Last week, I brought you to the Newseum where newspaper front pages from around the world are displayed. This week, we take a step back further in time to a place where historical documents live on in digital form in the…

World Digital Library

At the time of this post, the World Digital Library features scans and photographs of 1,170 historical documents from all over the world. These documents range from the United States’ Declaration of Independence to African rock paintings from thousands of years ago. This digital library is full of world history, featuring entire books, portraits, photographs, maps, and much more.

It can be broken down into location, time period, topic, and type of item to allow for the most flexibility in browsing through it all. Of course, it’s all searchable as well.

Each item also features a brief description and as much information about its creation as is known.

Browsing through the site feels like wandering the halls of a museum, but offering a chance to get close up with and leaf through paper items that would likely be untouchable in real life.