Despite the fact I’m only 38 (this coming Friday in fact ! Happy B-Day to me ! LOL! ) one of my regrets is that I was taught how to pass an examination rather than think or find out for myself. through GCSE’s and A-levels I learned about events except only truly in terms of what I needed to say to get a good mark and not really to appraise what it all meant. Admittedly A-Levels were a bit better but serene not great. Or at least I didn’t think so at the time and certainly that impression hasn’t improved. It’s possible I just didn’t have the right manner at academy but then not many teenagers have.

Over the years though I’ve been more and more interested in the subjects I took. Specifically Politics and World Affairs since 1939. If only the technology available now was open to me then ! Reading about events during the second world war the cold war and the two gulf wars have really come to life for me since I can cross reference the locations with Google Earth. You can see the layout of the land zoom in on buildings and if available click on links that receive you to a Wikipedia page with more information.

It’s also collaborative in that users can post their own photos (although some are in the wrong place). It’s love a form of touring without the trip ! Google Earth is also 3d so like you zoom in the camera levels out and you can conduct the ‘camera’ through the valleys giving you an appreciation of the terrain the armies crossed or the view the leaders had from their windows. You can almost conceive Churchill looking out from the White cliffs toward France. I’m not sure he ever did but you can imagine !

For more recent events for instance since 1998 (although some locations go back earlier than this) you can use the historical view function to see archived photo’s and compare the scenery to modern day. This is useful when looking at the Twin Towers for example. you can see them on fire before they fell and then go through time to see how the site has evolved through the years.

It’s all blooming marvellous ! And from my experience as a user much better than the Microsoft offering.

Here’s an excellent site that I found. http://www.thirdreichruins.com/ The details on here show comparative photos taken in the 1940’s to shots taken recently. They illustrate how the buildings and land has changed since the war. When I was at school we really didn’t have this kind of information. All we knew was the British or Allied forces side of it. We were shown only the most famous pictures of the lands where the fighting actually took place. So it’s good to get beneath the skin of it all and see some revealing shocking and surprising images. Using the location information on this site you can seem it up in Google Earth and really get a feeling for the scale of events. Some of the Nazi buildings left behind are remarkable in size ambition and ultimate failure.

I’m enjoying the journey I’m on with this. I’m finding out a lot more than I ever thought possible and more than ever it’s bringing home the significance and importance of world history and the sacrifice people made to get us where we are today.