (Unfortunately, you can only specify the day not the year.) Even with the commercial offerings (books, videos, tours) on this site, it has some interesting if superficial resources. The site gives links to the other A&E websites e.g. Biography Channel and History International Channel.

History Matters
'A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.' Who said this? Franklin D. Roosevelt. Just a scrap of history guaranteed to be accurate from History Matters. History Matters 'offers useful materials for teaching US History.' The site sponsors include the City University of New York and the NEA among others. Read primary sources such as an exchange between Captain John Smith and Chief Powhatan in 1607 on war. You can also answer (from a ship's log) such burning questions as, 'How did Cape Cod get its name in 1602?' This site includes examples of syllabi for instructors of history courses, interviews with exemplary history teachers, student projects, and ways to make sense of documents (e.g. films, diaries, photographs). Links to other useful web. Five stars. Thumbs way up. A-OK.

World Heritage
The UNESCO World Heritage web pages give information on places around the globe of significant cultural and historical value. Each site has a web page that includes a photograph and the criteria for its inclusion on this prestigious list. From the WH list, you can select a country which, in turn, gives you a list of the WH sites in that country. For example, in Botswana, Africa, you can a visit web page on the Tsodilo Hills and learn about the 'Louvre of the Desert' with its many ancient rock paintings. In France, don't miss the Chartres Cathedral called the "high point of French Gothic art" from the 12th century. This World Heritage list will provide you with travel destinations for a lifetime. However, some of the sites in the Congo, Cambodia, Mali etc. are not only endangered but endangering.