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: NYT
December 6, 2007
The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.
Source: AP
December 6, 2007
Children carried gas masks to the playground. Military officers commanded civilian courts under martial law. Residents feared enemy troops would parachute into the mountains and then swarm the beaches.
This year's 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor offers reminders of how the assault upended the lives of Hawaii's civilians, in addition to the severe damage inflicted on the military.
"It was scary," said Joan Martin Rodby, who had to carry
Source: Reuters
December 6, 2007
Four 13th century copies of the Magna Carta, considered to be one of the most important documents in the history of democracy, go on public display next week for the first time in nearly 800 years.
The four, three of which date from 1217 and one from 1225, are held by Oxford University's Bodleian Library and represent nearly one quarter of the surviving 13th century Magna Carta manuscripts in the world.
"These three 1217 charters are a unique historical collection,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 6, 2007
Buried somewhere under a large, comfortable house in Johannesburg's northern suburbs lies Nelson Mandela's gun.
A semi-automatic Makarov pistol, either Russian or Bulgarian-made, it was given to him by Colonel Biru Tadesse, an Ethiopian army officer who trained him in guerrilla insurgency in the early 1960s.
In his memoirs, Long Walk to Freedom, the future Nobel peace prize laureate wrote of his teacher: "I was grateful, both for the gun and his instruction."
Source: NYT
December 6, 2007
Over the past 40 years, Mr. Leal, the official historian of Havana, has pulled off a most unusual feat. While much of Cuba’s infrastructure has crumbled and its economy has limped along, he has rebuilt and refurbished more than 300 landmark buildings in Old Havana, from fortresses built in the colonial days to famous nightspots and hotels of the city’s swinging era just before the Cuban revolution.
The center of the city was once a dark warren of cobblestone streets, worn facades an
Source: AFP
December 5, 2007
A tiny and extremely rare 5,000-year-old white limestone sculpture from ancient Mesopotamia sold for 57.2 million dollars in New York on Wednesday, smashing records for both sculpture and antiquities.
The carved Guennol Lioness, measuring just over eight centimeters (3 1/4 inches) tall, was described by Sotheby's auction house as one of the last known masterworks from the dawn of civilization remaining in private hands.
"It was an honor for us to handle The Guennol
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
December 6, 2007
When the Central Intelligence Agency released several declassified
histories of its clandestine services program this week, it seemed like
a solid indication of progress towards opening up the historical record
of U.S. intelligence (Secrecy News, 12/05/07).
But upon closer inspection of the newly released documents, the
opposite appears to be closer to the truth. It turns out that CIA has
engaged in pointless multiple reviews of the same document, and has
even attempted to classify
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 5, 2007
One of two surviving leaves from a Mozart manuscript has been sold for a record £110,900 at auction.
The page from a draft for the Sinfonia Concertante - regarded by many as the composer's first masterpiece - went under the hammer at Sotheby's in London.
Source: NYT
December 5, 2007
The Flushing Remonstrance made a rare visit yesterday to the old neighborhood.
The fragile, fire-scorched, 350-year-old document arrived secretly by courier at the Queens Public Library in Flushing. Marie Culver, a preservation expert from the New York State Archives in Albany who accompanied the Remonstrance during its journey to Queens, immediately began installing an exhibition of the document, an important early recorded defense of the freedom to worship that has been called the
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
December 5, 2007
The Central Intelligence Agency has recently declassified and released several additional volumes of its coveted Clandestine Services History series. These are official Agency histories prepared for internal use
regarding significant episodes in the Agency's cold war record.
Scholarly access to such documents has been sporadic and subject to strict controls.
The following clandestine service history volumes were approved for release in July 2007 following a new
Source: National Security Archive Press Release (Click here to read the Harpers article.)
December 4, 2007
Harpers Magazine carries a feature article this month by the National Security Archive's Kate Doyle on what has been described by the New York Times as “the biggest trove of files found in the history of Latin America.” Titled “The Atrocity Files: Deciphering the Archives of Guatemala's Dirty War,” the 7,000-word article describes the massive effort underway to rescue the recently discovered records of the brutal former Guatemalan National Police – estimates are that the collection may reach 50
Source: http://www.mentalfloss.com/
November 29, 2007
During World War II, the British secret service hatched a master plan to smuggle escape gear to captured Allied soldiers inside Germany. Their secret weapon? Monopoly boxes. The original notion was simple enough: Find a way to sneak useful items into prison camps in an unassuming form. But the idea to use Monopoly came from a series of happy coincidences, all of which started with maps.
Source: USA Today
December 4, 2007
Are you feelin' groovy? Do you remember when you didn't trust anybody over 30? Does the word "plastics" bring to mind Dustin Hoffman?
If you're a baby boomer, you'll probably get this. And now, so will some college kids.
They're the first group of students at American University taking a class called "Talking About My Parents' Generation: Understanding Baby Boomers and How They've Shaped Us."
Communication professor Leonard Steinhorn's honors
Source: Clarion-Ledger
December 2, 2007
Billy Wayne Posey has admitted he was with the Klansmen who chased, kidnapped, shot and buried three civil rights workers in Neshoba County in the summer of 1964.
But the state can't use his confession and never charged him in the killings.
The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of his statement and nearly 40,000 pages of mostly sealed federal and state documents.
These documents include the entire FBI file in the June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, An
Source: Guardian
December 4, 2007
Britain's largest Muslim body has voted to end its boycott of Holocaust memorial day, the Guardian has learned.
The Muslim Council of Britain voted this weekend to end its six-year protest, which had angered the government and Jewish groups.
The decision may lead to some groups leaving the MCB, an umbrella organisation with over 500 members. Its working committee voted 18 to 8 to end the boycott, which began in 2001. Those who voted to attend said the stance had allowed the M
Source: Brian M. Sobel in the WSJ
December 4, 2007
[Mr. Sobel is a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers and an on-air political and military analyst for several radio and TV stations.]
On Dec. 7, 1941, just after 8 a.m., a 1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb penetrated the decks of the USS Arizona, striking the forward magazine. The resulting explosion was volcanic as nearly a million pounds of gunpowder erupted into a fireball of death and destruction. The Arizona would sink in nine minutes, taking to the harbor floor 1,177
Source: Guardian
December 3, 2007
A once top-secret manuscript that is widely recognised as a milestone in the development of modern rockets is to go under the hammer in New York today.
Wernher von Braun, the Nazi physicist-turned-leading figure in US space exploration, created the 166-page document for his PhD dissertation in April 1934. It contains the scientist's handwritten annotations as well as his charts and graphs.
Von Braun was awarded a doctorate in physics on the basis of the dissertation, bu
Source: NYT
December 2, 2007
At 91, [George M. Houser is] one of only two people alive who participated in the first freedom ride through the segregated South that preceded the famous one of 1961 by 14 years.
And at a time when religion in American politics almost invariably means the religious right, he’s a vibrant reminder that faith cuts through politics from more than one direction, with more than one message.
Mr. Houser, a Methodist minister, isn’t forgotten. He’s often cited in civil rights
Source: Guardian
December 5, 2007
Nearly two years after the internationally acclaimed author Orhan Pamuk narrowly escaped imprisonment for statements that were thought to "insult Turkishness", the publisher of a British writer goes on trial today accused of the same charge.
Ragip Zarakolu is facing up to three years in prison for publishing a book - promoting reconciliation between Turks and Armenians - by George Jerjian, a writer living in London.
Jerjian's book, The Truth Will Set Us Free,
Source: http://www.bnd.com
December 3, 2007
Baron Manfred von Richthofen buzzed above the muddy World War I battlefields in his red Fokker tri-plane, downing a record 80 Allied aircraft on his way to becoming the war's top fighter ace and earning the famed "Red Baron" nom de guerre.
But von Richthofen, who was shot down and killed just before his 26th birthday in 1918, has been a legend in limbo since Poland's borders moved west after World War II and swallowed the baron's hometown of Schweidnitz -- today called Swi
