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search for historic sites by geography and time period

"No matter which dates you use to define it, the medieval period was a very long time ago. Most of the people who existed during that time lived and died anonymously - at least as far as history is concerned. So how is it that we know anything about this period at all?"

"This little-known power struggle between competing claimants to the throne had consequences that reverberated through history. We visit eight places associated with the dispute."

"The Western Tradition is a free series of videos that traces the arc of western civilization. Starting in Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the survey proceeds to cover the Byzantine Empire and Medieval Europe,..."

"Introduction: A visitor to the Empress Matilda's tomb at Rouen might be mistaken in believing that its occupant had never sought the English throne in her own right. Yet in the long struggle which engulfed the kingdom after her father's death in 1135 this is exactly what she did. Matilda may indeed have been the greatest English heiress of the twelfth century to fail to secure her inheritance. Charles Beem remarks that Matilda's epitaph 'described the summit of earthly achievement to which a twelfth-century aristocratic woman could aspire, according to the dictate of a male-dominated feudal society'. Matilda's rule lasted less than seven months before she was unceremoniously driven out of London in the spring of 1141. Even so, her lordship bore many of the typical characteristics of royal administration, and with King Stephen imprisoned by her supporters Matilda for a time was recognised as the sole source of royal authority in the kingdom."

"The deadly assault on Jacob's Ford was launched at dawn, on Thursday 29 August 1179. The leader of the attack was the the Muslim warrior Saladin, b.1137?-d.1193 (known as Salah ad-Din in Arabic), the Sultan of Egypt and history's great opponent of the Crusaders."

"TimeMaps is best described as a mash-up of encyclopedia, timeline, and map elements. TimeMaps' world map is designed as an overview of the development of the world's societies. The map's timeline begins in 3500BC and concludes in 2005AD. Click on the timeline's icons or on the map's icons to learn more about each place represented on the map. " (from Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers site)

"Caption your own Bayeux Tapestry" is just the thing to brighten up a dull day/century. It allows you to choose various figures, animals, buildings, and other objects along with text (with your choice of color) to create your own historic tale.

primary sources grouped by period

On this site, you will find several hundred pages of information describing the flow of history, from the evolutionary processes that formed our bodies, to the forces of globalization that exploded in the 1990s. It is detailed, engaging reading-the result of over 25 years of continuous refinement for actual classroom use. Reading about a period will fill your head with facts and names about your chosen topic like any good history textbook. But you won't remember the important lessons-the ones that history classes exist in order to teach us, so that we don't each have to learn them on our own. Good students studying traditional History texts learn much about the past, but even the best rarely take the lessons of the past with them when they leave class. As a history teacher at University High School in Urbana, Illinois since 1979, I have developed a method for teaching history, using a series of about 200 cross-referenced flowcharts and over 100 powerpoint multimedia lecture outlines to help students see history as a dynamic process of causes and effects, not just a meaningless list of names and dates. With this website you can help bring about a revolution in the History classroom, producing students that deeply understand the past and enjoy learning about it.

Animaps extends the My Maps feature of Google Maps by letting you create maps with markers that move, images and text that pop up on cue, and lines and shapes that change over time. When you send your Animap to friends it appears like a video - they can play, pause, slow and speed up the action!

" These seven short videos explore topics around stained glass and its use in medieval churches."

"Recent work has brought together what we know of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval cathedrals beneath and around Wren's St Paul's, the City of London's most important historic building and monument. Now the little-known medieval cathedral, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, can be revealed as of European importance. It dominated the City and should be compared with other cathedrals - Ely, Norwich and Winchester."

"Exciting news for those of our readers who might want to search for an image of a 13th-century devil with horns, an English drawing of a horse from the 10th century, rain over the Italian countryside, severed limbs or even Job afflicted with boils."

"In 1187, thirty-three years after al-Idrisi drew his World Map, and forty-two years after the Second Crusaders returned, a Third Crusade set off for the Holy Land. By that time the soldiers from the Second Crusade were sixty-year-old men or older."