Maps of War

This is going to be a quick little blog entry about another interesting website I came across that deals with maps. The creator of the website and the maps, who chooses to remain anonymous, is a Flash-Designer hobbyist and professional history-buff. The website bears the name ‘Maps of War’ and anyone who visits it will agree that much thought and effort has been put into researching the information and making the flash animations. And the best part is the creator of this website not juts allows but encourages you to share and use his work anywhere you like for free! According to the ‘About’ section of the website, “Maps-of-War was established in September of 2006. The site was created to help people understand current events, as seen on TV and in our newspaper headlines, as being one small chapter in the much bigger and longer story of human history.”

Out of all the map-animations my personal favourites are ‘March of democracy’ and ‘History of religion’. As their names make it clear, these maps are informative tools depicting the history of democracy and religion, respectively, throughout the world from the earliest known events of their origin to present day. Besides the maps, the website also has a collection of links that lead to some more interesting historical facts. These include statistics of violence in Iraq and Darfur, map-animations showing step-by-step history of World War II and a map depicting flow of migrants across the world, among other informative material. So go check it out and have fun learning about history!

Did Harriot beat Galileo to it?

Thomas Harriot (c. 1560 – 2 July 1621) was an eminent English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. During his lifetime Harriot was known to the world merely as an eminent algebraist but there are evidences now to prove his greatness as an astronomer as well as cartographer. Relevant papers at the West Sussex Record Office show that Harriot drew images of the Moon several months earlier (July 1609) than Galileo Galilee, who is credited for the first telescopic observations and maps of the Moon (December 1609). According to Dr Allan Chapman, a science historian at Oxford University, “Thomas Harriot was not only the first person ever to draw an astronomical body with a telescope on 26 July 1609, he rapidly developed to become an absolutely superb lunar cartographer. Harriot's composite drawing of the Moon - produced in 1612 or 1613 - marked the birth of modern cartography".

An article on BBC News’ website reports that Harriot’s Moon maps, along with his images of Jupiter's satellites, sunspots and Halley's Comet are to go on display to mark the launch of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA 09). The article also quotes astronomer Sir Patrick Moore saying “Looking at Harriot's map, it really is a work of art. He saw the mountains, craters and the so-called seas.” The few images I came across of Harriot's map in the web are truely impressive, especially for his time.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Exhibition of 400 yearold moon drawings (telegraph.co.uk)
• Who Invented the Telescope? Not Galileo (abcnews.go.com)
• Amateur British astronomer takes world record for most supernova (telegraph.co.uk)

World time zones

While browsing the internet I came across website TravelImages.com that gives useful information for travellers about electricity voltages and plug sockets used in various countries, time zones, unit conversions etc. While looking through their listing of countries with their time difference from UST/GMT, I noticed some interesting facts which I thought of sharing.

• 220 countries listed
• Only 9 of them have more than one time zone
• In descending order of number of time zones,
1. Russia = 8 time zones
2. Antarctica, USA and Canada = 6
3. Australia and Mexico = 3
4. Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan = 2
• Only 8 of the 220 countries fall in 1/2 a time zone area (e.g. India is UST + 5 1/2 and not +5 or +6); most of them are on and around the Indian subcontinent.
• Nepal is the one and only country to have a 3/4 of a time zone standard time (UST +5 3/4).

Well I hope you found this info interesting too! Have a great weekend :).

Atlas of true names and Strange Maps

In one of the "weekly science report" emails I got, there was a title that interested me very much in following the respective link to read more about it. The title of the article was "How 'Britain' got its name from 'Great Land of the Tattooed': The astonishing map that reveals the origins of place names"!!! When I clicked on the link, it turned out to be a short article in the Daily Mail online of the UK. This article further stoked my curiosity and I Google searched for Atlas of true names.

Atlas of true names is published by Kalimedia, UK in two versions, a map of Europe and that of the world. According to their own website, "The Atlas of True Names reveals the etymological roots, or original meanings,of the familiar terms on today's maps of the World and Europe..........The 'True Names' of 1500 cities, countries, rivers, oceans and mountain ranges are displayed on these two fascinating maps,each of which includes a comprehensive index of derivations..........For the first time, the Atlas of True Names uses etymology to give us an unusual insight into familiar geographical names – with intriguing results......" Some of the press reviews opine that the "true names" seem to belong to the Middle Earth of the LOTR.

While on the trail of this interesting atlas, I came across a very unusual blog, Strange Maps, that seems to deal with not just strangely interesting maps but also various objects that resemble a particular country. It looks like a "collection" website where people email the blogger with all sorts of interesting map-related information and images and then the blogger puts them on his/her blog. The Atlas of true names of course finds place on this blog but so does a map of West Virginia showing the sections by preferred hot dog topping, a map of Ciudad Evita that proves it was planned and built to resemble the profile of then Argentinian president's wife and a pre-Civil war map of "horizontal" New Mexico.

Interesting maps indeed!