Our contribution to 'History of the World'

The digital archive has seen the BBC team up with museums across Northern Ireland and Great Britain for the multi-media project.

'A History of the World' is aiming to collect objects not only with local but global significance and providing different perspectives on objects that shaped history.

A main part of the project is a landmark series on BBC Radio 4 called 'A History of the World in 100 Objects'-which recounts the tales of 100 objects from the British Museums collection.

Five objects from Londonderry are part of the twenty-five Northern Irish initially selected artefacts out of a total of 700.

The Promise Chalice from St Columb's Cathedral in Londonderry ranks highly amongst the contributing exhibits. The silver chalice sent to Londonderry by The Honourable the Irish Society in 1613 represented a 'promise' to build a cathedral in the city. St Columb's Cathedral was duly completed in 1633, some 60 years before the famous Siege of Derry. St Columb's was the first purposely built post Reformation Protestant church anywhere in the world and remains Londonderry's oldest and most historically significant building. A major revamp of the Cathedral is due to begin in the next few weeks.

Also included is a mortar shell from the Siege of Derry in 1688-89. The shell was fired into the city by Jacobite forces during the siege. It landed in the churchyard of St Columb's Cathedral and contained a letter outlining the terms of surrender. The citizens of the city replied "no surrender."

From the Harbour Museum in the city comes the figurehead of the ship the Minnehaha.

This was the last great locally owned vessel to be involved in transatlantic shipping before the advent of steam power.

The Minnehaha operated from 1778 and ferried passengers to New York where she was known as "the green yacht from Derry."

The last item comes from more recent history and is an exhibit from the The Museum of Free Derry.

The Civil Rights banner which was carried on several marches in the late 1960's and early 1970's was last carried on the anti-internment rally of January 30, 1972.

The event which became known as Bloody Sunday culminated on 14 people being killed by the British Army.

Further information about the online exhbition can be viewed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld.