Primary Source

September 11, 2001, will be remembered as one of the most shocking days in American history. Armed terrorists hijacked four passenger jets and used them as weapons against the United States. The attacks destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, and killed more than three thousand people.

Soon after September 11, the National Museum of American History began collecting objects to document the attacks and their aftermath.

Before the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, few had heard of the nuclear power plant on the Susquehanna River. But the crisis that began 20 years ago in the early morning of March 28 quickly turned the plant and its giant cooling towers into icons in the long national argument over the safety of nuclear energy.

Using Flickr's unique photo sharing platform, the Institute for the Future of the Book will gather pictures of the Gates from anyone and everyone who wants to contribute. The aim is to harness the creativity and insight of thousands to build a kind of collective memory machine - one that is designed not just for the moment, but as a lasting and definitive document of the Gates and our experience of them. 7,500 gates in Central Park made for infinite views and infinite ways to shoot a picture. As one observer said, there were as many views of the Gates as footsteps in the park. In that spirit, there is no pre-determined shape for this project, other than that it will be online and constantly evolving according to the contributions, suggestions and innovations of participants.

Isaac Newton wrote at least one hundred thirty one manuscripts, totaling approximately one million words, on the subject of alchemy, work that would today fall under the general rubric of "chemistry". With the support of the National Science Foundation, this scholarly online edition is one part of an integrated project that combines new research on Newton's chymistry with an online edition of his manuscripts. In the future, this edition will include all of Newton's chymical writings in word-searchable form with annotations indicating their sources and the degree of Newtonian input into them.

NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 275,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.

Early Classics in Biogeography, Distribution, and Diversity Studies: To 1950 is a bibliography and full-text archive designed as a service to advanced students and researchers engaged in work in biogeography, biodiversity, history of science, and related studies. All items in the bibliography are primary sources and were published in 1950 or before. The subjects involved touch on fields ranging from ecology, conservation, systematics and physical geography, to evolutionary biology, cultural biogeography, paleobiology, and bioclimatology--but have in common a relevance to the study of geographical distribution and diversity.

This virtual museum and archive preserves and shares the history and historic records of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and of the securities industry from the 1930s to the present. It includes a wide range of primary materials, including a timeline, papers, photos, oral histories and original programs broadcast from this site, which contribute to the understanding of how the SEC has shaped and continues to shape U.S. and international capital markets.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of our graduation from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, we of the Medical School Class of 1954 have undertaken a project wherein each Class member was asked to describe in a brief essay how the momentous changes in health care during the past fifty years personally affected his or her relationships with patients and patient care.

This site explores a period of U.S. history when racial prejudice and fear upset the delicate balance between the rights of a citizen versus the power of the state. Focusing on the experiences of Japanese Americans who were placed in detention campus during World War II, this online exhibit is a case study in decision-making and citizen action under the U.S. Constitution.

Experience the story through interactive galleries that combine images, music, text and first-person accounts in the Story Experience, and then share your own memories and responses in Reflections. Search more than 800 artifacts from the Smithsonian Collection in Collection Search, and find related activities, links, bibliography and more in Resources.

These pages are an on-line museum celebrating Babbage's Analytical Engine. Here you will find a collection of original historical documents tracing the evolution of the Engine from the original concept through concrete design, ending in disappointment when it became clear it would never be built. You'll see concepts used every day in the design and programming of modern computers described for the very first time, often in a manner more lucid than contemporary expositions. You'll get a sense of how mathematics, science, and technology felt in the nineteenth century, and for the elegant language used in discussing those disciplines, and thereby peek into the personalities of the first computer engineer and programmer our species managed to produce. If you are their intellectual heir, perhaps you'll see yourself and your own work through their Victorian eyes.