As a little girl, I was fascinated by the tragic side of history – assassinations, kidnappings, earthquakes, floods, and other disasters.  I was a very cheerful child. One of the tragedies that still holds my interest today is that of the Titanic.  100 years later, people are still fascinated by stories about the Titanic and [...]

This week is “Sunshine Week,” a week-long celebration of government openness!  Here’s a roundup of activities you might want to do as you celebrate Sunshine Week: Participate in the Open Government Idea Forum on IdeaScale.  Help shape the National Archives’ Open Government Plan.  Your ideas and input matter! Participate in the Managing Government Records discussion [...]

You’ve probably heard that “Red Tails,” a movie spotlighting the first African American military aviators,  is now showing at a theater near you.   Widely known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the pilots were part of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ 332nd Fighter and 477th Bombardment Groups.   But you don’t have to go to the movies [...]

Recently, the National Archives introduced the Citizen Archivist Dashboard where citizen archivists can crowd-source the records of the National Archives.  The Dashboard contains several “tagging missions” that feature records and images from our holdings including over 2800 images of  World War II posters, 483 photographs taken by photographer Lewis Hine, and the petition against the annexation of Hawaii which contains 21, [...]

Throughout this holiday season, we encourage you to participate in the exciting activities featured on the Citizen Archivist Dashboard, which is available starting today. Check it out and try tagging, transcription, editing articles, uploading digital scans, and participating in contests all related to the records of the National Archives. We hope that you’ll share any suggestions [...]

Tag It Tuesday’s all shook up!  Our pals over at the Our Presidents tumbler are celebrating “Elvis in the Archives” week and we thought we’d join the fun.  Sure, the King is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but you can also find him in the National Archives.   Included in the Archives’ holdings [...]

Imagine that you want to find electronic records related to a particular geographic location in a very large collection (40 TB and about 70 million files) of archival electronic records. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could pick up an iPad, have a map pop up on the screen, run your finger over the area [...]

Thanksgiving rolls around once a year but at the National Archives you can tag our Thanksgiving related records every day.  Our sample set is a little heavy on the turkey,  so pass up dessert and tag a few records instead!  Here are some of my favorite images: Look at her perfect form.  To achieve the [...]

48 years ago today at 12:30 PM Central Standard Time, President John F. Kennedy was shot while riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas.   Half an hour later, the President was pronounced dead at Parkland Hospital. The National Archives has custody of records  and artifacts relating to President Kennedy’s assassination and the investigation conducted by [...]

Today is America Recycles Day, a day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products.  To show that recycling isn’t a load of rubbish, today’s Tag It Tuesday challenge is to tag our records related to recycling. Tag our digitized recycling records here.  Here are a few of our favorites – If disco wasn’t [...]