Teaching
History Online
Number
11: 1st October, 2001
Introduction
1. A
History of Flight
2.
Vietnam
Veterans
3.
The
Penny Magazine
4.
The
Gunpowder Plot
5.
The
Irish Famine
6.
The
Rainhill Trials
7.
UBoat
War 1939-1945
Introduction
Spartacus Educational
publishes Teaching
History Online
every month. The newsletter will include news, reviews of websites
and articles on using ICT in the history classroom. Members of the
mailing list are invited to submit information for inclusion in future
editions of Teaching
History Online. In this way we hope to create
a community of people involved in using the Internet to teach history.
John Simkin
spartacus@pavilion.co.uk
A
History of Flight: The Science Museum's On-Line Exhibition starts
with a timeline of the History of Flight. The user can use this as
a base to explore both the aircraft and the people involved in the
development of the industry. Thirty-one people have been chosen and
they range from King Louis XIV, who witnessed the early flight of
the Montgolfier balloon, to Bill Bedford, the test pilot of the first
vertical and landing jet areoplane. There are a large number of aircraft
on display. This usually includes a photograph, background information
on its development and technical details (span, length, weight, speed,
power and armament).
Vietnam
Veterans: The purpose of Bill McBride's website is to "honour
Vietnam veterans, living and dead, who served their country on either
side of the conflict". Bill McBride's excellent website provides
"an interactive, on-line forum for Vietnam veterans and their
families and friends to exchange information, stories, poems, songs,
art, pictures, and experiences in any publishable form." There
is also a link to Bill McBride's other important Vietnam website Remembrance:
Reflections, Memories and Images of Vietnam Past.
The
Penny Magazine: Charles Knight of the Society for the Diffusion
of Useful Knowledge believed that a literate working class created
a potentially dangerous situation. He wrote in 1828 that this "could
not be stopped although
it might be given direction." Knight's answer to this problem
was to publish the Penny Magazine.
It was not long before Knight was selling 200,000 copies a week. This
website intends to republish past editions of this magazine. It is
very attractively designed and easy to navigate and provides a fascinating
insight into Britain in the 1830s.
The
Gunpowder Plot: A website produced by the Centre
for Fawkesian Pursuits. The story of the plot is told in
six parts. Each section is accompanied by music of the period. The
main strength of this site is the way it provides background information
on a whole range of topics linked to the central topic. This includes
food, clothes, music, culture and language. The website also explores
relevant concepts such as political violence and includes a section
on Terrorism in History.
The
Irish Famine: A comprehensive study of how the the Irish Famine
changed the social and cultural structure of Ireland. Liz Szabo's
archive provides a series of interpretations of the famine that appeared
in newspapers, diaries and novels at the time. This material can be
explored in a variety of different ways. The primary sources are categorized
by topics (hunger and disease, eviction, emigration, homelessness,
etc.) and types of sources (newspaper accounts, photographs, drawings,
etc.). The main emphasis of the website is on the different interpretations
of the Irish Famine. The primary sources are also organized under
the headings: 'Voices from Ireland', 'Irish-American Commentary' and
'English Views of the Famine'.
The
Rainhill Trials: In October 1829 the directors of the soon to
be completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway held a competition to
find the most appropriate locomotive to use on their railway. The
Rainhill Trials, as the competition came to be known, were held over
a number of weeks. Grandstands were erected and many people came to
watch the events. The correspondent from the weekly Mechanics
Magazine, attended these trials and sent detailed verbatim
reports of the events. This website contains those articles and illustrations
of the five locomotives involved: Novelty, Rocket, Sans Pareil, Cycloped
and Perseverance.
U-boat War 1939-1945: This website
contains over 12,700 pages of information on the U-boat War. This
includes biographies of 1,411 U-boat commanders and profiles of 1153
U-boats. Recent articles added include U-boat Shipyards, U-boat Types,
Donitz at Nuremberg, Sinking of SS Athenia, German Saboteur Teams
in the USA, U-boat Songs, Men Lost from U-boats, German Torpedo Crisis,
Operation Deadlight, Convoy Commodores and U-boat Computer Simulations.
Please email John Simkin at spartacus@pavilion.co.uk
if you have information you want included in next month's edition
of Teaching
History Online.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
