20th Century Day by Day Millennium Edition

Description:

Unfold the 20th Century Chronicle day by day. Browse through areas like Biographies or Conflicts, delve into a particular era via the timeline, or search for any topic of interest. There are more than 34,000 days covered from January 1, 1900 up to June 1999. The last 6 months of 1999 can be accessed on the Internet, through Day by Day Online. The 20th century is presented as people experienced it via daily news media. That is, the same prominence is given to O.J. and Monica Lewinsky as to Einstein or Gandhi - in fact the former are both shown in the introductory video clip.

Start in an old-fashioned newsroom, move around the room (move the cursor to the left and right sides and click arrows to change the view), and click on objects to access different news screens. There is always a Navigator icon in the upper left corner of the screen, and it brings up a set of buttons for different kinds of access to news. The News Screen Selector brings up a day's news - headline story and extras - plus a timeline from which any year, month and day can be selected. Click on the Calendar for a set of images for each year, or for the months within a year, and then select an image to access a detailed news screen.

Biographies brings up a screen of pictures of famous people - read all about Ingrid Bergman, Walt Disney or Bill Gates. Have a look at 20th Century in Focus for topics like the Russian Revolution, Space Exploration or the Fall of Communism. Or search using logical combinations of words and/or dates. Any page can be copied or printed. There are options to do either a screen copy (an image) or to copy all the words on a screen, so that they can subsequently be edited.

Try the Random tour for general browsing. I did and hopped around in time to see articles on Boomtime dance, the death of Rudyard Kipling, a Fauve artists exhibit and the crowning of Elizabeth II. Clicking on objects in the newsroom also accesses random stories. Click on the TV for videos like moon hopping, on the painting (did you notice that it changes?) for different art stories, on the desk photo for biographies, and so on.

And if you're not tired of O.J. and company, dig into the Book of Scandals - my favorite is 'Mae West found guilty of sexy acting'! Financial stories are in the Safe. Another book gives access to Medical reports, and there are sections for Sports, Inventions such as television, radio broadcasts like Orson Welles 'War of the Worlds', Rock and Pop, and so on.

Features:

• Over 6000 news stories
• 3000 photographs
• Over 100 biographies
• 90 sound clips
• 70 videos
• Copy or print any content
• Day by Day Online gives the 2nd half of 1999
• Boolean search on times and words
• Random Tour of the century

Technical Aspects:

Aside from some verbal introduction and the sound clips, most of the information is in the form of text, images and videos and is accessible to those with auditory difficulties. Music and spoken information does enhance some of the news stories but is not essential to them. The link in Day by Day online for December 99 was incorrect, linking to content for a previous month.

Report and Conclusions:

I plan to share some of my own memories with the kids, and to ask their grandparents to do the same, by looking at the CD together. There is great potential for journaling, copying historical information into a family photo album, and of course, I expect this to be a very useful homework resource.

This is a great title for history buffs, for students, and for anyone who is already nostalgic about the previous century!