Links

Videos

This video provides a nice introduction to the conic sections  (time: 0:51)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vREfhjab9Fk

Constructing a parabolic reflector using a satellite dish (time: 10:59)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q90i31JIQ3M

History

This is one of the best all around sites that I have found. It is titled "The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive."
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/

This is an award-winning site that links to all sorts of mathematics information.
http://archives.math.utk.edu/

Apollonius
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Apollonius.html

Reference Topics

A nice overview of the conic sections can be found at this site:
http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/prime/articles/concis/index.asp

 

This is a great interactive site for graphing conic sections.
In order to use this graphing tool, you need to write the equation in the form

Ax² + Bxy + Cy² + Dx + Ey + F = 0 http://cs.jsu.edu/mcis/faculty/leathrum/Mathlets/conics.html