"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." These are the words attributed to J. Robert Oppenheimer as he witnessed the detonation of a nuclear weapon that he had contributed to creating. Oppenheimer and many other scientists took part in the famous Manhattan Project, which produced the world's first atomic bomb and left a legacy of nuclear power - for good and for ill - that would be felt...

Located inside the National Air and Space Museum, the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery highlights the world of aviation in the 1920s and 1930s. During this period, flight technology rapidly advanced, aviation records were made and broken in quick succession, and African Americans gained increasing prominence in the field. Visitors to this site will get a preview of the materials contained...

Baruch S. Blumberg was a physician and geneticist most well known for identifying the Hepatitis B virus and for creating a vaccine. The American Philosophical Society (APS) recently created this online exhibit about Blumberg that was "designed to highlight the influence of the philosophy of science that coursed through his scientific career." This exhibit features a number of primary documents...

Ideas that change the world can be few and far between, so it's nice to learn about this fine digital collection from The Huntington Library. Designed to complement the renovated Dibner Hall of the History of Science at the Library, this site peers into the world of astronomy, natural history, medicine, and light. After reading a brief overview about the exhibit, visitors should click on over to...

"Where did everything come from?" This is a big question, so it is only fitting that the answer is found in the Big History Project. This free online course, designed for high school students, takes learners on a journey through "13.7 billion years of history." With so much ground to cover, the course divides its contents into five chapters: The Universe, Our Solar System and Earth, Life, Humans,...

The Missouri Botanical Garden Library has many lovely examples of 18th and 19th century botanical literature from all around the world. While they began digitizing some of these works in 1995, they recently decided to expand their collection to include non-illustrated works of significant importance to taxonomic botany. Drawing on support from the W.M. Keck Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon...

Over the course of the past eight centuries, Cambridge University has come into the possession of more than a few important documents. Their online digital image collection may be seen as an important first stop for anyone interested in perusing some of these remarkable materials. These documents include The Portsmouth and Macclesfield Collection, which contains the writings and ideas of Sir Isaac...

Located on Chicago's South Side, the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) is an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries. The CRL was founded in 1949, and since then it has expanded its work to include digital preservation and access projects. Visitors with an interest in the world of information sciences can click on the Archiving & Preservation area to...

Of the many thousands of letters that Charles Darwin wrote during his lifetime, over 7,000 are kept in various libraries around the world. The Woodward Library at the University of British Columbia is in possession of two groups of these letters. The first, numbering about 40 letters, is drawn from Darwin's correspondence with Jim Scott Burdon Sanderson about the two scientists' research on...

This document by Ken Polsson "is an attempt to bring various published sources together to present a timeline about Personal Computers." The author has posted this document online as he continues to work on a book project, for which he has browsed extensively through various sources for historical information related to personal computers. The document provides a brief summary of "the essential...