The Map Room: A Weblog About Maps Kidipede - History for Kids - Homework Help for Middle School Social Studies GeoCurrents « The Geography Blog Of Current Events GoogleTouring Explore the Grand Canyon With Google Street View Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired The Google Maps team went to the Grand Canyon and snapped more than 9,500 images to create a Street View map of the national park. After four months of stitching all those high-resolution pics together, the company’s Street View maps of the Canyon are live and ready to be clicked through. The maps don’t document the entirety of the 277-mile-long Canyon, but they do offer a trip along two of its most popular trails, both of which are on the southern rim: the Bright Angel Trail to the Phantom Ranch campsite and the South Kaibab Trail. “We’re really happy with the way all the images came out,” said Ryan Falor, a Google Maps product manager. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired The Grand Canyon was the maiden voyage for Google’s Trekker — a backpack-like camera that takes 75-megapixel photos and weighs 40-pounds. “We don’t have our next stop hammered down yet, but we certainly want to take Trekker to every country that we’re doing Street View in,” Falor said.
Old Style and New Style dates - encyclopedia article about Old Style and New Style dates. Excerpt of the cover page of a print of the Treaty of Lübeck (1629), with the Gregorian day (22) directly above the Julian (12), both before the name of the month, May. The treaty was concluded between Roman Catholic parties, who had already adopted the Gregorian calendar, and Protestant parties, who had not. Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) are used in English-language historical studies to indicate either that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January (N.S.) even though documents written at the time use a different start of year (O.S.), or that a date conforms to the Julian calendar (O.S.), formerly in use in many countries, rather than the Gregorian (N.S.).[1][2][3][4] Differences between the start of the year When recording British history it is usual to use the dates recorded at the time of the event with the year adjusted to start on the first of January. The O.S. Differences between Julian and Gregorian dates Possible date conflicts Japan Korea
Brain Pickings Rumsey Historical Map Collection The David Rumsey Map Collection was started over 25 years ago and contains more than 150,000 maps. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century maps of North and South America, although it also has maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, wall maps, globes, school geographies, pocket maps, books of exploration, maritime charts, and a variety of cartographic materials including pocket, wall, children's, and manuscript maps. Items range in date from about 1700 to 1950s. Digitization of the collection began in 1996 and there are now over 55,000 items online, with new additions added regularly. Maps are uniquely suited to high-resolution scanning because of the large amount of detailed information they contain. With Luna Imaging's Insight® software, the maps are experienced in a revolutionary way. Materials created in America and that illustrate the evolution of the country's history, culture, and population distinguish the collection.
Jonathan Yardley - Jonathan Yardley By Pat Shipman Morrow. 450 pp. $25.95 These days Mata Hari's name probably pops up most frequently in crossword puzzles, where solvers come across clues such as "Spy Mata" or "Infamous Hari" or, for the full eight letters, "Executed WWI spy." Her name has been reduced to one of those essentially useless bits of information with which the modern mind is cluttered. That may be true of most people who were in the headlines nearly a century ago, but in her case it's a pity, because her life's story is a humdinger and because the charge that sent her before the firing squad and into popular lore -- that she actively and effectively spied for Germany -- almost certainly was false. Despite the relative obscurity into which she has fallen, her story has been told innumerable times and continues to attract biographers. The phrase was a euphemism. "Those who are not officers . . . do not interest me. She was 15 years old. By 1914, though, she was beginning to show her age.