The animated map above shows the changing borders of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa during the Twentieth Century. It is a a pretty good illustration of how geo-political developments demand frequently updated maps.
I created this animated map using Mundipedia. Munipedia is an interactive map which shows country borders for different dates in history. Enter a date into Munipedia and you can view how the world looked in that year. For example enter the year 1984 and you will see a divided Germany, split into East and West Germany. Skip forward a few years and in 1990 the map shows just the one Germany.
I love learning about history I haven’t been exposed to before. These short videos fill in blank spots in my knowledge and help knit together the story of the past. — Douglas
In 1989, a wave of revolution swept across Eastern Europe, disrupting the Communist governments of Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and of course, Romania. But how did the Romanian Revolution play out and why couldn’t Nicolae Ceaușescu or the authorities stop it like they had done previously? And why did it end the way it did? With the same people still in power and the Ceaușescu’s subject to a mock trial.
Having spent the past several months traveling extensively to some pretty exciting places, coming back home to small-town suburbia was a rude awakening for me to say the least. I was so used to having interesting subjects – be it people, landscapes, flora and fauna – at my doorstep everyday. I didn’t have to think much about what I wanted to photograph, I could just step outside and find something new and interesting every time.
Cities grow, adapt and change, like all living things. The Library’s map collections show this in all sorts of unexpected ways, offering a vision of days gone by, of what “normal” once looked like. We present you with some fascinating glimpses of the cities of yesteryear in this edition of the Library’s Free to Use and Reuse sets of copyright-free images.
The good news about these, if you haven’t seen them before, is that they are yours for the taking — print them out, blow them up into huge posters, use them for laptop screensavers. It’s your choice. In the past few months, we’ve highlighted classic movie theaters, genealogy, maps of discovery and exploration and so on, but there are lots more.
If you’re running low on free educational content and you’re eager to use this time to improve your craft, we have some good news. The website Photography Life hast just released all of their premium photography courses, usually $150 apiece, for free on YouTube.
The announcement was made earlier today by Photography Life founder Nasim Mansurov, who explained that he and his staff felt compelled to help out the community during these difficult times.
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Many states are lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions on social and business activity that were put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. Questions linger, however, about whether some states meet criteria set by public health experts and the federal government for doing so. Experts are keeping a close eye on whether states that have reopened are seeing an uptick in cases or a worsening in other key metrics.
To give people context on state reopenings, and what happens afterward, we are tracking metrics derived from a set of guidelines published by the White House for states to achieve before loosening restrictions. Even if these criteria are met, without a vaccine, reopening may cause an increase in cases. What’s more, some states may meet all of the criteria and still have a high infection rate.
