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: Gulf Daily News (Middle East)
August 19, 2007
The purported death mask of Napoleon on show in a Paris museum is not that of the emperor, a historian alleged yesterday.
Bruno Rey Henry said the real death mask had been auctioned to an unidentified individual in 2004.
He said the mask in Paris's military museum does not display a scar on the left cheek.
The French example also did not match up to Napoleon's known appearance, with a big head and powerful jaw, he added.
The French daily Libera
Source: International Herald Tribune
August 19, 2007
HWACHEON, South Korea: For two decades now, the erratic fortunes of the massive Peace Dam here near the demilitarized zone have mirrored the tortuous relationship between North and South. As the two sides' leaders prepare for their summit meeting in early October, a review of its curious history suggests the barriers they must overcome in the quest for reconciliation.
The story goes back to 1986, when, as South Korea was busy preparing for its biggest-ever international event, the 1
Source: Chicago Tribune
August 19, 2007
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - The breathless horseman who galloped down Duke of Gloucester Street bearing news of the battles of Lexington and Concord seemed to have ridden straight out of the 18th Century.
His long hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He wore a tricornered hat and knee breeches. His burnt-orange cutaway coat flapped in the breeze. He was an authentic Virginia colonial down to the square buckles on his shoes.
But the wire-thin microphone that wrapped around his ch
Source: AP
August 19, 2007
PHIPPSBURG, Maine --Three months ago, President Bush and Queen Elizabeth II traveled to Virginia's Tidewater region to highlight the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America.
Compared to Jamestown, the Popham Colony gets short shrift in the history books and its anniversary celebration that begins this week will be a low-key affair.
But the 120 settlers who struggled through a cruel Maine winter
Source: KansasCity.com
August 17, 2007
Silas Goodrich was not having a good day.
A catfish bit his hand and sweat from the 100-degree heat was dripping under his Army uniform.
Famed explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark waited anxiously nearby at the fork of the Kansas and Missouri rivers for him to catch a meal for their hungry crew.
He dunked his arms into the muddy water.
A semi truck whizzed past.
The 19th century fisherman disappeared.
Rolland Love wa
Source: WaPo
August 18, 2007
He sneaks into the cemetery every year at night in the dead of winter, the mysterious man in black, to pay his respects at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe. And in his wake, he never fails to leave three roses and a bottle of cognac.
For decades this mystery has drawn thousands to the famed poet's grave in the heart of Baltimore and spawned much speculation. Why the black garb? Why cognac? And just who is this man?This week, Sam Porpora, a Poe historian,
Source: http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com
August 18, 2007
The degree of state business that's transacted through e-mail is large and growing. If you're a historian, a lawyer, a student, an activist or a plain old citizen doing research who wants to know how a decision was made, then you have the right -- through the state's Freedom of Access Act, if necessary -- to see almost all the documents, including e-mails, that relate to that decision's evolution.
But what happens if someone in possession of those e-mails hits the delete button?
Source: Toronto Star
August 18, 2007
We're in the heart of Quebec City, walking from the National Assembly having just taken a clue from the words you see on Quebec licence plates: "Je me souviens."
We are members of "the Order of Good Time" and we are solving a mystery called Champlain's Prophecy. And we are rushing to City Hall to pick up another clue near a Jesuit ruin. All this came about because wife Carol and I and our travelling companions Ken and Kelly Bowman, decided the best way to see and
Source: Times (UK)
August 18, 2007
It was one of Britain’s finest Edwardian buildings until an IRA bomb ripped through its Portland stone and red granite façade in 1992.
The Baltic Exchange, built in 1903 with an opulence befitting the headquarters of global maritime trade, could not be restored on site and its marble columns, teak panelling and plaster sea monsters made way for Sir Norman Foster’s Swiss Re tower – better known as the Gherkin.
After spending nearly a decade in various salvage yards aroun
Source: NYT
August 19, 2007
THE sands may be running out on the Bush administration, but there is still time for a June wedding in the White House.
Jenna Bush, the more rambunctious of President Bush’s 25-year-old twin daughters, got engaged last week. The family has been short on further details. But it stands to reason that the wedding could take place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where Miss Bush’s fiancé, Henry Hager, 29, once worked as an aide to Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s soon-to-be-ex top political strategist
Source: Huffington Post (Blog) Click on SOURCE for embedded links.
August 19, 2007
Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove continued his farewell tour Sunday with an appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press." Rove repeated his attacks on Hillary Clinton, citing her negative ratings, and faced tough questioning from substitute host David Gregory on the legacy he will leave. Rove attempted to justify the White House's handling of Iraq by quoting Napoleon, saying "Your battle plan doesn't survive the first contact with the enemy."
Source: AP
August 19, 2007
Holocaust survivors move closer this week to being able to find a paper trail of their own persecution when [the International Tracing Service] keepers of a Nazi archive deliver copies of Gestapo papers and concentration camp records to museums in Washington and Jerusalem.
For a survivor, it could be discovering one's name on a list of deportees crammed into a cattle car; a record of a fiendish medical experiment from which physical or mental scars remain; an innocuous-looking "
Source: AP
August 19, 2007
ISPAS, Ukraine - It is a story of courage and kindness during the first tragic days of the Holocaust in Ukraine — the tale of how a village rose up against an anti-Semitic gang of killers to save its Jewish neighbors.
A researcher stumbled on the inspiring story this year. Now some of Ukraine's Jewish leaders plan to raise a monument, host a delegation of students from Israel and stage a ceremony Wednesday honoring this small farming community in western Ukraine.
But 66
Source: NYT
August 19, 2007
People looked up, as they did that day in September, in awe and in horror. They clustered in groups, holding cellphones to their ears and cameras to their eyes as a plume of smoke hovered over Lower Manhattan once again.
Yet it was more than the sight that reminded some of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks nearly six years ago. It was the sounds and the smell: breaking glass clanking its way down a burning skyscraper, a helicopter’s whir somewhere above, an acrid, noxious scent filling
Source: NYT
August 19, 2007
Michael K. Deaver, who arranged some of Ronald Reagan’s most memorable photographic backdrops for public consumption and privately gave the president blunt, sometimes contrarian advice, died yesterday at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 69.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, his family said.
Mr. Deaver was widely known for creating photo ops that showed Reagan atop the Great Wall of China, at the cliffs of Normandy and filling sandbags to show concern after a Louisiana fl
Source: LAT
August 14, 2007
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cites her experience as a compelling reason voters should make her president, but nearly 2 million pages of documents covering her White House years are locked up in a building here, obscuring a large swath of her record as first lady.
Clinton's calendars, appointment logs and memos are stored at her husband's presidential library, in the custody of federal archivists who do not expect them to be released until after the 2008 presidential election.
Source: MEMRI
August 17, 2007
U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone has again proposed making a documentary about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian producer and filmmaker Alireza Sajjadpur said August 16.
Sajjadpur, who is also secretary of Iran's Islamic Society of Artists, said that Stone's publicist had emailed the request to Ahmadinejad's office, and added that in the email, the publicist "referred to the bad image that the U.S. media has given to Islam and Islamic countries and said that the documen
Source: BBC
August 14, 2007
Celebrations are taking place across Pakistan to commemorate the 60th anniversary of independence from the UK and the creation of the country.
President Musharraf marked the anniversary by staunchly defending sovereignty and calling on the nation to unite against terrorism.
Pakistan is celebrating on Tuesday and India marks independence one day later.
The violent partition of 1947 saw 10 million people cross borders in one of history's largest mass migratio
Source: BBC
August 15, 2007
An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries.
Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the agency's computers made edits to the page of Iran's president.
It also purportedly shows that the Vatican has edited entries about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
The tool, developed by US researchers, trawls a list of 5.3m edits and matches them to the net
Source: Guardian
August 16, 2007
Former member of Germany's militant Red Army Faction, Eva Haule, is freed after 21 years in jail.
