Google is committed to provide audience with numerous opportunities to broaden their cultural horizons. In 2010, as part of its Art Project, the Internet giant opened the doors of the most celebrated museums around the globe online, allowing users to view art masterpieces in detail on their computer screen, and in May 2012 it invited to explore the wonders of the world online. This spring, Google  also unveiled an online platform dedicated to Nelson Mandela’s life and work, and now it invites the audience to explore 42 exhibitions about people’s stories “behind major events of the last century, including Apartheid, D-Day and the Holocaust,” says Google Blog.

Photo: A snapshot of the exhibitions titled «The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II» (сlick to enlarge), www.google.com/culturalinstitute

For the project, Google teamed up with 17 partners including museums and cultural foundations, which provided exclusive content for the exhibitions (some of the assets appear on the Internet for the first time). Each piece can be zoomed-in so that users can see everything in detail. The exhibitions include The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Years of the Dolce Vita (telling about the period of “sweet life” in Italy, when the fashion, food, cars and culture were on the rise), Jan Karski, Humanity’s hero (the first person who attempted to tell the world about the existence of the Holocaust), and many more, including exhibitions about Nelson Mandela’s life.

The exhibitions, which includes scanned papers, videos and photos as well and the narrative text which explains what actually was happening, are opening against the black background. The assets can be searched by decade or by partners—the platform is running in English, but there’s a list of languages users can use for navigation (maybe, the exhibitions will be translated soon as well). People can contribute their own exhibitions to the project—for this, they are invited to fill in the form.