Google News has added an Archive Search option, giving the user the ability to search news stories as far back as the 1700s.
From the Google News main page, click the News Archive Search link (I recommend going one step further and going to the Advanced Search page as well), and you are on your way.
Many of the articles are only available for a fee, but enough are free to allow you to find good information on many, many topics. You can limit by date range, publication (it appears that all of Time Magazines articles are free, and all of the Washington Post articles cost). You can select to only see free articles, and there is a really interesting “Timeline” feature which selects key articles and arranges them by date.
