I did a post about various maps some time ago, and today ran across the Interactive Ancient Mediterranean Project while looking for a modern map of the mediterranean region.

The project is based at the Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

"The IAM is an on-line atlas of the ancient Mediterranean world designed to serve the needs and interests of students and teachers in high school, community college and university courses in classics, ancient history, geography, archaeology and related fields."

And don't forget history nuts like myself! This page is full of links and contains a search engine. It looks to be a growing resource too, with new content being added regularly, including downloadable maps and articles about new discoveries in the region.

This is also affiliated with the Perseus Digital Library project, whose stated mission is to bring reference material related to the humanities to as wide an audience as possible.

I'm going to have some fun digging through this one.

Posted by: Ted at 07:35 AM | category: History
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Sometimes I'm just awed by what you can find on the internet. This is a perfect example:

On June 15, 1878, a clear and sunny day in Palo Alto, California, amid a gathering of art and sports journalists, Eadweard Muybridge photographed the first successful serial images of fast motion.

The subject of these photographs was the trotting horse, Abe Edgington, harnessed to a sulky. The horse was owned by railroad builder and former governor, Leland Stanford. Proven was Stanford's theory that during a horse's running stride, there is a moment of suspension where no hooves are touching the ground.

What had begun as a topic of unresolvable debate among artists and horse enthusiasts now launched a new era in photography.

Take some time to look through the index and galleries too, and enjoy the history replaying before your eyes.

Link thanks to Fleshbot (not work safe).

Posted by: Ted at 09:06 AM | category: History
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Sorry guys, I'm talking about the atoll where the US tested atomic and hydrogen bombs. The official webpage for the Bikini Atoll is here, and you can read about the history of the original population, events before and after the series of tests, and the current studies on the area.

Particularly humbling is the photo of the site of the largest weapon test conducted by the US, and the circular area of the island that was vaporized by the blast.

Among the earlier tests were a subset collectively known as Operation Crossroads. From the US Navy Historical Archives:

“Operation Crossroads was an atmospheric nuclear weapon test series conducted in the summer of 1946 at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The series consisted of two detonations, a low altitude test and a shallow water test. The devices, each with a yield of 21 kilotons, were named shots ABLE and BAKER. A planned third test, a deep underwater detonation, was canceled after the second test.

The series was intended to study the effects of nuclear weapons on warships, equipment, and material. These tests would provide important information on the survivability of warships in the event of nuclear war.”

”In contrast to all later atmospheric nuclear tests, a large media contingent was present for the two Crossroads detonations. They were allowed to cover the test atomic bomb explosions "with sufficient thoroughness to satisfy the public as to the fairness and general results of the experiment."” In all, 131 newspaper, magazine, and radio correspondents from the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and Britain covered the detonations, turning these experiments into major media events. In addition, three artists also recorded the project.”

The artist's works can be seen here in all their majestic horror.

The warships involved in the tests became known as the Ghost Fleet. You can find some underwater photography here, available as fine art prints, and a book with more history and photographs of the sunken remains can be found at Amazon.

In the extended entry is a picture of the 'other' bikini, just to lighten it up a little bit. more...

Posted by: Ted at 10:15 AM | category: History
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