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Posted by: Ryan Moore
Cartographic depictions of Seoul, the present-day capital of South Korea, during the time of the Japanese occupation of Korea are not often seen and the surviving artifacts a bit rare. The period of Japanese influence and control over Korea lasted from 1905 until 1945. It began with a protectorate that escalated into a full-scale colony …
Posted in: Asian History, City Histories, Military History
Posted by: Ryan Moore
The former capital of Pakistan, Karachi is the most populous city in the country and the third most populous in the world. Before it was Karachi, the place was called Kolachi, a small village on the Arabian Sea. Kolachi was the surname of the founding fisher-woman, Lady Kolachi, according to local lore. The transformation from …
Posted in: 19th century cartography, 20th century cartography, City Histories
Posted by: Ed Redmond
The city of Alexandria, Virginia traces its roots to the establishment of a tobacco inspection warehouse at the foot of current day Oronoco Street in Old Town Alexandria. The purpose of the inspection warehouse was to provide quality control over tobacco exported from the colonies to England. Instrumental to the early mapping of Alexandria was …
Posted in: American History, City Histories
Posted by: Ryan Moore
The city of Lviv, in what is now western Ukraine, was greatly impacted by the Second World War and the Holocaust. Prior to the outbreak of fighting, it was part of Poland and known as Lwów. It was then a diverse, multi-ethnic city, and its inhabitants included large communities of Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, and others. …
Posted in: City Histories, Military History
Posted by: Ed Redmond
225 years ago this month, on October 13, 1792, the cornerstone of what we now call the White House was laid. The term “White House,” although not its official name, was commonly used to refer to the President’s House or Executive Mansion. President Theodore Roosevelt formally adopted the term “White House” in 1901. So how …
Posted in: City Histories
Posted by: Tim St. Onge
The oldest set of federally placed monuments in the United States are strewn along busy streets, hidden in dense forests, lying unassumingly in residential front yards and church parking lots. Many are fortified by small iron fences, and one resides in the sea wall of a Potomac River lighthouse. Lining the current and former boundaries …
Posted in: Borders, City Histories
Posted by: Tim St. Onge
The 2016 Summer Olympics kicks off next week with over 10,000 athletes and many more tourists and attendees from around the world descending on the host city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is a sprawling metropolis with a population of 6 million people, situated along the Atlantic Ocean. But like the saying …
Posted in: City Histories, Exploration
Posted by: Tim St. Onge
It is almost a cliché to say, but today, in 2016, maps are everywhere. The barriers to geographic information have come down so that anyone with internet access or a smart phone can see maps of the world in incredible detail. But the wide availability of maps to people of all walks of life is …
Posted in: City Histories
Posted by: Ryan Moore
Architect and urban planner Julio César Pérez-Hernández will discuss the history of Cuba through cartography on May 13, 2016 at the Library of Congress. “Islands in the Stream: Cuban Maps from the Past to the Future” will take place from noon to 1 p.m. on Friday, May 13 in the Mumford Room on the sixth …
Posted in: Borders, City Histories, Events, Exploring the Early Americas