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: LiveScience
July 18, 2007
The cultural rift between Britain and France endures as an amusing mystery for many, but the physical divide between them can now be blamed on two ancient floods.
About 450,000 years ago, a "megaflood" breached a giant natural dam near the Dover strait and began the formation of the English Channel , according to a study detailed in the July 19 issue of the journal Nature. Following this first disastrous flood, a second deluge finished the job.
"The first
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
July 18, 2007
Does Congress have the constitutional authority to legislate limits on
the conduct of the war in Iraq?
The answer may seem obvious. But to resolve any lingering doubt, the
Congressional Research Service gave the topic a thorough analytic
treatment in a newly updated report and concluded that Congress does
have such authority.
"It has been suggested that the President's role as Commander in Chief
of the Armed Forces provides sufficient authority for his deployment of
troops, and
Source: Rick Anderson in the Seattle Weekly
July 18, 2007
On June 25, 1960, after four years as trusted employees of America's largest spy agency, [William Hamilton] Martin, then 29, and [Bernon] Mitchell, then 31, flew out of Washington, D.C., with one-way tickets to Mexico City. From there, they quietly slipped off to Havana and took a Russian freighter to the Soviet Union, following a plan that had evolved over a year. The case stunned politicians and intelligence officials alike. Looking back, some of the defectors' neighbors and co-workers told i
Source: Houston Chronicle
July 16, 2007
''My only adversity is age," Senate President Pro Tem Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving senator in American history, told his junior colleagues last month. Then he cast the 18,000th vote of his 48-year career in that august body, triumphantly passing the previous record set by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., another legend in his own time. The 89-year-old Byrd observed this historic event with an eloquent, moving but largely overlooked speech on the Senate floor publicly confr
Source: Jennifer Hunter in the Chicago Sun-Times
July 17, 2007
ven in colonial days, chicanery and corruption were endemic among American politicians. It's become part of the American electoral tradition.
Can it ever be fixed? Barack Obama has been a champion of improving government ethics at both the state and federal level, but he faces a long history of improbity among our elected officials.
Benjamin Fletcher, governor of New York from 1692 to 1698, took protection money from pirates, stole from the public funds and cheated on c
Source: http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk
July 18, 2007
US companies take their corporate history far more seriously than most of their UK counterparts, according to a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
American companies are more likely to draw attention to official published histories on their websites, more likely to invest in historically-orientated visitor attractions or museums, such as The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, and more likely to publish official histories.
By taking a more low-key appr
Source: China Daily
July 17, 2007
Marshal Lin Biao, who was handpicked by Chairman Mao Zedong to succeed him as China's leader but who died a traitor, has been resurrected as an army hero in a new exhibition in Beijing's Military Museum.
Lin's portrait is included among the 10 marshals who are honored as the founders of the Chinese armed forces in an exhibition celebrating the 80th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army on August 1.
Lin, denounced for his "treacherous" plot to overthrow M
Source: http://www.egyptologyblog.co.uk
July 16, 2007
A settlement dating back to the time of the pyramid builders was discovered in Egypt's western desert, the first find of its kind there, Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities (SCA) said Monday.
"A joint Egypt-Czech archaeological mission found a city dating to the Old Kingdom [2687 to 2191 BC] in the Garat Al Abyad region in Bahariya," SCA chief Zahi Hawass said, referring to an isolated oasis 400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of Cairo...
The latest find
Source: http://www.independent.ie
July 15, 2007
AN HISTORIC Irish dolmen has been wrapped in tin foil and silver plastic - so that it now looks more like a Flash Gordon spaceship than a prehistoric monument.
Labby Rock, near Castlebaldwin, Co Sligo, and overlooking Lough Arrow, looked more like a "baked potato" according to one expert who visited it recently.
The famous 70-ton dolmen was said to have been used as a bed by Diarmaid and Grainne when fleeing Fionn MacCumhaill.
But Mary Quinlan, wh
Source: Vancouver Sun (BC)
July 11, 2007
Broken spear tips and flakes of raw materials unearthed near Prince George are believed to be the remnants of a stone-tool manufacturing camp dating back more than 400 years.
Students at the University of Northern B.C. have discovered more than 200 artifacts at a protected archeological site at Beaverley, about 30 km west of Prince George.
The group, which has been digging for the past month, will now try to figure out who was making the tools, and when.
Source: AP
July 17, 2007
A Jewish cemetery has been desecrated in a northeastern Czech town, an official said Tuesday.
Jirina Garajova, head of the Jewish community in Ostrava, 350 kilometers east of Prague, said that 25 tombstones were overturned at the Jewish cemetery in the nearby town of Bohumin over the weekend. Two of the tombstones were broken, she said.
The cemetery, dating back to the 19th century, is no longer used for burials and opened to public on July 1 after renovations.
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
July 17, 2007
More than 250 years after the British expelled Acadians from the area now known as the Maritimes, the residence of the Queen's representative in New Brunswick played host to the launch of a new textbook that celebrates Acadian history.Educators and members of New Brunswick's Francophone community gathered at the home of Lieutenant-Governor Herménégilde Chiasson Tuesday for the release of Histoire des Acadiens et des Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick.
The glossy, 1
Source: Der Spiegel
July 17, 2007
A leading historian wants 'Mein Kampf' to be republished in Germany. Copyright issues have kept it off the shelves since World War II, but in 2015 it will enter the public domain. Then, anyone will be allowed to print it -- including neo-Nazis.A Munich historian has called for it to be republished in Germany -- as a pre-emptive strike against any neo-Nazis who might want to abuse the text for their own fell purposes.
Horst Möller, director of the Institute for C
Source: Pittsburg Post-Gazette
July 17, 2007
Files, which were collected by the Red Cross from concentration camps, hospitals and other parts of the Nazi regime after World War II and stretch out over 17 miles of shelves in the tiny German town of Bad Arolsen, have been nearly impossible to access. But now, Bad Arolsen has opened its doors to survivors. Digital copies of the archive will be circulated around the world, and one of the copies will be made available at the Holocaust Museum in Washington later this year or early in 2008.
Source: WHSV4, Harrisonburg VA
July 17, 2007
About 250 people who believe they are descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings learned more about their heritage and each other at a reunion in Charlottesville.At the first Monticello Community Gathering over the weekend, attendees discussed family ties and toured downtown Charlottesville and Monticello.
Organizer Diana Redman calls the gathering "an opportunity to get beyond the racial issues." Redman is a descendant of Madison He
Source: http://www.thanhniennews.com
July 14, 2007
Vietnam has announced it intends to seek UNESCO World Heritage status for the Hung Temple situated in its northern Phu Tho province.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has instructed the provincial administration and related agencies to do research and set up a data base on the temple and some other relics from the bronze and early iron ages.
Source: AP
July 16, 2007
... 10th Mountain Division troops are in the front lines fighting
against al-Qaida insurgents in Iraq. ...
But few can detail the division’s exploits during World War II, and fewer
still how the division was born as an alpine fighting force in the
mountains of Colorado or why it now calls upstate New York its home.
Fort Drum’s new Heritage Center is now providing those answers.
Source: Baltimore Sun
July 17, 2007
FREDERICK, MD A bronze bust of Roger Brooke Taney stares sternly ahead, as if he were watching the two cherubs frolicking in the fountain in front of City Hall. Author of the inflammatory Dred Scott decision affirming slavery, Taney has been immortalized here for 75 years, largely ignored by passers-by.
But as Frederick has grown and become more diverse, a small band of residents is looking to move, or remove, this tribute to the Supreme Court chief justice who once resided in the
Source: Daily India
July 16, 2007
World War II Gurkha hero Tul Bahadur Pun is now trying to get his Victoria Cross back from the British authorities, who took it away from him 30 years ago on the pretext that it required "safekeeping."
Eighty-four-year-old Pun, who came to Britain last week from his home in Nepal for medical treatment, recently went to see his medal on display in a case at the Gurkha Museum in Winchester.
Museum chiefs use a picture of Pun on their leaflet - but when asked if
Source: AP
July 14, 2007
RICHMOND, Va. -- More than 140 years after Civil War cannons fell silent, two museums are offering very different views of the war between the states.
The century-old Museum of the Confederacy offers a more single-minded approach to the war. Red, white and blue battle flags from different Confederate troops wave from the ceiling. Three levels of exhibits feature bullet-riddled uniforms, blood-spattered letters from dying soldiers and maps generals once used to lead their men. Locat
