One of the coolest and most exciting features of Google Earth is probably something you really haven’t given much thought to – historical imagery.  Who wouldn’t want to visit the past and check out the historical record of our world?  A look at the evolution of rising communities, destruction by nature, and so much more is a real eye-opening experience.

Google Earth 6 has just made this a little bit easier.  Historical imagery is a big part of the newest version of Google Earth.  The guys over at Google added a couple of new features in addition to streamlining the timeline interface.  They also added a date button to the status bar to make finding past imagery a lot easier.

When you work in Google Earth, you can zoom into a location and hit the new date button.  It will highlight specific years, enabling you to see the historical imagery and view images from the desired year.  This is a really great way of examining a specific location to see how it has changed over the years.

So what have they captured in recent history?  A whole lot!  Historical imagery has been available for about two years and they have caught a couple of historically significant events, including the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, South Africa’s preparation for the 2010 World Cup, and the inauguration of President Obama.

It isn’t reserved for just historically significant events, either.  Google Earth can show you your own personal history as well.

Source – google-latlong.blogspot.com