A biography learn node of William Penn with the story of his role in the history of Pennsylvania is a large topic. The Internet has many excellent nodes of materials on the subject. This blog post is a small learnode combining a sampling of William Penn webpages:

The image that illustrates this post is from an excellent introduction to Penn at HippoCampus.org. To see the image in the introductory presentation click on “Pennsylvania and Delaware” on HIppoCampus’s page: Browse US History, English Colonies.

Long, official and authoritative Penn biographies are woven into the online exhibits of two official institutions of the State of Pennsylvania and one from the university of the state to the south of Penn’s former colony, at the University of Virginia:

- Pennsylvania General Assembly of history: The Quaker Province: 1681-1776
- Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
- Extensive account of the life of William Penn at the University of Virginia

More learn nodes at: learnodes.com

Other excellent Internet biography is openly available online for the Dalai Lama. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, and like all winners his biography is posted on Nobelprize.org which is the website of the Nobel Foundation. The Dalai Lama’s Peace Prize acceptance speech is also available at Nobelprize.org. A Library of Congress exhibit about the Dalai Lama’s visit to Washington in October 2007 has more about him, and offers a list of selected links to further materials.

Here, also, is a video posted on YouTube.com in December 2007 where His Holiness answers a question about technological change.

This learn node highlights a high-quality learning website that captures the web author’s expertise and enthusiasm for a Ataturk. As crises seems to be stirring in Turkey, I started looking around for some historical information, and found Ataturk.com, subtitled The founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President.As he reveals in one of the pages of this extensive site, the author is a man named Cent who was born and raised in Turkey, and now lives in the Untied States. I, for one, value what I can learn about Ataturk and about Turkey, past and present, from this man’s work in creating the website. I doubt that he would claim to be an objective scholar, but think his affection for and the personal experience he has with Turkey present facets of understanding that objectivity cannot provide. Raising a flag to enlightenment, Ataturk.com’s homepage banner quotes these words:

“The humankind is consisted of two sexes, woman and man. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and ignore other? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies?”
– M.K. Ataturk

It seems to me that the availability of many viewpoints and nuances of memories and understanding that are available for a historical subject online do a couple of constructive things. For one thing, they do not let revisionists rewrite history and then completely bury other views. Secondly, the inevitable networking of viewpoints on a topic that the open Internet generates provides a mechanism for the emergence of consensus, and dare I say, of truth.

The open Internet has a rich array of material and evaluation of Ataturk. There are videos which capture his times. Wikipedia has a long and detailed article on Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

More learn nodes at: learnodes.com

An iron curtain has descended across the continent.
The speech in which Winston Churchill used those words and gave the phrase “iron curtain” to the 20th century Cold War era was given in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946. A few of the sentences from the speech, including the words above and Sir Winston’s enunciation of the “capitals of the ancient states” behind the curtain can be accessed in Churchill’s voice from the Library of Congress. This audio node is included in a major exhibition by the LOC and Annenberg Foundation titled Churchill and the Great Republic. The exhibition networks photographs, texts, sounds and commentary into a distinguished digital biography of Churchill. (For a look at some realities of the Cold War that the Iron Curtain brought on: The Berlin Airlift.)

The Internet has many superb Churchillian nodes, which when interlinked form a web of Sir Winston’s rich weave into the fabric of 20th century history and thought. The grand appreciation for him is expressed in a BBC archived exhibit of his state funeral. To catch something of the vigor and courage of this great man, the Churchill Center’s page of quotations is a good place to start. For example, Churchill told the United States Congress in 1941:

“I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father’s house to believe in democracy. ‘Trust the people’ that was his message….I owe my advancement entirely to the House of Commons, whose servant I am. In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants of the State and would be ashamed to be its masters. Therefore I have been in full harmony all my life with the tides which have flowed on both sides of the Atlantic against privilege and monopoly….By the way, I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way around, I might have got here on my own!”