I found this web site, recommended by a blog that I have been reading that I do think would add much to the student's understanding of history. The David Rumsey Map Collection has over 20,000 maps and other related images at their site. As far as I could tell, all of the maps could be downloaded to use. Some of these maps (now over 150) can be opened in Google Earth for further exploration. You can overlap maps of ancient globes or Civil War sites onto Google Earth.
A very different type of map is The Breathing Earth. This is a simulation that shows how many people are being born and die, the population of countries and the world and the CO2 emissions of each place. While it is just an approximation, it is very interesting.
