Rich Historical Film Archive from British Pathé

British Pathé https://flic.kr/p/nexQKv
British Pathé https://flic.kr/p/nexQKv

If you are looking for contemporary news film coverage of any world event between 1896 and the late 2oth century, here is a great find:

On April 17, Newsreel archive British Pathé announced that it had just uploaded its entire collection of 85,000 historic films, in high resolution, to its YouTube channel.  British Pathé reigned as the premier newsreel organization for many  years. It now has one of the world’s richest archives of historical and cultural footage which includes material major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, sport and culture from around the world. The two World Wars are prominently featured. 

These videos would be great to show in class, embed in teacher and student websites and blogs, comment on, and use as sources for research projects.

Here are just a couple of the intriguing options. The first is a short clip of Armstrong’s stepping on the moon in 1969. The second is “The World’s First Mobile Phone,” a video made in 1922!

There are also a number of playlists of multiple videos on a theme, such as 85 videos on “A Day That Shook the World.”  You could definitely spend hours and hours dipping into history with this archive!

Thanks to Joyce Valenza for sharing this news on her blog and filling me in on it.