Maps of War has a collection of seven animated maps based on the themes of war, religion, and politics. Click here to see the History of Religions map. You can embed these maps into a blog or website, but I found that my blog loaded very slowly when I tried embedding the maps. Maps of War also has an extensive library of maps from third parties like the BBC and the New York Times. Many of the maps contained in the library are interactive learning tools.

Applications for Education
Maps of War’s animated maps are a great visual aid for students. The timeline that accompanies each map make the maps a great resource for showing changes over time. As the maps change the timelines change accordingly.

Here are some related resources that may be of interest to you:
Timelines.com – Multimedia Timelines, Wiki-style
Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms
US History Animated