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
September 1, 2007
A modest archaeological museum in Aidone, Sicily, is heralding the return of two sixth-century B.C. marble sculptures that have haunting smiles and a somewhat mysterious past. The artifacts are believed to have been looted from Morgantina, an ancient Greek settlement whose ruins lie next to Aidone.
The acroliths — statues usually made with wooden trunks but stone heads and extremities — were once owned by the New York businessman Maurice Tempelsman. For the last five years they have
Source: AP
August 1, 2007
What began as a ninth-grade prank, a way to trick already-suspicious friends who had fallen for his earlier practical jokes, has earned Rich Skrenta notoriety as the first person ever to let loose a personal computer virus.
Although over the next 25 years, Skrenta started the online news business Topix, helped launch a collaborative Web directory now owned by Time Warner Inc.'s Netscape and wrote countless other computer programs, he is still remembered most for unleashing the &quo
Source: 1010 Wins
August 30, 2007
Anne King was 19 and earning $12 a week in a Kresge's dime store when she was recruited in 1942 to learn how to make airplane parts from blueprints. At Republic Aviation on Long Island, she worked both as a mechanic and riveter on P-47 Thunderbolt fighters and other aircraft.
King and five other women who performed wartime factory work (almost always for less money than men working at the same tasks) will gather at what is now Republic Airport in Farmingdale on Friday and take ride
Source: Michael Beschloss in Newsweek
September 3, 2007
Shortly before George Washington retired as president in 1797, two of his cherished house slaves—Martha's helper Oney Judge and their chef, Hercules—ran away. Tracked down at Washington's order, Oney tried to set strict conditions for her return, which the old general refused. As for Hercules, he just disappeared.
Despite Washington's indignation over the "disloyalty" of his "Negroes," slavery was one of the few subjects in his life that the first president was a
Source: China Daily
August 31, 2007
Researchers have found in Southwest China a cemetery built during the Second World War where about 300 air warriors of the US squadron "Flying Tigers" were buried.
The cemetery lies in the woods in Puzhao village in the northeastern suburbs of Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, said Sun Guansheng, head of the Yunnan Flying Tigers Research Association.
About 300 Flying Tigers members and 500 Chinese airmen were buried in the cemetery when it was first built n
Source: http://pakistaniat.com (Click here to see a picture.)
August 30, 2007
The Confederate Battle Flag (commonly called the Southern Cross) was first designed during the American Civil War (in 1861) by the Army of Northern Virginia. The 13 stars on the flag symbolize the original 11 US confederate states plus Kentucky and Missouri. 146 years later, the flag has found a new home. It is being used as decoration in a village fruit shop outside Islamabad. Wonder if the shopkeeper knows about the flag?
Source: BBC
August 30, 2007
From Vietnamese spoon music to the first ever recording of bird song, the BBC presides over an extensive sound archive. The fact it almost wound up on a scrap heap only to be saved by a "temp" is one of the great untold stories of broadcasting history - until now.
In 1936 Marie Slocombe was working as a summer relief secretary at the BBC.
One of her tasks was to sort out - and dispose of - a pile of dusty broadcast discs. She noticed that among them were recor
Source: http://www.praguepost.com
August 29, 2007
Historian Jana Bachová fingers a table-size binder of yellowing posters. Some are scrawled on paper bakery bags, others carefully lettered in tri-colored ink, bearing the stamps of illegal printing presses. Their messages channel a spectrum of emotions, ranging from derogatory anti-Russian slurs and revolutionary slogans to humorist rhymes and sentimental poetry.
As a whole, they embody the “colloquial creativity” of a resistant nation, Bachová says.
“It’s an appellation to t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 31, 2007
A Pacific islander who saved the life of John F Kennedy during the Second World War has been recognised for his bravery - 64 years later.
Kennedy was a US navy lieutenant when the motor torpedo boat he commanded was inadvertently rammed and cut in two by a Japanese destroyer one night in the Solomon Islands in 1943.
[Aaron Kumana was one of two "natives" who helped Kennedy send a message on a coconut about the sinking of his vessel.]
Source: KGCL
August 30, 2007
Federal agents spied on the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. for several years after his assassination in 1968, according to newly released documents that reveal the FBI worried about her following in the footsteps of the slain civil rights icon.
Coretta Scott King might try to tie "the anti-Vietnam movement to the civil rights movement" according to some of the nearly 500 pages of intelligence files, which go on to show how the FBI trailed King at public appearances and ke
Source: National Geographic News
August 29, 2007
Ancient mass graves containing more than 1,500 victims of the bubonic plague have been discovered on a small island in Italy's Venetian Lagoon.
Workers came across the skeletons while digging the foundation for a new museum on Lazzaretto Vecchio, a small island in the lagoon's south, located a couple of miles from Venice's famed Piazza San Marco (see an aerial picture of the Venetian Lagoon).
The island is believed to be the world's first lazaret—a quarantine colony int
Source: http://www.news.com.au
August 30, 2007
A COIN found in a swamp could help prove a Spanish or Portuguese ship was wrecked on Australia's east coast years before Captain James Cook's voyage.
The coin, found in a snake-infested marsh, could help prove a century-old theory that a Spanish or Portuguese ship was wrecked on Australia’s east coast years before Captain Cook’s famed voyage of discovery.
The find, made by an expedition led by self-funded Brisbane historian Greg Jeffreys, is the first piece of dated ev
Source: AP
August 31, 2007
Gabriel Prosser, who was hanged for leading a failed slave revolt in 1800, has won a symbolic gubernatorial pardon. Prosser and 34 supporters were executed in Richmond on Aug. 30, 1800, after two slaves revealed the planned uprising in Richmond, known as Gabriel's Rebellion.
In his informal pardon, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Prosser was motivated by 'his devotion to the ideals of the American revolution _ it was worth risking death to secure liberty.''Gabriel's
Source: University of Cambridge
August 31, 2007
A team of archaeologists, including scholars from the University of Cambridge, have unveiled new research that could rewrite the history of the world's earliest cities.
Surveys at the ancient settlement of Tell Brak, in north-east Syria, have produced fresh evidence that indicates the first urban settlements were the result of natural migration, and not the artificial creations of those in power.Academics have traditionally believed that the growth of ancient ci
Source: Birmingham News
August 31, 2007
A curious history buff may have found a Civil War-era vessel in the Yazoo River. This week, near drought conditions left the water level so low that a boat was visible in the river bottom.Bob Harston of Silver City, Mississippi, said he's heard stories about the Confederate vessel in the river for years. Harston called Vicksburg National Military Park historian Terry Winschel, who traveled to the site Monday with an archaeologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Source: NYT
August 31, 2007
An Indian judge, remembered by fewer and fewer of his own countrymen 40 years after his death, is still big in Japan.
In recent weeks alone, NHK, the public broadcaster, devoted 55 minutes of prime time to his life, and a scholar came out with a 309-page book exploring his thinking and its impact on Japan. Capping it all, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, during a visit to India last week, paid tribute to him in a speech to the Indian Parliament in New Delhi and then traveled to Calcutta
Source: NYT
August 30, 2007
Mr. Bush, by temperament, governing style and political design, is a polarizing president like no other, pollsters say. And no reshuffling of administration staff members or an incremental wave of good news is likely to change that.
Consider the numbers. Over the last year, Mr. Bush’s approval rating among Democrats has hovered around or below 10 percent in The New York Times/CBS News Poll. At the same time, his approval rating among Republicans has hovered in the 60s and 70s.
Source: NYT
August 30, 2007
WHY would some people willingly spend decades — and hundreds of thousands of dollars — renovating houses they will never own? For a small but growing number of so-called resident curators living in old and cherished state-owned houses up and down the East Coast, the answers include the pleasure of bringing an abandoned landmark back to life, freedom from mortgage payments and the chance to live in the kind of home that would otherwise be out of reach.
“We’re people of modest means,”
Source: http://antiquesandthearts.com
August 22, 2007
If you do not believe auctioneer Bill Mishoe has the patience of Job, consider the tug of war he has endured over a trove of Civil War letters that were first due to be auctioned three years ago and are now set to cross the block September 29.
Back in August 2004, Mishoe had scheduled an auction of more than 400 Civil War letters, when to his shock and dismay — as well as to the many collectors who had traveled to Columbia for the sale and the consignor himself — representatives of
Source: HNN Staff summary of blog at www.brianbeutler.com
August 27, 2007
A liberal blogger has posted the Princeton PhD dissertation of US commander David Petraeus. The dissertation, dated 1987, concerned,"The American military and the lessons of Vietnam: A study of military influence and the use of force in the post-Vietnam era."
Blogger Brian Beutler quotes this section of the dissertation:
[M]any in the military believe that the United States armed forces can win small wars if allowed to do so. Those who hold this vie
