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
May 5, 2007
LAKEHURST, N.J. -- At 87, Robert Buchanan says he sometimes has trouble remembering what he did 10 minutes ago. But he can recall in vivid detail the day 70 years ago when he watched the luxurious airship Hindenburg erupt into a fireball.
Flames roared across the surface of the mighty German dirigible only 100 or so feet above him, singeing his hair as he ran for his life.
''It was a piff-puff, just like someone would leave the gas on and not get the flame to it,'' said
Source: Times (of London)
May 6, 2007
When the first flames flared around the theatre’s stage, many of the excited Chinese children watching must have thought it was all part of the show.
Within minutes 288 of them were dead, a tragedy that has haunted their parents for more than a decade but was forgotten by many as China began its headlong rush to prosperity.
It is not forgotten any more, thanks to a band of internet campaigners who have exposed the shameful truth: the schoolchildren perished because they
Source: Kenneth T. Walsh, U.S. News & World Report
May 6, 2007
"A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam. When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming." --George W. Bush, Aug. 21, 2000, speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars
To many Americans, George W. Bush's standards for making war have changed dramatically since he first campaigned for the White House. Clearly, he believes the Iraq conflict is just, but most people are by no means con
Source: Times (of London)
May 6, 2007
More than 50 years after the death of Joseph Stalin, his mother’s previously unknown memoirs have been found in a secret former Soviet archive in his home state, Georgia. They portray the childhood of a sensitive boy who would become one of the great monsters of the 20th century, writes Tom Walker.
The Soviet dictator was born in 1878 (not 1879 as he later claimed), the only child of a cobbler and a seamstress, Beso and Keke Djugashvili. In her memoirs, Keke reveals that, hav
Source: AFP
May 3, 2007
NEW YORK -- A bowler hat worn by comedian Stan Laurel, half of the 1930s slapstick double act Laurel and Hardy, is to be auctioned in New York later this month, Christie's auction house said Wednesday.
The iconic black bowler, so often used as a pantomime prop by the comedy duo, was expected to fetch up to $15,000 in the sale, which also features three of the funnyman's bow ties and a binder full of gags.
Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune
May 3, 2007
MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. -- On the deck of a boat, nautical archaeologist Coz Cozzi concentrates on the sonogram-like image of the bottom of the Manatee River displayed on his laptop.
On the end of a towline 50 feet behind, a torpedo-like device duct-taped to a pair of toy foam tubes glides through the water.
The Mote Marine Laboratory scientist has turned to underwater technology to search for the remnants of sunken boats or other evidence that could prove the existence of
Source: DPA (German Press Agency)
May 4, 2007
SOEMMERDA, Germany -- For the second time in days, neo-Nazi graffiti have been scrawled on a German monument commemorating Jewish women and the thousands of concentration camp victims killed on forced marches. Police in the eastern town of Soemmerda said they had no idea who had painted swastikas on the pillar in the night.
The monument marks the last terrible act of the Nazis, who forced weakened inmates of the filthy camps in 1945 to trek away from Allied armies. Thousands died of
Source: AP
March 4, 2007
ROME —- A bronze horse, possibly the work of the Parthenon sculptor, went on display Friday at a Rome museum after a decades-long restoration.
The horse was returned to the Capitoline Museums following a $680,000 restoration that began in the late 1970s, museum director Anna Mura Sommella said.
Leaning on its hind legs with its head held back, as if preparing to break into a wild dash, the horse is one of the few surviving bronze equestrian statues from Greek times —- a
Source: Guardian
May 4, 2007
A retired British army general says Iraq's insurgents are justified in opposing the occupation, arguing that the US and its allies should "admit defeat" and leave Iraq before more soldiers are killed.
General Sir Michael Rose told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "It is the soldiers who have been telling me from the frontline that the war they have been fighting is a hopeless war, that they cannot possibly win it and the sooner we start talking politics and not military
Source: Redditch (Worcestershire) Advertiser
May 1, 2007
A British National Party candidate standing in Thursday's local elections dresses in Nazi uniforms and has driven a military vehicle with a swastika on the bonnet.
Karl Newman, 47, hit the national headlines at the weekend after posting pictures that could be seen to glorify Nazism on his website.
As a military re-enactor, he says he dresses up in the spirit of Dad's Army and always asks event organisers if they would prefer him not to.
"Everything's d
Source: AP
May 2, 2007
Ronald Reagan was a committed commentator on his own presidency, keeping meticulously maintained diaries that recorded the stress of his work alongside his frustration with trying to keep peace in his own family, according to a newly published compilation of his writings.
Reagan scoffed at the assertions of his one-time chief of staff Don Regan that the president and his wife, Nancy, had relied on astrological advice in connection with Reagan's stewardship of national affairs. And h
Source: AP
May 4, 2007
JACKSON, Miss. -- In life, FBI informant Earnest Gilbert so feared his fellow Ku Klux Klansmen that he never had the courage to testify about the 1964 killings of two black teenagers. In death, his voice is finally being heard in a courtroom.
Prosecutors in a revived civil rights-era case are trying to persuade a federal judge to allow a television interview that Gilbert, who died in 2004, gave in 2000 to be used as evidence in the trial of reputed Klansman James Ford Seale.
Source: Newsweek (excerpt)
May 7, 2007
In his forthcoming biography of Condoleezza Rice, Newsweek's Marcus Mabry explains the roots -- and the consequences -- of her loyalty to the President.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
May 4, 2007
Only 111 years ago, Harvard University published a doctoral thesis called The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 as the first volume in its Historical Monograph Series.
The author was W.E.B. Du Bois, who was also the first black man to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard. That publication commenced a literary career that spanned 72 years, extending past Du Bois's death in 1963 to include the posthumous publication of his autobiography in 1968.
Source: Canadian Press
May 2, 2007
WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- The Beaver: Canada's History Magazine is inviting Canadians to name what they consider to be the ''worst Canadian'' in the country's past.
It's all part of an online promotion launched this week by the magazine, the flagship publication of the National History Society, for its August-September issue, according to a release.
In the issue, 10 prominent Canadian writers and historians will state their case for their choice of the worst character from the sea
Source: AP
May 4, 2007
JAMESTOWN, Va. -- Queen Elizabeth II strolled Friday through a replica of a fortress built four centuries ago at what would become America's first permanent English settlement, then saw remains of the actual structure.
The queen, flanked by Vice President Dick Cheney and Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, strolled through Jamestown's tourist village of thatch-roofed buildings to commemorate the settlement's 400th anniversary...
The queen toured a replica of an armory, and
Source: Guardian
May 4, 2007
A shepherd in a remote region of Nepal near the border with Tibet has been instrumental in the discovery of an extraordinary art treasure that lay hidden from the world for centuries -- a collection of 55 exquisite cave paintings depicting the life of Buddha.
A partially collapsed cave containing the 12th to 14th century depictions of scenes from Buddha's life was unearthed last month by a team of Italian, US and Nepalese conservators and archaeologists in Mustang, a lost kingdom lo
Source: AP
May 3, 2007
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A fatal shooting by a state trooper that helped inspire the march from Selma in 1965 and the ''Bloody Sunday'' protest that preceded it will get a fresh look next week by a special grand jury.
Former State Trooper James Bonard Fowler has insisted for years that he shot black Vietnam War veteran Jimmie Lee Jackson in self-defense when Jackson grabbed Fowler's pistol during a melee in a Marion cafe.
''There is no question about who did the shooting. Th
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
May 3, 2007
It's only midmorning on a cold April day, and already the parking lot at Historic Jamestowne is so crowded that newcomers must park their cars on the grass. As the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English colony in America approaches, "America's birthplace" has become a hot destination. Even more visitors will wind up at nearby Jamestown Settlement, where they can see replicas of the three ships that brought the first colonists over in 1607, a Powhatan Indian village, and a som
Source: Gannett News Service
May 3, 2007
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Zeno Wicks Jr. went with his father to meet a colleague arriving on the Hindenburg.
It had been raining off and on that day. Around 7 p.m., the mighty German airship started approaching the field.
Suddenly, it exploded in a giant ball of fire and fell from the sky."My father saw it and started cursing," says Wicks, now 86 and a retired chemist and plastics expert living in Louisville. "We drove right onto the airfie
