Tuesday, November 22, 2005

President John F. Kennedy - Maps for Research

This is a day in history that each and every one of you who was alive when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated will remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard it.

I was working in a radio and tv repair shop in Syracuse that day and had a little reel to reel tape recorder that I had been working on when someone came rushing in from the diner next door and said “The President has been shot!” I turned on a local am radio station and started the tape recorder. The local station still had music on and then they broke in with the news alert. I got it all on tape from the local perspective. Everyone was totally quiet and I remember that the nation just seemed not to be able to believe it. Walter Kronkite, the most trusted man in America, cried on television and it seemed to be very proper.

Just in case you have a little free time during the upcoming holidays, I suggest you take a look at some of the following websites that have large collections of maps on-line.

American Memory Project of the Library of Congress – click on “maps”. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/

National Atlas – select the New York map and enjoy the zoom and move feature. When you look at the topographical map of the whole state you will see why the Central New York corridor was the gateway for New Englanders that migrated through the state on their trek West. http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm

The Library of the University of Texas Library at Austin - http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/histus.html

Sanborn fire Insurance Maps - http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/snb-intr.html

Railroad Maps in the Library of Congress - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrhome.html

Civil War Maps in the Library of Congress - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/civil_war_maps/

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