The why and how I made interactive Google Maps of Historic Events

by

George Stiller

I began making interactive maps of historic events because I kept going to Google Map to find the locations in the various books I had been reading. It struck me that it would enhance my reading if I created my own Google Map of the book.  Thus, I was able to zoom in on and track the locations and people while I was reading  about in both fiction and non-fiction books. Having developed several of these maps, I decided that I should share them with others who might find them interesting and try to teach others to map their reading. So I created my blog MyReadingMapped.

After a period of time, I noticed that the maps that got the most attention were those of historic events. So, I modified my blog to contain only maps on historic events. Then it dawned on me, that without a college degree, I have no credibility and that I am not a recognized authority on history. To solve that problem, I decided to find 100+-year old eFree Google Books, or online journals, written by the explorers themselves and even Wikipedia pages on the exploration that my map locations could be linked to on a by page basis for credibility.  Thus, the map becomes a library portal to all the knowledge on the Internet.

My first map of this type was the Interactive Civil War Map. I knew there would be great interest in the subject and I found the links and coordinates I needed on Wikipedia’s List of Civil War Battles, which was very confusing to use and required the visitor to use a complicated and time consuming process to get to a Google Map for each and every battle one-by -one. On the other hand, my map was designed to be easy to use, enabled you to zoom in on the battle and made all the battles visible at once so you can see how they relate to each other without the complicated process.   These maps enable you to zoom in on the actual locations, see the buildings, the forts, the ancient ruins, etc. and read the actual words of the explorer, see the terrain as they saw it 100+ years ago in terrain mode, and what it looks like today in satellite mode. These maps can even provide directions, hotels and other points of interest. Some maps include links to National Archive photos, Wikipedia pages, and animations from CivilWarAnimated or AmericanRevolutionAnimated.

After placing a few referrals on various online forums, interactive maps of historic events began to take off. My hope is that teachers would use it to inspire reading and writing to students who are currently fixated on an online media, and that travelers and followers of explorers would use these maps to plan their next vacation.

My most popular maps are the following:

• Interactive Civil War Map
• Sunken Ships of the Atlantic
• Explorations of Charles Darwin, Marco Polo, Mungo Park and Henry Morton Stanley
• The American Revolution
• Environmental Disasters

Until recently, all my maps were about explorers who had died a long time ago. The map on Mikael Strandberg’s 2004 Siberian Expedition was my first living explorer who was kind enough to allow me to do so and provided the materials I needed.  I now have twenty-nine Google Maps on historic events and two Google Map games called “Day of Atonement” and “Prag’s Google Street Road Rally.” It is of interest to note, the research involved and the creation of these maps has uncovered some errors in commonly held facts on history. I have found what I believe are errors in traditional exploration maps on Wikipedia in regard to Marco Polo and Cortès, and located odd details mentioned in books that affected history and you can read about them on my blog.

So today, start experiencing history digitally by making your own maps of an historic events and uncover your own discovery of little known facts that only a Google Map can reveal.

George Stiller is a retired marketing communications manager who began his 35 year career in advertising and marketing as paste up artist. As an ad agency art director, George has helped to establish Agfa-Gevaert as a worldwide leader in diagnostic medical imaging systems. As a corporate graphic design manager, George’s workflow improvements helped United States Surgical Corporation to become one of the fastest growing companies worldwide.  As a marketing communications manager for MechoShade Systems, George helped to establish the MechoShade brand as the third most recognized brand in the commercial shade industry and helped to develop the ImageShades you have seen at Levis and the Gap. Now that George is retired, he developed his blog, MyReadingMapped, and its 30+ interactive Google Maps on history.

Visit him on Facebook!

Please visit my sponsors Termo who are making it possible for me to write 2 blog reports per week. Just click the logo to find the best underwear on earth.

Regardless of where we were born, mankind’s urge to explore transcends all differences of nationality and faith. It remains an emblem of universality deserving of a wider global study.

Ironically, though the public has long yearned for fresh voices who could share their hard-won wisdom, in the corporate-dominated world, where finances always come first, meaningful dialogue with the world’s leading explorers has been passed over in preference to slick ads and predictable yearly awards.

That is why I am proud to announce the launching of this valuable new series.

The Voices of Exploration project is designed to be an ever-expanding data bank of interviews and wisdom. My friend, Basha O’Reilly, is one of the Founders of the Long Riders Guild, who has already launched the Voices of Authority equestrian educational program.

There was nothing in George Patterson´s early life to indicate that this son of a Scottish minister would go on to lead a life of adventure, travel and intrigue. Yet George turned his back on all that he knew and journeyed into remote Tibet at the conclusion of the Second World War. He not only underwent a great spiritual awakening there, but George also became involved with the Tibetan resistance to the invading Chinese Communist army.

The Scottish Long Rider’s subsequent equestrian journey across the Himalayas in the winter of 1949, to deliver a plea for help from Tibet to the outside world, is now the stuff of legend. Because of his lifelong support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people, the Chinese government imposed a death sentence on George which has never been lifted. George was recently (March 2011) awarded the Light of Truth Award, which honours individuals and institutions that have made significant contributions to the public understanding of Tibet.

Hailed as “Patterson of Tibet,” the 90-year-old is the spiritual guide of the Long Riders’ Guild, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, who is still writing and recently lectured at Cambridge about his travels.

George’s late wife, universally known as “Dr. Meg,” discovered a scientific means of helping addicts recover completely from drug-addiction.

George amputates gangrene toes in Tibet

Who do you think was the most influential explorer in history and why?

In my opinion, Marco Polo. I was fascinated with the mystery and discoveries in his writings, and with his courage to travel towards the East and spend time in Peking.

Who inspired you to become an explorer and why?

Was I ever inspired to be an explorer? Most of the time, I acted out of compulsion and necessity.

What is your favourite exploration book and why?

Regarding the secular aspects of exploration, I found the writings of Aurel Stein to provide a fascinating view on exploration into Asia. The terrain of spiritual exploration, however, is travelled wonderfully by Mildred Cable and Francesca French, both famous women missionary explorers.

George Patterson and Loshay

What is your favourite exploration film and why?

Lawrence of Arabia; strictly speaking it was not an exploration film, but T.E. Lawrence was the explorer’s ideal in identifying with the people rather than with the geography.

If you were travelling to the South Pole in the “Heroic Age,” would you prefer to travel with Amundsen, Shackleton or Scott, and why?

I’d travel in the company of Scott. With the exploration party in distress, one of his men (Oates) sacrificed himself for the sake of his fellow explorers, walking out of the tent with its limited food supply towards his certain death.

How would you describe the various types of courage needed – physical, emotional and spiritual – for your visit to Tibet and your amazing equestrian journey across the Himalayas?

My journey across Tibet, challenging in mid-winter, appears courageous when looking back on it. At the time, I was simply driven by the necessity to obtain needed medical supplies and to request military assistance for the anticipated battle with China.

You were a success as an international journalist, specialising in Tibet. Was your decision give it up in order to take care of the children and let your wife, Dr. Meg, continue her medical research into addiction the greatest sacrifice you have made?

Yes. To say more requires a book…

2011 George receives Light of Truth Award

What is the single greatest change you have witnessed in the exploration world since you began?

It is no longer possible to arrive on the borders of a strange country with little more than a suitcase.

What modern technology or techniques would you find most helpful?

On one occasion, I nearly lost my life when my compass and binoculars were left with the animals. I’d choose GPS over a compass today, but there is still no substitute for good binoculars.

What piece of equipment always went with you?

Other than a compass, and whenever possible, toilet paper!

Which book would you recommend to would-be explorers today?

David Livingstone’s Diaries, or T.E. Lawrence’s 7 Pillars of Wisdom

What would you tell young explorers to be wary of?

Amorous Tibetan women . . .

Why is it important for humans to continue exploring?

Someone, somewhere, will always want to know what is on the other side of the hill.

Which of your many achievements do you think will be most remembered?

My newspaper writings about the battle against the Chinese invasion of Tibet

What’s your greatest concern for the future of exploration?

Curiosity about other sides of hills is part of human nature, and will never be snuffed out.

Links of interest:

http://www.georgepatterson.net/

www.classictravelbooks.com/authors/patterson.htm

www.drmeg.net

www.thelongridersguild.com

http://www.savetibet.org/media-center/ict-press-releases/light-truth-award-presented-legendary-%E2%80%98bearded-khampa%E2%80%99-george-patterson

Please visit my sponsors Termo who are making it possible for me to write 2 blog reports per week. Just click the logo to find the best underwear on earth!

]]> http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2011/04/01/4472/feed/ 1 http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2010/03/12/guest-writer-9-robert-twigger-on-the-subject-what-is-exploration/ http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2010/03/12/guest-writer-9-robert-twigger-on-the-subject-what-is-exploration/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:29:58 +0000 mikael http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/?p=1496 Guest writer number 9 is a British explorer named Robert Twigger and a very British one. His philosophical text below is funny, very interesting, gives a perspective and really touches the subject exploration. He is a writer and explorer who in
2009-2010 was the first person to walk across the great Sand Sea of the
Eastern Sahara. He has a website www.roberttwigger.com and his latest book is
Dr Ragab’s Universal Language.

What is Exploration?

It is quite simple to say who an explorer was in the past- he was someone who went where others had not been and brought back information. But in fact this is a modern definition, the scientific definition so to speak. In fact, if you look at explorers from Marco Polo to Richard Burton they were people who ‘tried to get places’. No more articulate than that really. They wanted to get to a new place by a new route, a shorter one usually. Their motives were usually economic. Or territorial- claiming land for their own country.

We forget all that now and teach in school that explorers were like modern scientists but in funny clothes. The fact that modern scientists, with aeroplanes and helicopters and skidoos and special clothing can go where any of these old explorers, who suffered such hardships, went, makes the scientists imagine they are cut from similar cloth. Not a bit of it.

The old explorers brought back news, information about things they found, rocks, plants, lost cities- but all this was by the by. They simply wanted to go somewhere no one had been before or get somewhere by a new route, a route no one else had used before. Or no one from their culture has used before.

Explorers are in fact the lineal descendants of those hunter gatherers who went in search of new game and plant rich areas. They were curious, flexible minded and courageous. Courageous because they were going outside the comfort zone of the tribe.

There is survival value in going outside the comfort zone- whether it is psychological or physical. This, is, in fact, what explorers do. They explore regions beyond the culture’s comfort zone. They may or may not bring back their discoveries in a form that is currently called ‘scientific’.

I used to find it odd that Buzz Aldrin shut in his space suit and tiny rocket capsule and Ranulph Fiennes making the first polar circumnavigation of the planet could both be labeled explorers. Yet they are: both have gone outside the comfort zone of the culture.

Maybe the journey involves an interior path too. Becoming initiated into a remote tribe counts as exploration- with both and internal and external journeying out of the usual comfort zone.

It is a slippery concept, exploration, especially in a world that many, wrongly, believe is fully explored. But what does ‘fully explored’ mean? That it has been photographed for Google earth? That someone has flown over it in a jet plane? That it was driven over in a jeep? We confuse map making with exploration. We have great maps of places that remain unexplored. My own view is that somewhere is not explored until a human being has looked at it closely and moved over it at walking pace. I have been in desert wadis where there are no vehicle tracks. The valley is unexplored- by any definiton- and I was the first person, since the previous wet period 5000 years ago – to visit such a place. That a car passed within two kilometres of this valley but didn’t see it and stop means nothing. They might just have well not have been there.

Maybe the journey involves an interior path too. Becoming initiated into a remote tribe counts as exploration- with both and internal and external journeying out of the usual comfort zone.

The other form exploration in the modern world takes, is to do an old route in a new way, or to link up several old routes. To do it using less gear and in a less complicated way counts as exploration- why? Because this is a more intimate way of experiencing the landscape. You find out new things about yourself. You necessarily leave the comfort zone. In the challenge, say, of towing a sledge solo to the North Pole in winter, you discover, because you are the first to summount this challenge, a whole range of new solutions. That is the discovery element of this exploration.

Discovery without challenge- for example buzzing around Antarctica on snowmobiles looking for dinosaur bones- though fun is more science than exploration. When there is no challenge, physical or psychological, the results obtained don’t ‘change’ the discoverer. He hasn’t ‘earned them’ in the way an explorer has. I think we are drowning in information these days we haven’t earned.

Captain Kirk, of course, summed it up rather well, “To boldly go where no man has gone before!”

You can read more about Robert at his hilarious and enjoyable blog at www. theexplorerschool.com!

Life at the souk just outside my flat in Old Sanaa at 3.30 a.m....

A few hours ago I woke when the muezzin called for another day of fasting, accompanied by warplanes heading for the Saada Province and realizing that the Yemeni government under Abdullah Ali Saleh was stepping up their attempt to stamp out the Al Houthi-rebellion in the north. At least 10 of them passed over the legendary Old City of Saana, the city which according to legend was placed here by Sem. After that experience, it is always frightening to hear the sounds of war just outside your own comfort zone, I couldn´t sleep even though I went to bed at 4 a.m, so I read an article about the 100 Yemenis (50% of all) detainees still locked up at Guatanamo Bay accused of terrorism. The rain was pounding down hard on the streets below and I remembered what my new friend A said just a few hours earlier:

A road most of the time, until heavy rains hit the city.......

“I think this is vital for the future of the country” , he said whilst sipping at the hubble-bubble (the water pipe which is called shisha here in Yemen) , “If we can´t destroy them now, in this the 6th war against the Houthis, we will not get any further and the country will probably fall apart. But I think this time we will win.”

A is one of the Yemen’s young brains and the future brain trust, a great fellow, who have been called back from abroad to use his know how to save the country. Ours was a business meeting, the first I have ever had at 1.30 a.m, but than again this is after all Yemen, this amazing country!

Ibn Battuta, the great Moroccan-Persian traveller......

“It is a fantastic feeling being back in Yemen after so many years abroad” , he said sucking the pipe, enjoying his taste of apple, “but it is not easy. I don´t know if you read this article published in Time Magazine just recently? About the Yemenis chewing kat and in that way killing the country? Well, it is true. They start thinking about chewing kat at 1 p.m, and loose their concentration. This is a problem.”

I have noticed this. It is everywhere, the kat chewing. People guarding the school, guarding government buildings, well, everywhere in San’a, but than again, it is part of life here and I guess, when there´s very little hope, a commodity many Yemenis lack right now, one just wants to forget about the negative aspects of life and think about the good ones! Which I did after waking up. I thought about one of the greatest travellers of all time, Ibn Battuta who describes his visit to Yemen in the year of 1329:

“We went on from there to the town of Ta’izz, the capital of the king of Yemen, and one of the finest and largest towns in that country. Its people are overbearing, insolent, and rude, as is generally the case in towns where kings reside.”

Unfriendly? Just chewing kat.....

Ibn Battuta is known amongst pretty much everyone here in Yemen. The same applies to Oman. It is sad that he isn´t better known in the West,where we highlight the travels of Marco Polo, who in comparison to Ibn Battuta is a mere tourist. In short, Ibn Battuta traveled for nearly 30 years, from Morocco to China and back and much more. I have written about him earlier, read more here and no matter to whom I talk about my journey, Ibn Battutas travels always comes up. Amazingly enough, the best scholar on Ibn Battuta is living here in San’a and I have met him once at a kat chew of course, Tim MacKintosh-Smith. He has lived here for as long as Ibn Battuta traveled and is more Yemeni than European. A great and very humble guy who have written two books on Ibn Battuta. And one on Yemen, which is a superb read. In this book he highlights a lot of the positive aspects of the Arab World and its Golden Era, about which I will write more next time!

By the way, Tim Mackintosh-Smith told me a joke, which is probably the oldest joke alive, especially in the Arab world. It is from the 12th Century and goes like this:

“A Christian decides to convert to Islam and is told that to be able to do this he has to say Allah Akbar and Mohamed is his prophet plus he has to get circumcised. Which he does. But after awhile he regrets his conversion and wants to leave the new religion, but is told he will get his head cut off if he does. Very upset he exclaims: What kind off a religion is this where you get your dick cut off when joining and your head  when leaving it!”

Anyway, time for me to go to class and hear Rashads stories from daily life in Yemen. As interesting as Ibn Battutas passage through Yemen! By the way, interesting analysis in the Yemen Times about the situation here!

Sanaa hiding from the heavy rains.

I just have to say:

There´s such a positive spirit going on in Oman that it is almost impossible not to feel that everything is possible! And even if they -the local journalists from all media- probably thought that my idea is close to suicide, I did get the feeling that they saw a lot of possibilities in the upcoming Expedition. And I was amazed at their genuine interest. I just love the spirit and sense of pioneering that is going on at the moment. There´s no limits in Oman. I hope, because one thing I specifically asked for during the press conference, was help to find a young Omani, who would like to become the next Ibn Battuta. Because this is not a project for me as an explorer first hand, but I see it as a chance to build a bridge between Arabia and the West. And then, of course, I am just the tool for a young Arab, preferably Omani, to join me and then do what his great compatriot, the great Morroccan, Ibn Battuta did in the 14th Century. He travelled for over 30 years and covered 117 000 kms, traveling mainly by foot and camel. He makes Marco Polo look like a nobody.

Maybe I will meet him, the modern day version of the great Ibn Battuta, in Rub Al-Khali. Wait and see for my next report!