Article
• August 18, 2010
Browse an Archive of Royalty-Free Stock Photos and Videos
Dig into the past with a trove of historical videos and photos in CriticalPast
According to some dude name Shakespeare, what’s past is prologue. But all too often finding historical footage online is a fool’s errand.
Enter CriticalPast, a new service that makes public one of the largest libraries of archival media in the world.
Drawn largely from US government sources the site boasts nearly 60,000 hours of video and almost seven million photos.
While CriticalPast operates as a purveyor of stock footage for filmmakers, all of the videos are available to be watched, free of charge.
In other words, it’s the best source there is for watching Richard Nixon talking about country music at the Grand Ol’ Opry in 1974.
The archives go back to 1890 and run through the mid-90s, though the heaviest concentration of videos is from the 1940s (with World War II as the centerpiece).
It’s certainly more interesting than your high school history teacher.
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