Playing now at the Internet Archive: Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding
On a list of best website ideas of all time, I would be surprised if the Internet Archive didn’t rank right up there near the top. It describes itself so:
The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.
The website is particularly wellknown for its feature, The Wayback Machine. It archives versions of websites, thus allowing viewers to see old presentations of sites as well as the current ones. This last week, the website also was in the news after it won a major battle with the FBI over a privacy issue, as reported in The Washington Post here.
Helpful hint: Exploring Internet Archive can take a while. Since its launch in 1996, it already has archived 85 billion web pages (see here).
So an entry into this website can turn quickly into a gargantuan, kaleidoscopic treasure hunt. An example, as I was noodling around through the site, I came across what I consider to be a golden nugget, Fred Astaire’s Royal Wedding. The website allows you to view the classic, old movie online, or download it. You also can embed it in a website (see below).
Royal Wedding (1951) starring Fred Astaire and Jane Powell (1 hour, 31 minutes)
