On December 8, 2020, the 1st open online seminar of the History of Cartography Team at the Institute of the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences, entitled “Distortions of old maps” took place. The MSTeams platform was used, and the effects were recorded and published on Youtube. As part of the seminar, the summary of the first edition of the S. Alexandrowicz competition for the best thesis on the history of cartography was presented by prof. Radosław Skrycki (University of Szczecin, chairman of the Team). Three lectures were delivered: Dr. Kamil Nieścioruk (University of Life Sciences in Lublin, ZHK) introduced the topic of map distortions and the role of research on them, Mateusz Palczewski (winner of the S. Alexandrowicz competition) talked about the challenges of calibrating Cold War city plans in the GIS environment, and Dr. Paweł E. Weszpiński (Museum of Warsaw, ZHK) shared his reflections on the research on distortions and popularizing the old plans of Warsaw. Details are available also on the attached poster and on the event’s Facebook page.