Credit: Library of Congress

April 15th marks the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and there will be no shortage of news coverage (or hype) commemorating the event this weekend. The good news is that if you want even more information, facts, images and history, you can take a deep dive on the web to get to the bottom of the historic event. Here’s a roundup of a few sources that we think you might find interesting and useful.

Ancestry.com’s The Titanic Collection

• Passenger Lists
• Crew Lists
• Deaths at Sea
• Titanic Survivors, Carpathia Passenger List, 1912
• Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835–1974
• Record of Those Buried at Fairview Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia
• Coroner Inquests and Other Information from the Coroner of Nova Scotia

Note: The Titanic Collection is fee-based. However, a free trial is available through April 15, 2012. You’ll need an Ancestry.com login/password. No no credit card is required to obtain one.

RMS Titanic Online Exhibitions

Titanic: 100th Anniversary (National Archives, UK) You can search passenger and crew lists here.

Posted Aboard the R.M.S. Titanic (National Postal Museum)

Titanic: Facts & Images

Images From The British Library

Images From Library and Archives Canada (via Flickr)

Images From Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog

Images from National Archives, UK

Images from New York Public Library Digital Gallery

NOAA Commemorates the 100th Birthday of R.M.S Titanic May 31, 2011

“Titanic” (Encyclopedia Smithsonian)

Titanic at 100 Years (The Big Picture/Boston.com)

Titanic’s Final Photographs by Father Frank Browne (BBC)

Titanic Inquiry Project Full Text (Searchable) of the U.S. Senate and British Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiries

Titanic in a New Light (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

The Titanic Sinking: Infographics and Timelines

R.M.S. Titanic and MS Oasis of the Seas: a Comparison (CBC) – The World’s Largest Cruise Ships Then and Now

Remnants of the Disaster to Be Auctioned (AP)

Titanic By the Numbers (History.com)

Titanic: Faces of the Crew (BBC)

Titanic Interactive Timeline and Route Map (History.com)

RMS Titanic: Videos

Titanic At the National Archives (NARA, U.S.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video: Titanic 86th Anniversary (via C-SPAN Video Library) Recorded April 13, 1998

On the 86th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, two authors discussed their books. Father O’Donnell is the author of The Last Days of the Titanic: Photographs and Mementos of the Tragic Maiden Voyage, published by Rinehart. Mr. Kuntz is the author of The Titanic Disaster Hearings: The Official Transcripts of the 1912 Senate Investigation, published by Pocket Books.1

Titanic’s Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler (Twelve; October 1, 2008) author Brad Matsen talked about his book with deep-sea divers and shipwreck investigators, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, both of whom assisted Mr. Matsen in writing the book

Finally, on Sunday April 15, C-SPAN will Air and Stream on C-SPAN 3: “Report Into The Loss of the RMS Titanic” (Video Preview).

The Titanic sank into the Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg 100 years ago on April 15, 1912. Of those onboard, 1,496 perished and 712 were saved. To mark this centennial anniversary, author Samuel Halpern spoke at the National Archives about the findings of a modern day report into perhaps the 20th century’s most storied disaster at sea.

Google Home Page

There’s no special logo on Google for the anniversary, which perhaps might have felt out of place. Rather, Google’s gone with a simple, tasteful black ribbon of remembrance and the words “Remembering September 11,” as you can see below:

The link next to the ribbon leads to a post on the Google Blog that covers ways Google is involved with various memorial efforts.

Yahoo Home Page

Yahoo has colored its top box black in honor of the anniversary:

Bing Home Page

Bing uses an image of firefighters holding a US flag during a memorial service for 9/11 held during September 2009:

Search Engines & News On 9/11

Originally, I’d planned a retrospective today on how search engines have changed since that terrible day. I will never forget going to Google and feeling how horrible it was, on top of everything else, that the second listing for a search on “world trade center” was an old link offering the view from the top of the World Trade Center:

The problem was, at the time, Google and all the search engines were incredibly slow to update their listings. Integration of news content was also poor. Google didn’t even have a news search engine. That meant it was hard to get breaking news content quickly in the top results.

Google eventually posted the equivalent of a “Go Away & Turn On Your TV” sign, as it couldn’t provide decent results:

I ended up writing this reflective piece sooner than I expected, on the night news was announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed. If you’d like to understand more about how Google News has helped improve Google’s results since the massive failure 10 years ago, see that piece: Google & The Death Of Osama Bin Laden.

People Finding Services

Everyone has their own story of where they were on 9/11. I watched in horror from England, where I was living at the time. After both towers had collapsed, which I’d watched on television, I eventually went back to work, writing up a piece on how people could use search engines to get news and information.

You can still find that original piece here. It has lots of screenshots of what all the search engines were showing at the time. They were struggling under traffic that was 10 times more than normal, in some cases. The entire web was struggling — news sites could barely stay up.

After my piece was done, I felt pretty useless. But I remember writing to various contacts at the major search engines to see if there was a way they could all come together to perhaps create a people finding service, because so many were trying to find out about their loved ones and had no centralized option to use.

Nothing came from that. But after Hurricane Katrina, both Lycos and Yahoo launched “missing persons” tools that allowed for searching across various missing persons web sites. Since that time, we’ve seen this expand across the major search engines, including Google, after a disaster. It’s a welcome advance but one that let’s hope rarely needs to be used.

Finally, a personal note. As I said, I was living in England at the time the September 11 attacks happened. I found it remarkable, and appreciated, how much support I received from my British friends and colleagues, as well as from others I knew of all nationalities. Thank you.

I just don’t have the words for anyone who did suffer the loss of a friend or family member that day other than to offer my sympathies and condolences on this day of remembrance. However anyone is remembering, please do so, in some way.

The easiest way to see the images is through a Picasa album that the company has posted. It explains more about these here.

Below is a montage photo of before and after for both Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Jefferson County, Alabama:

This stunning photo clearly shows the path of the tornado that went through Tuscaloosa, leaving a diagonal brown scar:

This image shows the destruction of the Charleston Square Apartments in Tuscaloosa:

The photo below shows another path through Jefferson County, Alabama (Birmingham, Alabama is partly in this county):

When you search for some areas impacted by tornadoes in Google Maps, the company also triggers a special alert that leads to maps of where tornadoes touched down and Red Cross shelters. Here you can see it happening for a search on Concord, Alabama:

That leads to a map of tornado reports:

You can then use options on the left-side of the map to make American Red Cross shelter locations appear:

You can also use the two satellite imagery options to zoom in to where Google has updated Google Maps to show the destruction. When you check these boxes, you’ll see the areas that have refreshed images:

The updates only show in this special map page. If you try to find areas hit by the tornadoes using regular Google maps, you’ll still find older images. You can also reach the map page directly here, rather than having to search for it.

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration also has a useful site about the April 2011 tornadoes in general. You’ll find the NOAA site here. Along with many facts, the site also contains an image showing tornado tracks color-coded to show where the strongest ones were. Yellow is strong; orange stronger and red shows the most severe:

New York Times Airport Closures: Which airports are closed? Which are expected to reopen and when? An excellent map for volcanic ash refugees trying to know what’s happening. Well done, New York Times!

FlightRadar24.com: Want to see what’s flying — and not — visually? This site has traffic above Europe. In the image above, all the blue Xs are airports. Notice how above Britain right now, there are no yellow airplane symbols flying above or near those airports. Some of Europe has minimal activity.

RadarVirtuel: Similar to FlightRadar24, see what’s flying above Europe.

NASA Volcano Images: The US space agency has issued a variety of images over the past week, such as the one above showing the ash plume headed toward Europe. the NASA Modis Rapid Response System has a gallery with high resolution images that are constantly updated.

UK Met Office: The UK’s mapping agency offers a variety of maps in a special gallery, including the color enhanced satellite map above that shows the volcanic ash plume, ice clouds and more. Here’s an animation of the dust cloud moving across Europe. There’s also this map of dust observations across Great Britain. It’s pretty boring, however, simply a bunch of pinpoints you have to click on in order to find out how much dust is in the area at various locations.

Volcanic Tweets, Mapped: It’s not a crisis if we can’t Twitter about it, and Virender Ajmani has created this cool mashup that puts tweets about being stranded on a map, along with other related volcanic tweets. You can focus on either Europe or the north eastern United States.

Google Earth & Volcano Imagery: Speaking of Google, we covered earlier how those using the software can now focus in on new high resolution images of the plume.

What’s missing? If you know of a great map, please leave a comment below. Me, I’m surprised that neither Bing Maps nor Google Maps has yet uploaded images and made them available in a way for those who want to view them through ordinary web browsers (rather than the Google Earth software), as was the case with Haiti Earthquake images (see Satellite Images Of Haiti Earthquake From Google & Bing Maps).

Call ‘em what you want: strange, cool, unusual, bizarre, you name it. These aren’t your traditional search engines, that’s for sure. Here’s a list of 8 of what we think are the crazy-coolest search engines on the web. (Oh, and with a bonus entry at the end.)

1. Dead Cell Zones

Dead Cell Zones offers a searchable map mashup of user-reported dead cellular zones. It lists U.S. dead spots that have been reported by users of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and some smaller carriers. How many? The site claims to have more than 100,000 submissions from users. There’s also a UK version available at www.deadcellzones.com/uk.html.

2. Things You Saw in a Movie

Yep, it’s a search engine dedicated to the fine art of product placement. So, say you just finished watching the fantastic 2007 film The Kingdom and you really need to know what sunglasses Jamie Foxx wore during the movie, you’d go to Things You Saw in a Movie and type in either “Jamie Foxx” or “Kingdom” and you’ll quickly get your answer.

3. Storm Events

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has an online database called Storm Events that lists all U.S. weather events going back to 1996, and some (like tornadoes, high winds, and hail) going back to the 1950s. You can search for records of dust storms, floods, funnel clouds, wild/forest fires, thunderstorms, and much more. After choosing a state, you can dig down to the county level (or not).

4. Pillbox

While we’re on the subject of government search engines, how about Pillbox from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. What is it? It’s a search engine for identifying unknown pills. For real! The site warns that it’s still in development and not intended for clinical use, and has all the requisite disclaimers … but it’s still one of the most interesting search engine ideas around. You provide the size, shape, color, and other attributes of a pill, and it returns a list of possible matches along with links for more information about the pill.

5. TypoBuddy

If you’re searching for bargains online, looking for misspelled auction items can be a great way to go. TypoBuddy is sort of a meta-search engine that makes it easy to find misspelled products on eBay and craigslist. Type “laptop” (spelled correctly) into TypeBuddy’s search box, and it provides links to look for common misspellings on those two sites. When clicking the eBay link, I’m taken to the results of an eBay search that includes misspellings like “lpatop, lapotp, laaptop, latop” and so forth. TypoBuddy not only helps you find potential bargains, but it also proves there are a lot of poor spellers out there.

6. Filler Item Finder

Amazon.com offers free shipping on orders of $25 or more. But what if you’re buying something that costs $24.77? Filler Item Finder to the rescue! It’s a search engine for low-cost Amazon products that you can filter by category, and the results are automatically sorted by lowest-priced items first. Paper clips for 27 cents? Sold.

7. StorageFront

StorageFront is a site that doubles as a marketing tool for storage facility owners, but on the consumer side it offers a search engine for finding self-storage locations across the U.S. You can filter results by unit size and a dozen features, such as climate control, 24-hour cameras, and more.

8. Soda Finder

Frankly, I’m not sure I’d actually drink a case of soda that was discontinued by the manufacturer 20 years ago … but expiration dates aside, Soda Finder is an online store that offers a search engine for rare, old, and discontinued soda pop. (They don’t have my favorite, Crystal Pepsi, right now — but it was there when I first discovered this site.) And yes, there are disclaimers and warnings all over the old products. But even if you don’t spend a dime, Soda Finder is a bottle full of fun.

So there you go — eight of the crazy-coolest search engines we could find. But you know, there’s one more I should mention. It’s similar to this last one, the soda search engine, but let’s not penalize it for similar/duplicate content. After all, if you’re reliving childhood by looking for an old favorite soda pop, you might decide some candy would be a perfect match. Chocolate usually doesn’t go well with soda, but I’m gonna include this one, anyway.

BONUS: Nostalgic Candy Nostalgic Candy does for chocolate/sweets what Soda Finder does for beverages. Remember Hot Dog Bubble Gum? Remember Mallo Cups? Remember those candy cigarette sticks? My, how times have changed since I was a kid. Again, buying or not, this is a fun search down memory lane.

(Special thanks to GP for some ideas and assistance.)

360-Degree On-The-Ground Video

Immersive Media has released a number of 360-degree view videos of someone actually walking in the disaster area. You can move the video around and get a true on-the-ground view. Here’s one of them (sorry that it starts auto-playing — I can’t find a way to prevent this):

Bing Maps

Over at Bing Maps, the best thing is to use the latest version of the service. Latest version? Yes, Bing has a new Silverlight version that just came out of beta.

If you have Silverlight installed, chances are you’ll automatically be taken to the new version of Bing Maps. If you don’t — or you don’t have Silverlight — you should see something like this:

Click on the “Try it now” link. FYI, if you find that it says you have the latest version of Silverlight but still won’t load, try reinstalling Silverlight.

When you’re in the new version, you’ll want to look in the lower left side of the page and click on the “Map Apps” icon:

You’ll then get a screen like this:

Select the Haiti Earthquake button (this link will also activate the app). You’ll be zoomed in to the Haiti National Palace like this:

The “Before” image will be selected by default. Click the option below that for the “After” image:

You can zoom out and toggle back-and-forth between before and after, and you can also move the map to other parts of Haiti, though it’s unclear just how much of the entire country is covered with post-quake satellite images.

Also notice that right below the “After” option is a “Twitter Maps” link. Click on that, and you’ll see current tweets from people in Haiti displayed on the map.

Google Maps

Over at Google, things are a bit easier. There’s no need to activate the latest version of Google Maps or ensure you have the necessarily software. Just do a search for Haiti or Port-au-Prince, then zoom in. Make sure you’ve toggled the “Satellite” option at the top right of the page. You’ll then be able to see extremely high quality images, such as this one of the National Palace in Haiti:

Like Bing, you can zoom out and move around to various places, though exactly how much of the country is covered by new Google imagery isn’t clear. Google Maps has better images than Bing, but there’s no way to toggle back and forth between before and after views.

Google Earth

To get before and after via Google, you need to download Google Earth. With that software installed, you can zoom to Haiti and then make use of the “historic imagery” option. Click on the clock icon at the top of the page, to get a slider:

When you move the slider back, you’ll shift from the current post-earthquake images to images from before it happened:

Google Earth also allows you to zoom in and view images at simulated angle, to give the impression of actually being on or near the ground:

Everything Explained, In Video

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand how to access the earthquake images. If you’d like even more help, I’ve made a short video showing everything in action:

You’ll also find the video here on YouTube: How To View Images Of Haiti Before & After The Earthquake.

Donate!

After doing that, and being glad you’re not one of the millions of unfortunate people who are on the ground in Haiti, consider making a donation, if you haven’t already. Google has a list of organizations to consider, as does Microsoft.

Update: September 1

• Los Angeles area fires: Mount Wilson, La Canada Flintridge, Altadena, La Crescenta, Glendale, Pasadena, Acton, Agua Dulce from the Los Angeles Times covers the fire area in the Angeles National Forest, actions to protect the Mt. Wilson Observatory, evacuation areas and much more. Zoom out to also see where the Pendleton Fire near Yucaipa and the Oak Glen fires are. This is the best, most detailed map I’ve currently seen out there.
• SoCal Fires from KCBS pinpoints fires in Southern California, including the Morris Fire in Azusa, the Rancho Palos Verdes Fire, the Station Fire in the Angeles National Forest,  the Hemet / Idyllwild Fire and the one near Yucaipa.
• Station Fire from the LA County Fire Department has information about the Station Fire.
• Official (but non-mapped) info from La Canada Flintridge covers evacuation areas and more in text format.
• Inland Wildfires Map from the Riverside Press Enterprise focuses more closely on the fires in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
• Riverside County Fire Department Incidents page lacks maps but has textual info about fires in the area.
• California Statewide Fire Map (PDF format) from the California Department Of Forestry & Fire Protection spots blazes across the state. You can also drill-down into the Incidents page to locate a specific fire. Select one of those, such as the Pendleton Fire. Then on the right-hand side of the page, in the “More Information” box, click maps. Now you can get a close-up map of the particular area in PDF format.
• InciWeb lets you select a fire by name, then get a map and more information. If one isn’t shown, look for the “Maps” link at the top of the page.

General Resources

• Los Angeles Times maps: Watch the LA Times Google Maps account where fire maps are often posted for Southern California.
• CBS 2 maps: Watch their Google Maps account where wildfire maps are often posted.
• Los Angeles CITY Fire Department maps: The city of Los Angeles Fire Department posts maps to its Google account here for some fires and evacuation areas. Note that general area also known as Los Angeles is far broader than the actual city, which is why the department might not have fire info for all of Southern California (for those who get understandably frustrated over this).
• Los Angeles COUNTY Fire Department maps: The county of Los Angeles covers much of Southern California (Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties are also part of the greater Los Angeles area). The LA County Fire Department serves unincorporated areas and cities without their own fire departments in LA County. So, a broader area is covered than the city of Los Angeles, but still not all fires will be listed, if they’re outside the county’s service area.
• Wildfire Today: Regularly posts maps of fires.
• Firefighter Blog: Regularly has maps of fires.
• Enplan Wildfire Viewer: An excellent resource that lets you see across California where major fires have been spotted by satellite. For more about the viewer, see this article about it from the Orange County Register.
• MODIS: Shows large fires across the US.
• California Department Of Forestry & Fire Protection map: Maintains a Google Maps account that often pinpoints some fires.
• GeoMAC Wildfire Information: Lets you see current fires and perimeters across the US, plus see historic information.
• Wildfire From Fetch: Pinpoints fires, and if you click on an incident, you get an update on percentage contained and other information.
• The California Fire Alliance maps: Has maps of fires across California and the Western United States.
• The Orange County Register: Watch the newspaper’s Google Maps account here for possible maps of future fires.

Update: August 30

• Yosemite’s Big Meadow fire still spreading to the north from Wildfire Today covers the blaze near Yosemite.
• NOTE: Other map sources listed on this day are still fresh and have been moved to the Sept. 1 area.

August 18 Fires

• Lockheed Fire Map from the Santa Cruz Sentinel has boundaries of the fire, the evacuation center location and photo slideshows from various areas.
• The Los Angeles Times has a basic map pinpointing the Lockheed Fire as well as the recent La Brea Fire.
• Wildfire Today has a nice map of the La Brea fire via the GeoMac service listed further above.
• The Orange County Register has a map of the Ortega Fire earlier this month.

NOTE: For the latest fires, see this fire maps section of Search Engine Land, where any updates are listed.

• Los Angeles Times: Watch the newspaper’s Google Maps account here for the latest maps. Most recent ones are Brea fire, Sylmar / Sayre fire map and Map of the fires in Santa Barbara County. See also this road closures list.
• Orange County Register: Watch this newspaper’s Google Maps account here. This map covers the Green River / Yorba Linda / Corona fire.
• Los Angeles Fire Department: From its Google Maps account here, see the SAYRE FIRE EVAC ZONE map.
• Santa Barbara / Montecito “Tea Fire” is a nice collaborative effort covering the fire in that area. Sylmar Fire is from a local resident.
• CBS 2: See their collection here, watch their Google Maps account here for more. Also see these nice individual maps: Los Angeles Area Fire Information From KCBS2/KCAL9 News, Corona, Yorba Linda Brush Fires and Montecito Fire.
• Enplan Wildfire Viewer: Lets you see across California where major fires have been spotted by satellite. For more about the viewer, see O.C. wildfires now easy to track online from the Orange County Register.
• California Active Fire Mapper: From UC Berkeley, this pinpoints fires over the past week across the state.
• MODIS: Map has large fires across the US shown.
• California Department Of Forestry & Fire Protection: Maintains a Google Maps account here that pinpoints some blazes.
• GeoMAC Wildfire Information: View current fires and perimeters across the US, plus see historic information.
• Wildfire From Fetch: Pinpoints fires, and if you click on an incident, you get an update on percentage contained and other information.

Somewhat related, posts on Twitter for Yorba Linda and Sylmar are currently popular, reflecting a lot of eyewitness reports and people in the general areas commenting about the fires.

Sayre / Sylmar Fire LA Times (View Larger Map) Orange County Register (View Larger Map) CBS (View Larger Map) LA Fire Department(View Larger Map)

Triangle Complex Fire (Brea / Yorba Linda / Carbon Canyon / Anaheim Hills / Diamond Bar) LA Times (View Larger Map) Orange County Register(View Larger Map) CBS (View Larger Map)

Santa Barbara / Montecito / Tea Fire Google Maps Member Grizzlehizzle (View Larger Map) LA Times (View Larger Map) Orange County Register (View Larger Map) CBS (View Larger Map)

NOTE: For the latest fires, see this fire maps section of Search Engine Land, where any updates are listed.

• Los Angeles Times: Watch the newspaper’s Google Maps account here for the latest maps. At the moment, Wildfire closes the 210 and 118 freeways, 8 schools is the most recent one, showing the “Marek Fire” burn area and evacuation centers.
• Orange County Register: Again, watch this newspaper’s Google Maps account here, with Small brush fire and Angeles fire providing an overview of current fires in Southern California and Angeles National Fire zooming in on the area near the 210 Freeway.
• Los Angeles Fire Department: From its Google Maps account here, links to information about the Sesnon Fire and a Marek Fire Evacuation Map.
• California Active Fire Mapper: From UC Berkeley, this pinpoints fires over the past week across the state.
• MODIS: Map has large fires across the US shown.

NOTE: For the latest fires, see this fire maps section of Search Engine Land, where any updates are listed.

• California Fires 2008 is an excellent map pinpointing fires across the state. Just excellent work. It’s embedded over at KSBW so that you get a key for the color of each “thumbtack” marking a fire (blue is smaller; red is largest). See also the wildfires section that has a list of more detailed maps for particular fires.
• Significant California Fires – June 2008 is maintained by California’s Office Of Emergency Services, which also has it embedded with perspective here.
• GeoMAC has a variety of maps you can view in Google Earth.
• The Ukiah Daily Journal has a special map for the Mendocino area.
• California Active Fire Mapper pinpoints blazes across the Western US, and you can zoom to particular cities.
• Modus has large fires across the US pinpointed — you can really see the cluster in Northern California here.

Postscript: See Los Angeles & Southern California Fire Maps: October 2008 Edition for fires in Southern California during mid-October 2008.