Okay, some of you may think this review isn’t nearly as cool as other ones we’ve done, but sometimes you’ve got to scrap the cool review for the “this-just-might-come-in-handy-someday” review. And those of you with kids in school just might find this site interesting.

At Infoplease, a site with everything from almanacs to encyclopedias to thesauruses, you can find a page called “Year by Year: 1900-2006.” Simply enter a year in the search box or click on a year and you can learn about everything associated with that year, from world and U.S. events to sports and entertainment. You’ll find statistics like population, life expectancy, GDP, and even the cost of a first-class stamp. (Can you believe it was $.10 in 1974?) If you’d rather look at the larger picture and view history decade by decade, you can do that too. And to top it all of, the page even includes a plethora of timelines in categories such as U.S. and world history, society and culture, science, entertainment, and select biographies.

This is seriously a fabulous resource for those of us with post-kindergarten age kids. Need to learn more about the events surrounding the Women’s Rights Movement? Got it. The Space Shuttle? Check. Fashion? Found it. You can even find up-to-date information on the Iraq Crisis, 2002-Present. (The most recent event listed is August 30, 2006.) Even if you’re not scrambling to finish a school report, the site makes for some great reading, especially for those of us who spent class time passing notes to friends rather than learning about ancient history.

Don’t limit yourself to the information in Year by Year. Infoplease’s online almanac is another great resource for both you and your child (whose report is due tomorrow morning, by the way). Just think how impressed your friends will be when you list of the 2005 Nobel Prize Winners in Peace, Literature, Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, AND Economics.
–Emily

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 21st, 2006 at 11:01 am and is filed under Daily Dish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.