This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: UVA Today
March 10, 2008
There's good news for historians and other enthusiasts of the founding era of American history. The Papers of George Washington, housed at the University of Virginia, has released another volume of annotated Washington documents from the Revolutionary War period. The Washington books are published and available through the University of Virginia Press.
Volume 17 of the Revolutionary War Series project on Washington covers the period from Sept. 15 through Oct. 31, 1778, a time when W
Source: CNN
March 11, 2008
The U.S. military has identified frozen remains found atop a California glacier as those of a World War II era airman who vanished more than half a century ago.
Ernest G. Munn had been missing since his training flight disappeared over the Sierra Nevada mountain range on November 18, 1942, the U.S. military said Monday. He was 23 at the time.
Last year, two hikers found the frozen remains of a man with blond, wavy hair in a remote area of Kings Canyon, east of Fresno, C
Source: AP
March 10, 2008
Greek workers discovered around 1,000 graves, some filled with ancient treasures, while excavating for a subway system in the historic city of Thessaloniki, the state archaeological authority said Monday.
Some of the graves, which dated from the first century B.C. to the 5th century A.D., contained jewelry, coins and various pieces of art, the Greek archaeological service said in a statement.
Thessaloniki was founded around 315 B.C. and flourished during the Roman and B
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 11, 2008
An American envoy has claimed that he played a critical role in the fate of Aldo Moro, the former Italian prime minister who was murdered by terrorists in 1978.
Steve Pieczenik, an international crisis manager and hostage negotiator in the State Department, said that Moro had been "sacrificed" for the "stability" of Italy.
In a new book called We Killed Aldo Moro, Mr Pieczenik said he was sent to Italy by President Jimmy Carter on the day that Moro w
Source: International Herald Tribune
March 10, 2008
The construction of what is sometimes called the "Death Railway" linking Thailand with colonial Burma in the 1940s became a symbol of the cruelty inflicted by Japanese troops as they sought to conquer the lands of East Asia and beyond. Yet the largest group of victims, an estimated 70,000 Asian laborers, are barely commemorated here in Kanchanaburi and their remains lie for the most part where the Japanese dumped them: scattered up and down the railway line that is still partially in u
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 11, 2008
Those filled with despair at the prevalence of binge drinking in 21st-century Britain cannot say they were not warned - Sir Walter Raleigh cautioned over the dangers of alcohol more than 400 years ago.
The one-time favourite of Queen Elizabeth I even wrote a little-known treatise on the matter, warning future generations - and his son, also called Walter, in particular - that excessive alcohol consumption "transformeth a Man into a Beast" and was "a bewitching and inf
Source: Reuters
March 10, 2008
The wreck of a British warship sunk by the Germans during World War Two, killing more than 100 men, has been discovered on the bottom of a deep fjord in the north of Norway, the Norwegian Navy said.
HMS Hunter went down on April 10, 1940, in the Ofot fjord outside of the Arctic port of Narvik during the first of two battles between the British and the Nazis, during which several other ships were sunk and never seen again in the deep inlet.
Source: NYT
March 11, 2008
By now, many of the more publicized escapades have become embedded in political lore, from President Clinton encounters with Monica Lewinsky to Sen. Bob Packwood and his unwanted advances on women to Rep. Mark Foley and his lewd e-mails to House pages.
Who can forget the late Wilbur D. Mills, the one-time powerful head of the House Ways and Means committee, and his dalliances back in 1975 with the stripper Fanne Foxe? She’s the one who barreled out of Mr. Mills’s car and waded into
Source: The New Zealand Herald
March 11, 2008
Ned Kelly's resting place has been found among bones dug up at Australia's former Pentridge Prison site. The breakthrough solves an 80-year-old mystery, News Limited newspapers report. The grave site of Australia's most notorious bushranger was unearthed after historians and archaeologists found a Department of Justice document that contained a vital clue."We have still some testing to do, but it's pretty clear we have found them," Heritage Victoria senior archeologist Jere
Source: McClatchy Newspapers
March 10, 2008
An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were d
Source: AP
March 4, 2008
When beachcombers found two small cannons that likely came from the 1846 wreck of the Navy schooner Shark on the north Oregon coast, the state assumed it had some priceless artifacts. And for now, it does.
But the Navy reminded Oregon that if the cannons were Navy property back then, they’re Navy property now — 162 years notwithstanding.
There is no immediate sign the Navy will come get its guns, which are fairly rare. The shipwreck itself closed out a little-known chap
Source: BBC
March 7, 2008
Archaeologists have found what they describe as a remarkable Iron Age waterhole on the site of an extension to York University. The waterhole complete with a preserved wickerwork lining was revealed during excavations in Heslington village.
Source: BBC
March 7, 2008
About 3,000 skeletons are to be reburied in an Anglo-Saxon ceremony at a North Lincolnshire church where they were discovered almost 30 years ago.
The ancient language will be used by the Reverend David Rowett at St Peters Church in Barton-upon-Humber to mark the return of the historic bones.
Unearthed between 1978 and 1984, the bones have been used by English Heritage to research diseases.
Source: Times (UK)
March 10, 2008
Drug pushers, the obscenely rich, environmental polluters and “manipulative” genetic scientists beware – you may be in danger of losing your mortal soul unless you repent.
After 1,500 years the Vatican has brought the seven deadly sins up to date by adding seven new ones for the age of globalisation. The list, published yesterday in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, came as the Pope deplored the “decreasing sense of sin” in today’s “securalised world” and the falling numb
Source: AP
March 9, 2008
A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor.
Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.
Source: AP
March 7, 2008
Researchers at the former Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp have finished compiling a list of nearly 12,000 Germans who died there during its use as an internment camp by the Soviets after World War II.
On Thursday, memorial officials released the 260-page document, saying they aimed in part to provide a measure of closure to the families of those who died.
"The book of names will serve as a monument to the dead," said Horst Seferens, a spokesman for the S
Source: AP
March 8, 2008
Heinrich Boere's first victim was a pharmacist. Two more victims would follow on a single day, one gunned down at point-blank range in his doorway, the other on the road.
And although the killing spree happened in 1944, a footnote to the far greater carnage raging across World War II Europe, it still haunts Germany and Holland, leaving a sense of justice denied by dueling court systems despite the continent's long march to unity and harmonized institutions.
Boere was pa
Source: Press Release--Montpelier
March 10, 2008
The $24 million restoration of James Madison’s Montpelier will be a featured segment on the "CBS Sunday Morning Show." The show will air on Madison’s birthday Sunday, March 16.
Correspondent Rita Braver and the CBS production crew spent two days delving into the life of James Madison at Montpelier, and his eminent role in shaping our nation’s history as “Father of the Constitution.”
Montpelier is the lifelong home of Madison, the nation’s fourth president. T
Source: Independent (UK)
March 9, 2008
The tomb was opened just after midnight, in the bitter cold. The Vatican did not want too many people around as it exhumed Padre Pio, a man whose millions of followers say he could foresee the future and be in two places at once. "As soon as we got inside we could clearly make out the beard," said Domenico D'Ambrosio, the archbishop who led the ceremony early on Monday morning. "The top part of the skull is partly skeletal, but the chin is perfect and the rest of the body is well
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 10, 2008
Some of the world's best preserved prehistoric landscapes survive in pristine condition at the bottom of the North Sea, archaeologists claimed yesterday.
Academic interest in what are being described as drowned Stone Age hunting grounds is likely to increase dramatically after the discovery of 28 Neanderthal flint axes on the sea bed off the East Anglian coast.
Dating from at least 50,000-60,000 years ago, they were found with other flint artefacts, a large number of ma
