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: AP
October 22, 2007
Webster Hall, an East Village concert hall that was a venue for union rallies and lavish masquerade balls where gays were welcomed in the early 1900s, may soon become a New York City landmark.
The Romanesque Revival-style building, with its terra cotta ornamentation, is the city's "most historically and culturally significant 19th century assembly hall," the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission said in recommending the designation.
The commission
Source: Christian Science Monitor
October 23, 2007
Zamami, Japan - On the eve of the American invasion of this subtropical island 62 years ago, Haruko Miyahira heard her elder brother, Seishu, tell their father about an order from the Japanese military.
"My brother, who was then deputy mayor, told our father that US troops were about to land on the island, and said to him, 'We were ordered from the military to kill ourselves. Let's die together with good grace!'" Ms. Miyahira recalls.
Many older islanders like
Source: http://www.army.mil
October 22, 2007
A wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of the first U.S. service member to die in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam Conflict was conducted Sunday at West Point Cemetery.
Capt. Harry G. Cramer Jr. died Oct. 21, 1957 near Nha Trang, South Vietnam, from an explosion.
In 1957, Capt. Cramer was placed in command of a Mobile Training Team with the mission of organizing and training the cadre of the South Vietnamese Special Forces. A graduat
Source: http://www.army.mil
October 23, 2007
WUERZBURG, Germany (Army News Service, Oct. 23, 2007) - Wuerzburg's Faulenberg Kaserne, a military installation since 1877 and home to U.S. Soldiers since 1947, has been returned to the German government.
In its early days, the kaserne was a German army headquarters and stable. When the Americans moved in after World War II, Faulenberg Kaserne became home to U.S. Army, Europe's quartermaster laundry service and to a number of regional command headquarters, including the 98th Area Su
Source: AFP
October 23, 2007
Deep in the heart of northern Syria, close to the banks of the Euphrates River, archaeologists have uncovered a series of startling 11,000-year-old wall paintings and artefacts.
"The wall paintings date back to the 9th millennium BC. They were discovered last month on the wall of a house standing two metres (6.6 feet) high at Dja'de," said Frenchman Eric Coqueugniot, who has been leading the excavations on the west bank of the river at Dja'de, in an area famous for its ric
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 23, 2007
A chilling insight into the working life of Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's most famous hangman, has come to light in a set of instructions he was given when he became an assistant executioner in 1932.
Pierrepoint, who is thought to have executed more than 600 prisoners, was told that he should never draw attention to himself.
The joining orders also set Pierrepoint's pay at £1 11s 6d (about £1.58) per execution, plus the same amount again "if his conduct and behavio
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 23, 2007
A born-again Christian and devoted husband died days after a freak accident during a jousting re-enactment, which was being filmed for the Channel Four television series Time Team.
Paul Allen was struck by a splinter from a balsa wood lance, which flew through the eye slit on his helmet after impact with his shield and went into his eye socket. The historical performer underwent emergency surgery in hospital in Coventry but died a week later.
Mr Allen, a member of the r
Source: Daily Express
October 21, 2007
ORIGINAL photographs of pre-war Britain taken by the German Luftwaffe have been discovered and are now on sale through a new website.
The aerial snaps originate from a rare 140-page book printed in 1942 containing reconnaissance pictures of Scotland’s east coast, including clear photographs of RAF Kinloss, the sea approach to Edinburgh and several Aberdeen docks, which were taken clandestinely on civil flights.
However, the top-secret document was smuggled out of Nazi-o
Source: Spiegel
October 22, 2007
Historians dispute the claim by a British journalist that Nazi fanatics attending a party near the Austro-Hungarian border in March 1945 killed 200 Hungarian Jews as an "additional entertainment" laid on by the hosts. The massacre did happen, though, and the circumstances surrounding it remain unclear....
A row has broken out among historians about one of the most spectacular Nazi crimes committed in Austria. On the night of March 24 to March 25, 1945, some 200 Hungarian J
Source: Jerusalem Post
October 18, 2007
The city of Herzliya is planning to create a wall of boulders at the base of the Apollonia beach cliff in order to prevent it from crumbling further and to preserve the Crusader ruins on top, reports Ha'ir-Tzomet Hasharon. But the wall would also prevent public access to the beach and is being criticized as a "brutal" and unworkable solution to the erosion problems in the area.
According to the report, Herzliya's planning and construction sub-committee decided on the drama
Source: AP
October 22, 2007
Nobel laureate Doris Lessing said the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States were "not that terrible" when compared to attacks by the IRA in Britain.
"September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible," the Nobel Literature Prize winner told the leading Spanish daily El Pais.
"Some Americans will think I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it w
Source: State Department Transcript
October 22, 2007
SECRETARY RICE: What brings us together today is a truly remarkable achievement, both in the history of diplomacy and the diplomacy of history. Only two decades ago, the United States and the Soviet Union stood as enemies, separated by mystery and misunderstanding and prepared for war. Today, Americans and Russians are opening our archives, sharing old secrets, and trying to build newfound trust. I want to commend Mark and all the dedicated men and women of our Historian’s office, as well as th
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
October 21, 2007
Salem | ... New England in general is bewitching this time of year - the color of the leaves, the crispness of the air - but in this seaport, sorcery and the sad lessons of history are on display, always.
More than 300 years ago, 19 people were hanged and another pressed to death after being unfairly convicted of practicing witchcraft. Today, the occult is to Salem what snow is to Utah, and October is the most wonderful time of the year.
They celebrate Hallow
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 22, 2007
A new history A-level will see lessons focus on 'concepts' rather than on periods in time such as the World Wars, the Victorians and the Tudors, it emerged yesterday.
The alternative A-level, developed by the exam board OCR and heading for English secondary schools next year, breaks the convention of teaching history based on events in a particular era.
Pupils will instead study how and why totally unrelated events occurred and consider general themes, such as belief, c
Source: http://www.thetimes.co.za
October 23, 2007
Apartheid is history. So too are Pik Botha, Zapiro cartoons and Laugh It Off T-shirts.
These are just some of the notable additions to school textbooks ahead of next year’s new matric history syllabus — the first time a detailed apartheid history will be taught to Grade 12 pupils throughout the country .
South African matrics studying history will, in addition to the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, discuss Eugene de Kock and Vlakplaas, violence and reconc
Source: Kansas City Star
October 19, 2007
If you want to see one of the oldest black churches in the United States, take a tour of south Philadelphia.
At Sixth and Lombard streets you will find Mother Bethel AME Church, the first African Methodist Episcopal church in the nation.
The historic church venue was a stop on a recent tour of south Philadelphia I took with the Trotter Group, an organization of black columnists. As our tour bus came to a stop in front of the church, we saw the marker out front designati
Source: Roger Atwood, a visiting researcher at Georgetown University, in a paper delivered at a conference at Yale this past spring, as published by savingantiquities.org
October 21, 2007
Its coverage has been staggering in terms of column inches, which has been by far the greatest of these three papers, and all the more so bearing in mind how few of its stories actually bring new information to the table or break some new angle. I don't find a single article that you could properly call investigative in the entire New York Times opus on this issue during this period, not a single inquiry of its own into the provenance of antiquities at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or any other
Source: http://www.beaufortgazette.com
October 22, 2007
In the midst of the Civil War centennial in 1962, the South Carolina legislature voted the Confederate flag up to the dome of the Statehouse, adding to a long list of indelicately handled commemorations across the nation highlighting racial divides and old resentments.
With about three and a half years until the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, state history buffs are gearing up for the bevy of historic milestones from 2011 to 2015 tied to the bloody four-year co
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 22, 2007
The true face of Tutankhamun, the boy king who ruled Egypt 3,500 years ago, is to be revealed to the public for the first time.
To coincide with the opening of the exhibition of the treasures of Tutankhamun in London next month, Egyptian archaeologists are to put his mummified body on display in Luxor.
Only a handful of experts have ever seen the 19-year-old pharaoh's true likeness.
Though not the most important of Egypt's ancient rulers, Tutankhamun has ex
Source: Reuters
October 22, 2007
A plan by President Nicolas Sarkozy to commemorate a Communist resistance hero who was slain as a teenager by France’s wartime Nazi occupiers has stirred controversy and prompted accusations of manipulation by the government.
Just after his election in May, Mr. Sarkozy ordered that the farewell letter of the teenager, Guy Moquet, should be read aloud in French schools on Oct. 22, the anniversary of his death.
Mr. Moquet, a 17-year-old member of the Young Communists, was
