The National Archives has placed 500,000 pages of government papers online, accessible free of charge.
The 'Cabinet Papers 1915-1977' project has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) digitisation programme and will enable users to search for keywords within the collection.
According to the National Archives, the project, launched on 4 December, 2008, will make these documents more accessible and open a vast amount of information to people worldwide.
The website includes teaching aids, interactive maps and images to support the papers, aimed at helping users to understand and interpret the documents on screen.
The website covers more than 100 topics which form parts of A-level syllabuses and university programmes.
Edward Hampshire, a contemporary records expert at the National Archives, said: "This is an extremely valuable collection in terms of modern British history and, for the first time, we have been able to open it up to everyone, not just those who are able to come to Kew [where the archives are located]."
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"While we have created some fantastic resources for students, we hope the tools will help to open up the files to everyone with an interest in British history and politics. After all, this is recent history, and many of us will have lived through, and been affected by, the momentous issues and decisions recorded in these records," Hampshire said.
Paola Marchionni, Jisc digitisation programme manager, said: "The digitisation of resources like this means that students have access to historical records tracing key events in 20th-century British and international history. Learners are able to access the information when they want it, how they want it and see the documents as they were originally created — including Churchill's cigar ashes."
