This site, based on a National Archives exhibition of historically significant photographs, commemorates 20th-century events and everyday life. The gallery features 70 photographs grouped into six chronological headings: A New Century, The Great War and the New Era, The Great Depression and the New Deal, A World in Flames (World War II), Postwar America, and Century's End. Images contained in the gallery depict events such as the first Wright brothers flight at Kitty Hawk, immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, Lyndon Johnson meeting Martin Luther King, Jr., a war protestor placing daisies into the rifle of a U.S. soldier, and Nixon's post-resignation departure from the White House, as well as images of everyday life across the nation and throughout the century. Each chronological section opens with a brief (75-100 word) introduction. A 30-50 word caption contextualizes each image and provides information on the photographer, if known.

A portfolio section contains another 48 images taken from the works of Walter Lubken, Lewis Hine, George Ackerman, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Charles Fenno Jacobs, and Danny Lyon. Each image in the portfolio is accompanied by a 5-10 word title, notes on the photographer, and the date and place the photograph was taken. All photographs are printable. This site is ideal for students and teachers of American culture, society, and historical events in the 20th century.

In October 1962 the United States and Soviet Union came very close to war over Soviet plans to place missiles on Cuban soil. A recent movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, Thirteen Days, inspired the National Security Archive to make a group of declassified documents relating to the tense incident available. The site includes 17 full-text images of declassified documents, such as the Joint Chiefs of Staff's suggestions on American response to the construction of missile sites in Cuba, a CIA Intelligence Estimate, correspondence, memoranda, and a post-mortem on the crisis. Eight audio clips of White House security briefings, two of which are partially transcribed, are also available, along with 12 U-2 spyplane photographs of missile launch sites.

The site also offers a chronology of events from a characterization of relations between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba in 1959, to the 13 days of crisis in October, 1962, and through 1992, when the last of five meetings on the crisis took place in Havana, Cuba.

A 1,000-word essay critical of the film Thirteen Days, a 1,500-word essay looking back on the Cold War, and excerpts from seven other documents and accounts of the crisis are also included.

The site provides the introduction (about 1,500 words) and the table of contents to The Cuban Missile Crisis, a documents reader edited by historians Lawrence Chang and Peter Kornbluh. This site is a good resource for students and teachers interested in Cold War relations.

This American Memory project, a collaboration between the Library of Congress and Duke University, provides a window on American culture between 1850 and 1920 by offering more than 3,000 pieces of sheet music from Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. These musical pieces represent American history and culture through a variety of music types including minstrel, protest, sentimental, patriotic, and political songs, bel canto, spirituals, dance music, vaudeville, and musical pieces.

The collection is particularly strong in antebellum Southern music, Confederate imprints, and Civil War music and includes a large collection of piano marches, opera excerpts, waltzes, polkas, and quadrilles as well.

In addition to the music and lyrics, each item includes an image of sheet music cover illustrations, which provide further perspective on contemporary ideas about politics, patriotism, race, religion, and sentiment. Descriptive remarks, including notes on the composer, publication information, repository, and a transcription of lyrics accompany each item.

The site also offers a 750-word essay; a link to Duke University's home page for sheet music collections; a 1,000-word essay that defines sheet music as a cultural medium and outlines the history of music publishing in the U.S.; a bibliography of more than 150 works on the history of sheet music, composers, musicians, and performers in the U.S.; and links to five other American Memory collections with related materials.

The site is searchable by keyword and browseable by composer name and subject. Students and teachers researching American cultural history or the cultural significance of music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries will find this site useful.

This project provides a collection of more than 280 digitized materials documenting the history of Florida from pre-contact to the present. It includes materials relating to Florida history, culture, arts, literature, and social sciences in a number of major thematic areas, including Native American and minority populations, exploration and development, tourism, natural environment, and regional interests. These materials are drawn from the archives, special collections, and libraries of the 10 state universities in the Florida system.

Items include family papers, local history books and booklets, diaries, advertising materials, and Civil War letters, business records, maps, and photographs. Many of the materials are regional or local in scope.

The site also includes an extensive (5000-word) Florida history narrative timeline from pre-contact (before 1492) to the present. A user guide and tutorial are provided, and the documents are searchable by county name, keyword, subject, author, or title. The search engine has an option for listing either electronic holdings only or all collection holdings under a particular subject. Entries in the electronic catalog include the archive in which the original is located as well as a 20-word description of the item and its contents.

Note that a few links are still under construction with no completion date indicated. The site is ideal for researching Florida's state and local history.

This is a collection of 107 transcribed interviews with "distinguished men and women from all over the world," about a wide range of topics. Harry Kreisler has been moderating this interview series since 1982 at the University of California at Berkeley. An additional 104 interviews are not available online.

Interviews are unedited and can be searched by interviewee, profession, topic, chronology, Berkeley faculty, and Berkeley alumni. The interviews may also be searched by keyword. Interviews are from three to 10 pages and address topics such as Africa, civil rights, Communism, ethics, free trade, human rights, and women's roles. Professions include education, diplomacy, law, journalism, psychiatry, history, policy making, and economics. Howard Zinn, Kofi Annan, and Robert MacNamara, among others, talk about everything from their own childhoods to global politics.

The "Research Galleries" present interview excerpts in text and video grouped around topics such as "China and the World," "Truth and Power," and "Women Role Models for the New Millenium." In some cases, the galleries include email conversations between interviewees, such as Alan Cranston, and high-school students. The site will be particularly useful for research in international relations.

A collection of 19 audio clips of speeches recorded by seven turn-of-the-century public figures—William Jennings Bryan, Eugene V. Debs, Thomas Edison, Samuel Gompers, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Booker T. Washington. The clips last between one and seven minutes each; all but one were made between 1900 and 1920. Subjects of the speeches include politics, reform, socialism, isolationism, trusts, the gold standard, U.S. military force, labor issues, and race relations. The site includes transcripts of the speeches as well as 150-word biographies and three photographs of each speaker.

Through digitization, technicians have improved the sound quality of these recordings, some of which had become nearly inaudible. An opportunity for users to experience the oratorical powers of influential men from the early 20th century.

This exhibition details the life of Alexander Hamilton. Born in the British West Indies in 1745, Hamilton served as an aide to George Washington during the Revolutionary War. He was the first Secretary of the Treasury, also under George Washington, before being killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. This site offers a short, 20-question quiz on Hamilton's life, a timeline of the important events and accomplishments of his life, and a virtual tour, narrated by Hamilton scholar Richard Brookhiser.

A document viewer allows visitors to view five documents written in Hamilton's own hand, including a love letter to his wife. A log allows visitors to see what Hamilton was doing on selected days between 1783 and his death in 1804. A set of interactive maps allows viewers to select sites in New York City and New Jersey, and learn of their significance in Hamilton's life and American history. The site offers an entertaining and substantive introduction to an influential founding father.

A product of the American Studies program at the University of Virginia, this site attempts to "construct a virtual American ca. 1831-32"—the period that Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States—in order to illuminate Democracy in America, his classic examination of political and social life in the young nation. The book is still regarded by some scholars as the greatest ever written about the United States.

The site presents a hypertext version of the book—one translation among many—accompanied by 13 projects on topics such as Tocqueville's sources and the 1840 Census, race relations, fashion, religion, women, art, navigation, and humor. These projects are uneven in quality, though a few—such as the navigation projects—provide useful primary material and worthwhile background texts. Overall, the character of the site seems somewhat ad hoc.

One "showcase" within a multi-part exhibit that presents Soviet archival documents, this site offers three items related to Cold War politics and ideology: a 1945 telegram from Stalin to Harry Truman; a 1971 document from the Communist party's Central Committee, "Additional Measures To Expose Imperialist Policies"; and a 1962 telegram from Khrushchev to John Kennedy protesting American policy in Cuba.

The documents, available as both untranslated images and translated texts, are accompanied by a useful introduction of 1,036 words.

Visitors should consider using the site's "guided tour," which incorporates these materials within the larger exhibit.

This site displays approximately 90 primary documents from the 15th century to the mid 20th century. Features eight subjects: the presidency; Congress, law, and politics; military affairs; diplomacy and foreign policy; arts and literature; science, medicine, exploration, and invention; African-American history and culture; and women's history. The collection emphasizes "prominent Americans whose lives reflect our country's evolution," including 23 presidents and figures such as Carter Woodson, Thurgood Marshall, pioneer physician Elizabeth Blackwell, Wilbur Wright, and Alexander Graham Bell.

Each subject is accompanied by a useful 100- to 400-word background essay and a link to the document's host collection. Also includes a 2,000-word essay entitled "Collecting, Preserving, and Researching History: A Peek into the Library of Congress Manuscript Division." Although limited in size, this site provides an eclectic group of documents of national interest.