Nelson Mandela Archive Goes Online (With Help From Google)

Last week, the Albert Ein­stein Archive went online, bring­ing thou­sands of the physi­cist’s papers and let­ters to the web. This week, we get the launch of the Nel­son Man­dela Dig­i­tal Archive, which makes avail­able thou­sands of papers belong­ing to the man who gal­va­nized the anti-apartheid move­ment in South Africa, before even­tu­al­ly becom­ing the leader of the nation. (Don’t miss his first record­ed TV inter­view from 1961 here.)

Made pos­si­ble by a $1.25 mil­lion grant from Google, the archive orga­nizes Man­de­la’s papers chrono­log­i­cal­ly and the­mat­i­cal­ly. You can jump into sec­tions cov­er­ing his Ear­ly Life, Prison Years, and Pres­i­den­tial Years, or explore his exten­sive book col­lec­tions and work with young­sters. And, much like Ein­stein, you’ll get to know a dif­fer­ent side of Man­dela, the pri­vate side that was often hid­den from pub­lic view.

Note: We recent­ly men­tioned that Google Street View will let you take a vir­tu­al tour of the Ama­zon basin. Now, it turns out, you can also use the soft­ware to take a train ride through the Swiss Alps. Start your jour­ney here.

Image from Nel­son Man­de­la’s prison jour­nals.