Lately I've been taking an interest in American westward expansion and trying to get a better understanding of how the lines were drawn on maps in the past. Can anyone recommend a good video or interactive visualization that I can scroll back and forward through time to see the changes in detail?

Things I'm particularly interested in tracking:

• Indigenous lands (specifically how the boundaries of traditional/ancestral lands evolved into modern-day reservations)
• European claims like those of Britain, France, and Spain
• What was considered US/Canada/Mexico territory vs. no man's land or frontier at different points in time, from the governance standpoint of each of those nations
• Large and rapid settling movements like the Mormons into Utah, Oklahoma land rush, California gold rush, etc.
• Other factors like homesteading programs (I don't know much about this) and the transcontinental railroad, confederacy borders, trail of tears, etc.
• Notable battles/massacres marking bloody land disputes

I mean I guess that's a lot, this is basically "tell me about all of American history." 😂

I feel like I have a pretty decent grasp of the general political timeline and important events, I'm just realizing lately that I don't have a cohesive mental model of how it all fits on a map and changed over the years. I did find the Wikipedia page on Territorial Evolution of the United States to be interesting but it's a bit overwhelming and not very digestible. It contains this animated gif, which is awesome but I can't scroll through it at my own pace, and it's USA only.

Tis fire season again here in North America and Europe. From my house in coastal California I grieve every year as more of my favorite forests burn, from British Columbia to California.

There is no end in sight for this transition. So what can we do to at least mitigate the worst of its effects? I think the time to play defense over pure "wilderness" is long gone. The forests that haven't burned are still beautiful, but they're riddled with disease and so overgrown the ecosystems are permanently distorted.

Every year there is less pristine forest and more burned land. I'm a fourth generation Californian and the Portuguese side of the family still owns a ranch in the foothills from 1893. But I own nothing and the prospect of being able to afford land in California has forever been beyond my reach. Burned land needs to be rehabilitated in a thoughtful manner. I'm hoping once my daughter finishes college and our life starts a new chapter, that I can find a few acres where I can make the best environmental impact, such as a headwaters, then invite experts onto the land to teach me how to best heal it.

Every year I have this idea, and every year more areas become available (in the worst sense). I don't need to live on this land. I don't expect it to be much more than grasses and saplings for 20 years. I'd get out to it one or two weekends a month, rent some equipment and hire some folks as I could. I also understand that my original thought that this would be immune from future fire seasons is wrong. But at least the land can be designed to be as fire resistant as possible, with a clear understory and single large trees. And that is another part of the allure. This acreage would come with its own challenges for sure, but in some sense it is a blank slate. The permaculture people could show us how to remediate and reconstruct the land from the bones up.

I know this project would be an aggravating money sink, and even perhaps an unrealistic and irresponsible fantasy by someone untrained in forestry management. But there is so much burned land now. Every year another giant 4% stripe of California goes up in smoke. Yet this idea just doesn't catch on. It entails a lot of patience and work. I know it's not what most people want to hear. They want their idyllic cabin in Tahoe or nothing. But that time is quickly coming to an end and learning how to revive the forests that have been devastated is our only real choice.

Whenever I've tried to get serious about this, though, I learn that there is no market in burned land because there is hardly any profit to be made. No real estate agent that I can find is specializing in this because their clients are having to sell ruined land and burned buildings for pennies on the dollar. I've been advised that the best way is to find a specific spot, do my research, and approach the owner directly. But, again, there is so much burned land now I hardly know where to start. The Santa Cruz Mountains? The Sierra adjacent to Yosemite? Crater Lake in Oregon?

Any thoughts or ideas or resources would be appreciated.