A good introduction to the Crusades with images, links and citations.

A short chronology of the Crusades from the First Crusade through Fall of the Hospitallers in 1798.

An in-depth article with tons of cross links to other information. (Catholic Encyclopedia)

"Their first victorious encounter with Europeans had left the Turks with a low opinion of Crusaders, but the second Christian wave was made of sterner stuff." An article from Military History (1998).

"Strong in religious fervor but weak in leadership and discipline, the First Crusade got off to a wretched start." An article from Military History (1998).

"On July 8, 1099, 15,000 starving Christian soldiers marched barefoot around Jerusalem while its Muslim defenders mocked them from the battlements. One week later, the situation would be astonishingly altered." Article from Military History magazine.

"They set out to rescue the Holy Land from the Muslims. Instead, they appeared at the walls of the greatest city in Christendom." Article originally appeared in the August 1993 issue of Military History magazine

"In April 1204, the armies of the Fourth Crusade broke into the city of Constantinople and began to loot, pillage, and slaughter their way across the greatest metropolis in the Christian world. Within months Pope Innocent III, the man who had first called for the Crusade, bitterly lamented the spilling of 'blood on Christian swords that should have been used on pagans' and described the expedition as 'an example of affliction and the works of Hell.'" Article from Autumn 2005 edition of Military History Quarterly

The site is in French but has many illuminations and sound files.

"This Lecture Course examines the Crusading Movement and the States it produced from the eleventh century to the fall of the mainland Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1292. Central themes include but are not limited to the following: the Medieval Conquest, Settlement & Loss by Europeans of "Latin" lands in the Mid-East, the associated history of the Church and its contextual intellectual history, political narrative and military history, social and economic analysis, together with the conflict of cultures and religions during a formative period in Western Civilization."

Definitely the place to big one's look into the Crusades. Even though the course is for students at Boise State University, most of the material of open for viewing. An excellent example not only of a site dedicated to the Crusades, but also of how a course can be made to work on-line.

"A magnet for centuries to competing armies, Acre at last would be leveled-but not before it would house both warring Christians and Muslims." Article from Military History magazine.