There is a cliche that many people often share about history, and how it is written by the victors. The conquerors across the world, for the most part, are the ones who transcribed the history for others to read. We have terms like "revisionist history" to account for the fact that we realize the truth may be quite a bit grayer than those historical accounts we read lead us to believe.

When Google first launched Google Earth, you pretty much needed a cutting-edge PC in order to power it. My, how far it’s come! Today, Google has announced it has managed to stuff Google Earth into an iPhone/iPod Touch application–which you can download for free!

Here’s what you can do with Google Earth on your iCandy iPhone:

Google announced today the release of a Google Earth API and browser plug-in. Google Earth is the newest edition to the company’s Maps API, which allows developers to turn their Web sites into 3D map allocations.

New features include the ability to embed Google Earth into Web sites, create lines, polygons, and placemarks in 3D. Users can also convert existing Maps API sites to 3D Earth, add or view buildings in 3D, and use Google Sky’s high-resolution images.

The company organized some of its resources to assist the humanitarian efforts going on in Myanmar, where thousands have died or are missing after a cyclone tore through the country.

WebProNews is based in Kentucky, where we’re relatively safe from many types of natural disasters.  We felt something between a large rumble and a small rattle following Illinois’s earthquake, however, which makes it more interesting on a personal level that Google Maps is being used to track other recent quakes.

Frank Taylor points out on his Google Earth Blog that a member of the Google Earth Community has put together an interesting collection of extreme places on Earth.

It may be necessary to stop using words like "neat" and "cool"; it’s possibly time to put on a tie.  A new push involving Google Earth stresses all the practical (and somewhat implausible) reasons cities should create 3D models of themselves.

As students everywhere will agree, repetition is one of the best ways of learning something (or at least stuffing it into your short-term memory).  And Google’s picking up on that fact by not letting students’ teachers forget Google Earth’s usefulness.