If you thought the New York Public Library’s map release was a time sink, you’d best settle your affairs and fully stock your bomb shelter because British Pathé has released its entire archive of 85,000 newsreels, documentaries and raw footage on YouTube.

British Pathé was once a dominant feature of the British cinema experience, renowned for first-class reporting and an informative yet uniquely entertaining style. It is now considered to be the finest newsreel archive in existence. Spanning the years from 1896 to 1976, the collection includes footage – not only from Britain, but from around the globe – of major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, sport and culture. The archive is particularly strong in its coverage of the First and Second World Wars.

This is a great, great day. I have long harbored resentment that the vast panoply of film riches on Pathé’s website were so inaccessible. They could only be viewed in low resolution 400 x 320-pixel windows on the website itself. Many of the videos were watermarked and there was no way to embed them. If you wanted to get a decent look at one, you had to buy it for £30. Even stills from the film had to be purchased to the tune of £20 apiece.

And so I was grudgingly forced to link to the films on the website instead of embedding the greatness of Cygan the robot, the 1941 bombing of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the interview with Titanic survivor Edith Rosenbaum of singing toy pig fame. Well goodbye sad links to budget videos. Hello high resolution embeds!

Cygan the Robot:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/8qy6T1BA-Oc&w=430]

The bombing of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1941:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/R6BY4foL340&w=430]

Titanic Disaster Documentary with Edith Rosenbaum:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awaa2fXCVHg&w=430]

The main British Pathé YouTube channel has just over 81,000 videos uploaded, and they’re helpfully arranging them in playlists and according to topics like Pre-1910 Footage, Weird Newsreels and A Day That Shook the World which features some of the most important events in the 20th century history. They also have specialized channels for War Archives, Vintage Fashions and Sporting History, although those channels haven’t been expanded in the recent spate of uploads.

You don’t have to settle for Pathé’s categories. Just search the channel for a subject of interest. Click the magnifying glass to the right of About on the top menu and type in a keyword. Searching for Titanic, for instance, returns ten Titanic newsreels and documentaries, and then derails very entertainingly into footage of a lion eating at an outdoor table with a proper English lady and her husband in 1959, Icelandic lava fields from 1930 and a helpful 1921 instructional on how to make a bra from two handkerchiefs (warning: not for the lady who requires any kind of actual support).

It’s a playground. A beautiful, disturbing, hilarious, compelling playground of history and society on film.