> As an aside - I would LOVE a historic online mapping service. The ability to view a map moving through time, communities displacing, rivers changing course, h

> As an aside - I would LOVE a historic online mapping service. The ability to view a map moving through time, communities displacing, rivers changing course, harbours silting up, whole countries appearing and disappearing, simply by selecting an area and scrolling along a time axis, would destroy my ability to achieve anything productive for a very long time ;-) In theory something like this could be achieved by wading through the regular releases of openstreetmaps[1] data. Although there you're more likely to see the results of the collection/moderation process than anything else. Still, possibly interesting to look at. [1] http://www.openstreetmap.org/ http://www.openstreetmap.org/