Maine Historical Society has a new section on The Maine Memory Network, called Maine History Online. Maine History Online is an overview of all of Maine's history in a series of essays, historical images, and other documents.

Many of you will find this information interesting. The Royal Navy, in response to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, says it...

"does not maintain any form of central repository of information purely devoted to sea monsters."

"Personnel might be inclined to record unusual sightings in ship's logs but there is, as far as we know, no actual requirement for them to do so, and it would be beyond the resource constraints of an FoI request to check every line of every RN log book..."

Read the whole brief story at the link below:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iVcHVa3sF1_pqpqAb...

Downeast Magazine has a nice article on "Casco Bay’s Forgotten Forts"

Asked what the hardest thing about fort ownership is nowadays, Hal doesn’t have to think. “Paying the taxes,” he says emphatically, referring to the $35,000 annual bill from Portland, of which House Island and Fort Scammell are a part. “We don’t have any services, but we’re charged by the square foot so we’re in the top ten tax residents in the city.”

Read the entire article here:

I can't believe I've not heard of this before. The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection is an incredible collection of maps from many time periods and geographic locations.

I especially like the 222 maps of the State of Maine.

The site makes it easy to search and find interesting maps. And then zoom in and out of them.

I recieved the latest Norlands newletter and wanted to share! Thanks for sending it along Kathleen Beauregard.

Washburn Norlands Living History Center - Newsletter, January 20, 2009

Contact: Kathleen Beauregard
kathy@tdstelme.net

ICE HARVEST

Google and LIFE have teamed up to offer an easy way to search and view millions of photographs from LIFE's great archive.

Check it out at: http://images.google.com/hosted/life

I know I will spend many hours tonight exploring the photos. Any particular famous photo from LIFE you like? How about any from this search result? http://images.google.com/images?q=Maine+source:life

Have fun!

I've been exploring the world of free audio books this summer. You can read a few of my experiences here. Anyway, I discovered The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 at Librivox.

I've mentioned before that I'm a regular listener of the Pritzker Military Library podcast. This month Hampton Sides talks about his book BLOOD AND THUNDER: An Epic of the American West.

Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge website has an article I found interesting. "I'm a lumberjack and I'm not quite okay" was posted by Kevin Beck. You are just going to have to go read Mr. Beck's post.

Full Text American History Resources Available Free - Resource of the Week

What's here? The full text of several American history books. Containing full-text, signed articles. Available titles are: