Today in History

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This exhibit changes daily and includes text, images, and sound or video clips, where appropriate, for each day's event. The material comes from the Library of Congress's American Memory collections. Topics range widely and have included the establishment of Oregon as a state, Stalin's request that the U.S. invade Western Europe, and the Hawaiian swimmer Duke Kahanemoku's 1911 freestyle record. The site provides links to American Memory collections as well as suggestions for finding more information on the same or related topics. This attractive and well-designed site would be useful for teachers wishing to get students involved in a daily exercise in history or for teachers hoping provide a broad sense of what can count as history.

Through Our Parent's Eyes: Tucson's Diverse Community

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The ethnically diverse history of Tucson, Arizona is celebrated here in sections on the Hispanic, Native American, African American, Chinese, and Jewish heritage of the area. A 1000-word essay on the Hispanic history of Tucson is complemented by the four histories, from two to 100 pages, of local families. An exhibit of traditional arts in the Mexican American community includes photographs of houses, piñatas, and ten video clips of low-rider cars. Sources on Native Americans include 12 oral histories (300-600 words), about food and culture. The history of African Americans in the Tucson area from the 16th to the 19th century is recounted in an 1,800-word essay. A collection of 22 biographies (120-800 words) and summarized oral histories offer more personal details of African American life in Tucson. The collection of material about Chinese Americans in Tucson includes four biographies (600-1,200 words) and seven video clips of interviews with a Chinese American woman who grew up in Tucson in the 1940s. The journey made by one Jewish family from Russia in the 19th century to Tucson in the 20th is recounted in a 4,700-word illustrated essay. The site will be useful for research in ethnicity and the history of the west.

Promise of Gold Mountain: Tucson's Chinese Heritage

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This is a collection of material about the history of Chinese-Americans in Tucson, Arizona. It is one of five sections in an exhibit about ethnic diversity in Tucson. The site includes four 600-1,200-word biographies of Chinese-Americans in Tucson. Chinese-American history in the Tucson area is discussed in three 600-word essays about the railroads, farming and small business, and the development of Chinatowns in Tucson. Highlighted text in each essay links to three to ten photos. There are seven video clips of interviews of 20 seconds to two and a half minutes with and about a Chinese-American woman who grew up in Tucson in the 1940s. A page of sources lists eight books and articles about Chinese settlement in the west. The site will be useful for research about Asian-Americans, the west, and ethnicity in general.

The Perilous Fight: America's World War II in Color

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A complement to the four-hour PBS television series, this site presents unseen footage of World War II, the first war recorded primarily on color film. It brings the wartime experience of Americans on the battlefield and home front vividly to life through original color film clips and photographs. The site is divided into four main areas, including Battlefield, Psychology of War, the Home Front, and Social Aspects. Each section allows visitors to navigate through the different subtopics, read excerpts from diaries and letters, view nearly 250 photographs available for the first time, and watch rare color film clips of the period.

"Battlefield" includes homage to Pearl Harbor as well as film footage of covert American operations. "Psychology of War" contains a section entitled "The Atomic Option" that presents a video montage of images of an atomic bomb dropping on Nagasaki, Japan. Within this section, there is also a video of a Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland. "Homefront" includes five subsections, including censorship and migration. "Social Aspects" includes African Americans, Asians, Women, and Anti-Semitism. The footage of German American youth in New Jersey in the 1940s marching with fascist flags is very compelling. Visitors will also find an interactive timeline, essays on rediscovering the film footage, and a teaching guide for educators Those interested in this unforgettable period of history will find this site instructive.

The Official Leonard Bernstein Site

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This site is dedicated to the legacy of Leonard Bernstein, one of America's foremost conductors of classical music in the 20th century. The "Life's Works" section consists of the Red Book," a comprehensive listing of his many compositions, a 124-page discography that catalogs 826 of Bernstein's recordings, a 1,500 word biography, and a timeline. In "The Studio," the other main section, there are 13 black-and-white photographs of Bernstein, his family, friends, and colleagues and 24 excerpts of interviews, writings, and speeches of and by Bernstein. Users can also view lyrics of six songs from "A Wonderful Town" and handwritten and typed draft scripts from the "Young Peoples' Concerts."

Highlights of this site are ten personal letters dating from 1943, four telegrams, including one from Humphrey Bogart to Bernstein, and eight images of Bernstein's preliminary notes for various musical and educational projects including an original image of Bernstein's personal copy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with his annotations in the margin. Users may also view 14 video clips from films and television programs, including seven home videos filmed in the early 1940s and Bernstein's well-known "Norton Lectures" at Harvard. This site is rounded out with a collection of 20 audio clips from the conductor's many recordings. Those with a passion for American music will find that this site has a wealth of information. For the novice, however, its cluttered presentation is difficult to navigate.

Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA: A Documentary History

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Designed to document American scientist Linus Pauling's role in the early 1950s race to discover the structure of DNA, this site contains more than 800 primary sources. Some 650 documents and photographs provide an unusually frank glimpse into Pauling's life; much of the correspondence in the collection is between Pauling and other front runners in the race (Watson and Crick, for example, and Rosalind Franklin). In addition to the documents and photographs, the site includes 16 of Pauling's published papers, 15 unpublished manuscripts and notebooks, and 22 audio and video clips of Pauling. There is a thorough chronology, which details the personal and professional dimensions of Pauling's life, including his troubles with the State Department and their refusal to issue him a passport on the basis of national security. Professional rivalries and personal jealousies, as well as victories and triumphs, are all documented in correspondence and in video interviews.

Although Pauling lost the DNA race, he was eventually awarded two Nobel Prizes. In addition to a typical search feature, Linus Pauling Day-By-Day allows viewers to learn about events and to examine selected correspondence relevant to any given day, from January 1952 through December 1953.

Arizona State Museum

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Presenting a virtual alternative to the museum in Tucson, this site allows visitors to experience the indigenous cultures of Arizona and the greater southwest. The Online Exhibitions section offers a plethora of digital programs and resources, including Paths of Life: American Indians of the Southwest, With an Eye on Culture: The Photography of Helga Teiwes, and The Pottery Project: Explore the Arnold and Doris Roland Wall of Pots.

The Paths of Life section features a virtual reality tour of the exhibit that consists of 22 panoramas of the museum space with accompanying text. This presentation enables online visitors to vividly examine the origins, lifestyles, and contemporary lives of 10 Native American Indian tribes from the American Southwest and/or northern Mexico.

The With an Eye on Culture photography exhibit features more than 50 photographs, along with explanatory notes and video footage of interviews with some Native American subjects.

The Pottery Project enables vistors to virtually explore the Arizona State Museum's Wall of Pots. According to the Museum, the primary purpose of this exhibit is to "illustrate continuity and change over nearly two millennia of pottery making in the Southwest." For this reason, the Wall of Pots showcases both protohistoric and contemporary pottery. Visitors can view the collection column by column, and even explore individual shelves.

However, these are just a few examples of the resources complied by the Arizona State Museum. Younger students might enjoy the What Would Frida Wear? section, which allows users to dress a virtual paper doll of the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, in indigenous clothing and read about her life. Interested in more games like this? Pop over to the Explore Culture Online page for informative podcasts, videos, reading lists, and a ton of other engaging activities and useful information.

Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia

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These materials come from a museum with approximately 4,000 pieces of racist memorabilia donated from Pilgrim's personal collection. Envisioned as an educational resource for scholars and students, this site contains most of the images within the museum collection, including sheet music, ashtrays, children's book covers, salt and pepper shakers, postcards, dolls, and matchbooks. The exhibit is divided thematically into 11 sections, including racist cartoons; Jezebel stereotypes; the tragic mulatto; and caricatures of the brute, picanninny, nigger, tom, mammy, coon, and golliwog. Each section includes a scholarly essay that provides historical context for the anti-black caricatures. For those interested in further research, the summaries (most between 2,000 and 4,000 words) offer extensive footnotes with primary, secondary, and online sources.

Of the 30 images within "The Brute Caricatures," users will find the covers of Charles Carrolls' The Negro a Beast, published in 1900, and D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation of interest. There are 142 picanninny images, including Buckwheat and the cover of the children's book "Little Sambo." There are images of 50 "Uncle Tom," 87 "Mammy," and 90 "Jezebel" caricatures, both cinematic and commercial. More than 100 pictures and objects bear the appellation "nigger," and 118 19th- and early-20th-century racist cartoons (2 Quicktime and 2 RealMedia) are available. The exhibit includes a radio interview with Dr. Pilgrim, along with links to 13 scholarly essays and relevant newspaper articles. The site will be of special interest to those researching the history of racist memorabilia.

The Joshua Lederberg Papers

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Provides nearly 12,300 documents pertaining to Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and microbiologist Joshua Lederberg (b. 1925), acclaimed for his work in molecular biology and the genetics of bacteria. Most of the material dates from 1945 to the present. Includes more than 10,300 pieces of correspondence, more than 550 articles, 19 lab notebooks, 228 newspaper columns, 48 speeches, 55 monographs, 28 essays, 32 official reports, 83 photographs, and 9 video clips. An exhibit orients visitors to Lederberg's important work in bacterial and cellular genetics, artificial intelligence and expert systems, exobiology ("the study of life outside the atmosphere"), emerging infectious disease and biological warfare (Lederberg was a critic of biological warfare research), and health and the future. The site is fully searchable. Valuable for those studying the history of science and social policy.

RFK in the Land of Apartheid: A Ripple of Hope

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Senator Robert F. Kennedy's trip to South Africa in June 1966 to protest that country's system of apartheid and support efforts to combat it is amply documented on this site with texts, audio files, film clips, and photographs. The site provides texts of the five speeches delivered by Kennedy during the visit—for three of these, full audio files are provided. Also offers texts of 13 additional speeches—from South African students and political leaders, as well as American leaders—with six available in audio format. Background annotations of up to 100 words accompany all texts. A newspapers section on the press coverage of the visit provides nine articles from U.S. newspapers and 15 articles from South African newspapers. A magazines section provides seven articles about the visit, including a Look magazine article about the trip written by the senator; and a cartoon section highlights 12 political cartoons. The site also provides 13 related documents, and more sources can be found in the "Resources" section. These include the "Black Christ" painting that caused uproar in 1962, 11 posters of Nelson Mendela, 11 annotated political cartoons, two national anthems for comparison, and 19 recommended books and links to 19 relevant sites.

An overview essay of 3,500 words describes the "enormous impact" of Kennedy's visit and illuminates "the manner in which he subtly challenged and undermined some of the pillars of apartheid ideology and mythology." A study materials section is designed for use in high schools and colleges with questions for class discussion and a feedback questionnaire. Additionally, the site's audio and video streaming now works with Realplayer and Mediaplayer, and the video streaming also now works with with Quicktime. A valuable site for studying the history of race relations in South Africa and the United States.