Having some sense of the history of a subject is always useful. The technology of today is typically based on ideas and concepts known from the past, and what we can anticipate in the future will likely be derived from what we work with today. As your text does not provide a review on the early history of remote sensing, I will provide a very brief overview of some of the important concepts / events in the history of remote sensing.

Some interesting web sites (in no particular order) that cover various aspects of the history of remote sensing and GPS include:

• A comprehensive listing of important dates in the history of remote sensing
• Orville Wright's own story of the first flight
• The world's oldest aerial photograph?
• Early aerial photography of the Gatineau River Valley
• Elements of aerial photography (from Dr. Short's review)
• Pigeons and aerial photography (wiki page)
• Citizen science mapping today!
• An article on pinhole cameras and tracking the sun
• The Professional Aerial Photographers Association
• Spatial Information Clearinghouse's About Remote Sensing
• The Landsat Program's home page (free data)
• Specifications for the Landsat satellites can be found here
• Land Surface Imaging Constellation Portal
• A RADAR tutorial
• The Geo Community's page of links related to GPS (video showing how GPS works)
• A blog on agro-veillance (using drones and remote sensing in precision agriculture)
• Satellite evidence of human rights violations (requires Google Earth). The satellite images shown in class provide evidence of 'Operation Murambatsvina.' (The United Nations has described the campaign as an effort to drive out and make homeless large sections of the urban and rural poor, who comprise much of the internal opposition to the Mugabe administration.)

Text: Nothing relevant.

From Dr. Short's Remote Sensing Tutorial, the History of Remote Sensing: In the Beginning, provides an appropriate overview, although there are a number of other sections that provide more recent perspectives (i.e., remote sensing activities up to the current date) that are worthwhile looking over.