The new year brings us a few good things right off. One's the final death of 2016, and another's the promise of another year's worth of materials being opened up in various archives around the world as restriction dates roll past.
As was noted in another question yesterday, this year will have a few interesting things popping up, as (for example) government records about events such as the First World War French army mutinies or the Russian Revolution which had been under hundred-year restrictions start to become available. The common 50 and 75-year cutoffs also give us the years 1967 and 1942, both of which were kind of eventful. Various more oddball cutoffs (I'm looking at you, StatsCan's 92-year rule) will be providing their own brain candy, too.
So my questions for those of you who get to spend some time over the next year at play in the world's archives: are you really itching to get at information about a particular historical event, set of state records, or even a specific document, which is only becoming available in 2017? Are you expecting to find, affirm, or refute anything in particular? Are you expecting people to be especially surprised by something?
My interests are the modern history of Asia.
The British Prime Minister’s papers from 1989-90 was released on 30 December 2016, shedding a lot of light on the Britain reaction to the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre.
The declassified personal files of Chiang Kai Shek is scheduled to be released online in April by the Academia Historica of Taiwan, covering the Northern Expedition, the Warlord Era, the Sino-Japanese War, the Civil War and beyond.