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)
August 25, 2007
Legend has it that the royal tombs of ancient Egypt were sealed with monstrous curses against all those who trespassed into the domain of the afterlife....
Howard Carter, the lead archaeologist who opened the tomb in 1923, wrote that "all sane people should dismiss such inventions with contempt".
But a German man has decided the curse of the mummies is definitely not a myth - and has therefore returned a plundered ancient Egyptian carving which he says has fat
Source: Scotsman.com
August 13, 2007
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have unearthed the remains of a medieval tower at Edinburgh Castle thought to have been lost forever.
Fragments of Constable's Tower, which was destroyed by Elizabeth I's army during a siege, were found during excavation work for the attraction's new visitor centre.
A team of experts found a drain beneath the surface just inside the Castle's main portcullis gate, where a new timber kiosk selling audio tours is to be built.
They were amazed to
Source: Reuters
August 14, 2007
For more than eight centuries the "Towers of Victory" -- monuments to Afghanistan's greatest empire -- have survived wars and invasions, but now weather and neglect could cause them to come crashing down.
From its base in the Afghan city of Ghazni, the dynasty of Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi extended its rule to stretch from the River Tigris in modern day Iraq to the River Ganges in India.
The two toffee-colored minarets, adorned with terra-cotta tiles were raised
Source: Miami Today
August 16, 2007
A temporary fix to the crumbling seawall adjacent to the famed Miami Circle in Brickell is just about complete, says State Archeologist Ryan Wheeler — but circle supporters will have to wait until at least next summer to see any further movement in securing the site.
Should the Legislature in March grant a $2.5 million request for funds to construct a permanent wall, the money could come in by July, Mr. Wheeler said, with construction to begin later in the year.
Source: http://www.ireland.com
August 21, 2007
Newly discovered 2000-year-old ruins at the Hill of Tara must be fully preserved because of their unique size and character, a US academic today said.
State archaeologists began excavation work on the prehistoric Lismullen structure earlier this month, claiming it was under threat from adverse weather.
Dr Ronald Hicks of Ball State University, Indiana, argues it is part of a larger ancient ritual complex and must be preserved in situ. He contends Lismullen is comparable
Source: Daily Tarheel
August 23, 2007
State-sponsored divers kicked off an intensive underwater search for booty Wednesday, more than a decade after shipwreck researchers discovered the ruins of Blackbeard's flagship off the N.C. coast.
Mike Daniel, leader of the crew that found Queen Anne's Revenge, said the pace of the excavation is only now picking up despite his years of pressuring the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources to do what he called "serious expeditions."
"It's been 10 years si
Source: AP
August 24, 2007
The mangled remains of a vessel found in the Bering Sea are likely those of a World War II submarine that disappeared with a crew of 70 off the Aleutian Island of Kiska.
The discovery of the USS Grunion on Wednesday night culminates a five-year search led by the sons of its commander, Mannert Abele, and may finally shine a light on the mysterious last moments of the doomed vessel.
"Obviously, this is a very big thing," the oldest son, Bruce Abele, said Thursd
Source: NYT
August 25, 2007
Reputed Ku Klux Klansman James Ford Seale showed no emotion Friday as he was sentenced to three life terms in prison for his role in the segregation-era abduction and killing of two black teenagers.
Seale, 72, was convicted June 14 on federal charges of kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, two 19-year-olds who disappeared May 2, 1964. Seale and other Klansman beat them, then dumped them into the Mississippi River still alive, accordi
Source: WaPo
August 23, 2007
Arthur Bremer, the man who attempted to assassinate Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace during his 1972 presidential campaign will be released later this year, Maryland corrections officials confirmed today.
The candidate was 52 years old on that May afternoon in Maryland -- 52 and surging in his third bid for the nomination, having won three Democratic primaries and expected to win in Maryland and Michigan.
Surrounded by a boisterous crowd of about 2,000 in the parking lot
Source: AP
August 24, 2007
The remains of the last czar's hemophiliac son and heir to the Russian throne, missing since the royal family was gunned down nine decades ago by Bolsheviks in a basement room, may have been found, an archaeologist said Thursday.
Bones were found in a burned area in the ground near Yekaterinburg, the city where Czar Nicholas II and his wife and children were held prisoner and then shot in 1918.
A top local archaeologist said the bones belong to a boy and a young woman r
Source: History Today
August 23, 2007
Throughout time, physicians have made their mark on history. Think of such luminaries as Hippocrates, Alexander Fleming and his invention of penicillin, Edward Jenner and small pox vaccination, Louis Pasteur and microbiology, Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. All of whom arguably had a profound effect on the course of history.
Now Blackwell, in celebration of the opening of its new flagship medical bookstore, is launching a search for unsung medical heroes, those physicians who never recei
Source: Chicago Tribune
August 23, 2007
... "This was history written by speechwriters without regard to history," said military analyst Anthony Cordesman. "And I think most military historians will find it painful ... because in basic historical terms the president misstated what happened in Vietnam."
Indeed, the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam did not create a domino effect of spreading communism, as was feared. Instead Vietnam went to war against two neighboring communist states, Cambodia and China. No
Source: Mercury News
August 23, 2007
History San Jose, Silicon Valley's largest historical organization, is almost out of money - and without a quick subsidy advance from the city, its leaders say, it will be forced next month to cut back or eliminate programs for South Bay students and other functions.
"We're sort of hanging on by our toenails here," History San Jose President Alida Bray said Wednesday after pleading the organization's case for an advance on its quarterly city subsidy of more than $140,000.
Source: BBC
August 24, 2007
Nazi-era board games are being auctioned this week, one with points given for bombing UK cities. But what were British children playing during WWII? It wasn't all hopscotch and conkers, the Brits had their own propaganda games.
Model Spitfires and Hurricanes were commonplace in the toy boxes of the 1940s. The war touched every aspect of life and had a profound effect on childhood.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill demanded that all the country's energies were dedicated t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 24, 2007
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who may be canonised as a saint by the Vatican later this year, had a deep crisis of faith in God for the last 40 years of her life, according to a new set of her letters.
The correspondence, which spans most of Mother Teresa's life, shows that she felt alone and in a state of spiritual pain from around 1949, roughly the time when she started taking care of the poor and dying in Calcutta.
Although she publicly proclaimed that her heart belonged"entirely to
Source: NYT
August 24, 2007
CALCUTTA— Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan voiced admiration on Thursday for two Indians who stood up to Britain, the country’s colonial ruler, during World War II and sided with Japan.
Mr. Abe came here to meet relatives of the two, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a nationalist leader who advocated armed resistance to the British, and Radhabinod Pal, the sole judge who dissented at the Allied tribunal that condemned to death war-time Japanese leaders.
“Many Japanese have
Source: BBC
August 22, 2007
Scientists in Pennsylvania believe they have found a mass grave containing the bodies of 57 Irish immigrants who died 175 years ago.
The men from Donegal, Tyrone and Londonderry had made the journey across the Atlantic in the summer of 1832 to work on the railroads, but their time in the US was tragically short.
Mystery still surrounds the question of how they met their deaths just six weeks after getting off the boat - a cholera epidemic was blamed, but foul play has n
Source: NYT
August 23, 2007
An unusual program that allows Austrians to volunteer in Holocaust institutions in the United States in lieu of serving in the Austrian military has been disrupted because of difficulties in obtaining visas from the American government.
Officials with the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust said the visa application for a prospective Austrian intern had been rejected twice since May and was on a final appeal. The museum was informed by the immigration authorities that the program wa
Source: Christian Science Monitor
August 24, 2007
Gettysburg, PA. - In 1863, Abraham Lincoln stood here and gave the speech that was to become his most famous. With brevity and eloquence he spoke of the liberty and equality upon which this country was founded. He looked forward to the Union's salvation, the end of slavery – and "a new birth of freedom."
What he couldn't have foreseen delivering the Gettysburg Address that afternoon was that a Southern colonel would one day claim this hallowed ground in the form of a KFC j
Source: LAT
August 23, 2007
For more than half a century, Rachel Kane kept the memories at bay.
There were her daughters to think of, twins born in a displaced persons camp in the aftermath of the second World War. Kane didn't want to burden them with tales of the Holocaust, of a husband shot to death by the Nazis, a baby who starved to death in the forest, an extended family wiped out in a mass execution....
[But then dementia set in after her second husband passed away.] Lying in her room at th
