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: Telegraph (UK)
February 7, 2008
The German government is considering whether to ban a children's book in which Jews are portrayed in a way likened to anti-Semitic caricatures from the Nazi era.
The book, which has been described as being Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion for children, conducts a highly critical tour of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Not one of the priest, imam or rabbi emerges creditably from the story, called How Do I Get to God, Asked the Small Piglet, by Michael Schmidt-Salomon,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 7, 2008
After 500 years, one of Renaissance Italy's most enduring murder mysteries has been solved by forensic scientists.
Ever since Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, a mystical and mercurial philosopher at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, suddenly became sick and died in 1494, it has been rumoured that foul play was involved.
Pico's fame has faded, but he was a celebrated figure at the Medici court.
He gained notoriety when, at the age of 23, he offered to defend 90
Source: Reuters
February 6, 2008
Head lice taken from 1,000-year-old mummies in Peru support the idea that the little creatures accompanied humans on their first migration out of Africa, 100,000 years ago, researchers reported Wednesday.
Genetic tests showed the lice are nearly identical to strains found around the world that have been dated to when humans first began to colonize the rest of the world.
"It tells us that this genetic type got around the globe right as humans spread and migrated aro
Source: AP
February 5, 2008
If you drive six miles southwest of Anniston, Ala., you'll pass the spot where a bus was bombed in 1961 and the passengers - civil rights activists known as Freedom Riders - were beaten by a mob.
There's no marker there, but it's one of 400 places in a new book called "On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail" (Algonquin Books, $18.95).
Many of the sites included in the book are well-known - like the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., whe
Source: AP
February 6, 2008
Harry Richard Landis, who enlisted in the Army in 1918 and was one of only two known surviving U.S. veterans of World War I, has died. He was 108.
Landis, who lived at a Sun City Center nursing home, died Monday, according to the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs.
The remaining U.S. veteran is Frank Buckles, 107, of Charles Town, W.Va., according the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In addition, John Babcock of Spokane, Wash., 107, served in the Canadian army a
Source: Australian
February 4, 2008
HE was one of the great Australian heroes of World War I, but Bill Glasgow's memory has been sadly neglected in Brisbane, the city where he spent his twilight years.
In her last public commission before she died, acclaimed Queensland sculptor Daphne Mayo in 1964 created an impressive bronze statue of Major General Glasgow, who led his men to a crucial victory against German troops at the French town of Villers-Bretonneux on Anzac Day, 1918.
But three years after it was
Source: Australian
February 7, 2008
A BRITISH archeologist has been hired to conduct exploratory excavations to resolve the question of whether the bodies of World War I Diggers lie in pits in a field in northern France.
The Australian Army has re-engaged battlefield archeologist Tony Pollard of the Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD), despite criticism of his report of earlier work at the site, Pheasant Wood.
The decision has sidelined leading Australian experts who had offered to
Source: Jerusalem Post
February 4, 2008
A prominent Israeli archeologist said Monday that she has revised her reading of an inscription on an ancient seal uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David after various scholars around the world critiqued her original interpretation of the name on the seal.
The 2,500 year-old black stone seal was found last month amid stratified layers of debris in the excavation under way just outside the Old City walls near the Dung Gate, said archeologist Dr. Eilat M
Source: BBC
February 4, 2008
Archaeologists believe they could be closer to discovering the site of the palace belonging to the first King of a united Scotland.
The academics at Glasgow University have been studying documents and previous archaeological finds to narrow down the location in Perthshire.
They will return in August to Forteviot in the hope of uncovering evidence of Kenneth MacAlpine's wooden castle.
Source: Seattle Times
February 7, 2008
Can movies or television really teach us anything useful about African-American history? It's a reasonable question to ask as we begin Black History Month.Certainly, the legacy of such famous films as "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) and "Gone With the Wind" (1939) was to give the public a distorted view of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction while offering portrayals of African Americans that were either virulently hateful or condescending. And because of such films, says Patricia Turner, professor of African-American studies at University of California, Davis, "a lot of the public thinks that the plantation was the dominant entity on which slaves lived during the era of slavery." In fact, Turner says, "very, very few slaves lived on plantations. Most slaves lived in units that had 10 or fewer slaves on them. Very few black women were domestic servants; you had to be extraordinarily wealthy to take a woman out of the fields and to have female household servants as we see in 'Gone With the Wind,' 'North and South' and the other great plantation epics.
Source: http://europe.courrierinternational.com
February 6, 2008
For some time now, a joint Hungarian-Slovakian history textbook has been planned. Yet the textbook, following a German-French model, has not been published to date. Differences in opinion between the historians was not to blame, explains Slovakian historian Dusan Kovac in an interview with József Szilvássy. "Regarding reconciliation of the two countries, I consider the German-French example to be a model, but with one caveat. That process was initiated by the two statesmen, and only later d
Source: Newsweek
February 11, 2008
In the renovated Assyrian gallery of Baghdad's Iraq Museum, archeologist Amira Edan al-Dahab was doing what she likes best: explaining the priceless treasures in her care. Stately 3,000-year-old statues of royalty—a couple lost their heads during the museum's looting in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion—have been restored and are presiding over the vast space. Ancient stone reliefs line the walls, with intricate carving depicting the rituals of early civilization. In one panel, an Assyrian and
Source: NYT
February 6, 2008
SEATTLE — Gray and green may be the colors most associated with this forward-focused city, but it has a history in other tones, too. Chinese immigrants helped build railroads, only to be driven out later. Japanese residents were forced into internment camps during World War II. Blacks surged into the city after the war for work. Hispanics are the fastest-growing group.
This year, two new museums and a new traditional gate marking the city’s Chinatown will be completed, formally ackn
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 6, 2008
Russia is steadily "unravelling" the historic arms control treaties that ended the Cold War and became cornerstones of European security, the most comprehensive survey of global military trends said yesterday.
The Military Balance 2008 portrays Russia as breaking out of the constraints imposed by treaties once considered inviolable.
John Chipman, the head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which published the survey, said the "next targ
Source: WaPo
February 3, 2008
THE STORY BEHIND THE CONTENTIOUS STRUGGLE TO GET THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL BUILT can be told by piecing together information from hundreds of sources: books, memoirs, historical newspapers, academic and architectural journals, the Congressional Record, a doctoral thesis, letters and other documents.
An attempt to create a national monument honoring Lincoln in Washington two years after his assassination in 1865 had foundered. Lingering divisions over the Civil War precluded further talk
Source: Ralph Luker at HNN blog, Cliopatria
February 4, 2008
Greg Toppo,"High schoolers name women, black Americans 'most famous'," USA Today, 4 February, reports the results of a survey of 2,000 high school juniors and seniors to name the 10 most famous people in American history. Their top 10 and the percentage of students who included each person on their list:
1. Martin Luther King Jr.: 67%
2. Rosa Parks: 60%
3. Harriet Tubma
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
February 4, 2008
On February 4, 2008, President Bush sent his final budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2009 to Congress. Here is a summary of the proposed funding levels for programs of interest to the historical and archival communities.TEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY GRANTSThe Teaching American History grants program at the Department of Education would be substantially cut under the President Bush’s proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget. In FY ‘08 the program received $118
Source: Newsweek
February 11, 2008
During the 2000 election, Republican smear artists trying to stop the presidential campaign of John McCain spread rumors that the former POW was "nuts" because he had been "in the cage too long"—in the Hanoi Hilton for five and a half years. The campaign decided to make public Captain (now Senator) McCain's medical records, which showed that he had an enlarged prostate and trouble lifting his arms (repeatedly broken in captivity), but had been judged perfectly sane by a serie
Source: AP
February 3, 2008
The figure in the photograph is clad in Army fatigues, boots and helmet, lying on his back in peaceful repose, folded hands holding a military cap. Except for a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, he could be asleep.
But he is not asleep; he is dead. And this is not just another fallen GI; it is Ernie Pyle, the most celebrated war correspondent of World War II.
As far as can be determined, the photograph has never been published. Sixty-three years afte
Source: http://www.shreveporttimes.com
February 3, 2008
The question of the month's relevance could be ended with a look at how children are educated, said John E. Fleming, director emeritus of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, which has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"All they have to do is look at school textbooks and curriculums and see that African-American history is not a major part of what's being taught in school today, in 2008," he said. "If you survey young people about Afr
