Research and Course Guides: The Year You Were Born: Web Resources

How Would You Evaluate Wikipedia?

Why You Need to Evaluate Websites

The World Wide Web can be a great place to accomplish research on many topics. But putting documents or pages on the web is easy, cheap or free, unregulated, and unmonitored.

• Documents can easily be copied and falsified or copied with omissions and errors -- intentional or accidental.

• In the general World Wide Web there are no editors (unlike most print publications) to proofread and "send it back" or "reject it" until it meets the standards of a publishing house's reputation.

• Most pages found in general search engines for the web are self-published or published by businesses small and large with motives to get you to buy something or believe a point of view.

• Even within university and library web sites, there can be many pages that the institution does not try to oversee.

The web needs to be free like that! And you, if you want to use it for serious research, need to cultivate the habit of healthy skepticism, of questioning everything you find with critical thinking.Therein lies the rationale for evaluating carefully whatever you find on the Web.

The burden is on you - the reader - to establish the validity, authorship, timeliness, and integrity of what you find.

Websites

A&E Biography
- brief biographical information about approximately 20,000 individuals; searchable by name and keyword.
African American World - Timeline
For over 500 years, people of African descent have shaped the course of American history. From the fight against slavery to the March on Washington, relive the triumphs and tragedies of the African American experience with our extensive timeline of African American history.
American Memory
-provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
Beloit College Mindset List
The Mindset List was created at Beloit College in 1998 to reflect the world view of entering first year students. It started with the members of the class of 2002, born in 1980.
dMarie Time Capsule
This site lets you create a printable "time capsule" for any date in history since 1800 (though best after 1875). Enter a date and up pop newspaper headlines from the date, famous people born on the date, top songs, TV shows, books and toys, economic indicators, Academy Award winners and more.
History Channel
- search world timelines, what happened on your birthday and hear speeches and see videos of select historical events.
HyperHistory Online
- an expanding scientific project presenting 3,000 years of world history with an interactive combination of synchronoptic lifelines, timelines, and maps.
Life Magazine photos
If you were born before 1980, you can look at photographs from Life Magazine to see what the big stories were.
On This Day (New York Times)
Lists events which occurred on each month and day of the year throughout history. Links to New York Times newspaper articles about the events when available.
People's Century: 1900-1999
As the twentieth century rushes toward its conclusion, People's Century looks back at the story of our times. This twenty-six part television series, broadcast on PBS, offers new insight into the turbulent events of these hundred years through the revealing personal testimony of the people who were there.
Timelines of History
A website searchable by day in history, country, or selected subjects.
What happened in my birth year?
What Happened In My Birth Year offers a look into the past and the history surrounding you, and was created by Philipp Lenssen. Some content is from Creative Commons licensed Wikipedia with credit to its individual authors