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: Times (of London)
April 2, 2007
ROME -- A British officer murdered by the Nazis in Rome and until now honoured only as “The Unknown Englishman” has been identified after more than 60 years.
Second World War veterans and local historians in Rome who have sought to identify the officer for more than a decade have named him as Captain John Armstrong. But so little is known about his service record that they are appealing to Times readers to help to track down his surviving relatives. It is thought that he might have
Source: Times (of London)
April 2, 2007
Mystery surrounding the sinking of the Lusitania may be resolved after the American owner of the Cunard liner won his case to dive on the wreck.
The decision by the Supreme Court in Dublin, the highest court in the Irish Republic, to overturn a refusal for an exploration licence from the Arts and Heritage Ministry clears the way for Gregg Bemis to realise a 40-year dream to uncover what made “the Greyhound of the Sea” sink so fast after she was torpedoed by a German U-boat off south
Source: Reuters
April 1, 2007
CARACAS -- How far will President Hugo Chavez press his effort to install Cuban-inspired socialism in oil-rich Venezuela? The answer may well have been written in his failed coup plans 15 years ago.
Chavez spent more than a decade conspiring with other leftist officers before leading the putsch in 1992, during which time he helped draft a set of decrees for a revolutionary government.
He has said he burned his copies of the documents just before his arrest for leading t
Source: UPI
April 1, 2007
MUNICH -- Baron Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, who was with Adolf Hitler just before the German dictator died at the end of World War II, has died in Munich at age 93.
Von Loringhoven, who escaped Hitler's bunker with the dictator's permission one day before Hitler shot himself, died in February, The New York Times reported.
After the war, von Loringhoven spent two and a half years as a British prisoner of war. Later, he reportedly gave eerie accounts of his days in the
Source: AP
April 1, 2007
Dragica Besovic and her sister-in-law were back in Kosovo last week on a sad and macabre mission: to dig up their dead relatives and rebury them by her new home in Serbia.
Dressed in black and deeply wrinkled, Besovic fled Kosovo in 1999. Fear drove the 77-year-old Serb away, but it also drew her back -- fear that if the mostly ethnic Albanian province gains independence as expected later this year, Serb-haters will unearth her relatives' remains and scatter the bones.
Source: Independent
April 1, 2007
NEW ORLEANS -- Google, the ubiquitous internet search business, has been asked by a US congressional committee why it was "airbrushing history" by replacing post-Hurricane Katrina satellite imagery on its map portal with images of the region as it existed before the storm destroyed neighbourhoods, uprooted trees and smashed bridges.
"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice," wrote Brad Miller, who chairs
Source: Scientific American Science News
March 30, 2007
Do you sometimes have memories of a mysterious past life? Recall odd experiences such as being abducted by aliens? Wonder where these memories come from and if, in fact, you were really once whisked off in a flying saucer by ETs?
Seems the answer may be simpler than you think—or remember. A new study shows that people with memories of past lives are more likely than others to misremember the source of any given piece of information.
Study author Maarten Peters of Maastr
Source: BBC News
April 1, 2007
Britain has expressed "continuing regret" over the deaths on both sides in the Falklands conflict.
Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett released a statement on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands.
She said families of dead Argentine personnel could hold a commemorative event on the islands later this year.
Over 900 people died during the 74-day war, including 255 British servicemen, 655 Argentines and th
Source: AFP
March 31, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Workers digging a new Jerusalem tram line have stumbled upon the remains of an ancient Jewish city from the first century AD under what is now a Palestinian suburb of the Holy City.
Archaeologists are frantically working to unearth the nameless settlement that lies beneath the bustling streets of the Shuafat neighbourhood before they have to bury it again in order to lay tracks for a long-planned light rail line.
The newly discovered settlement dates back t
Source: AP
April 1, 2007
BERLIN -- Every Friday evening, Conny Jarosch and her 6-year-old daughter Alisa each light two candles, raise their hands to their closed eyes and recite an ancient Hebrew prayer to welcome the Sabbath.
Conny's husband Siegfried, 42, blesses the wine and bread while his father Gerhard, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, sings from his prayer book at the head of the table.
It's an ordinary Sabbath, but celebrated in Germany's unexpectedly vibrant Jewish community, the fas
Source: AP
April 1, 2007
ELLIS ISLAND, N.J. -- Abandoned and fallen into disuse for decades, a significant piece of American immigrant history is reopening on Ellis Island following extensive restoration.
Parts of the island were opened to the public in 1990, for the first time since the immigration complex was shut down in 1954, but few people have been able to explore the rest of the historic island, including 30 shuttered buildings closest to the neighboring island where the Statue of Liberty stands.
Source: AP
April 1, 2007
It's the coldest of cold cases, and yet it keeps warming to life. Seventy years after Amelia Earhart disappeared, clues are still turning up. Long-dismissed notes taken of a shortwave distress call beginning, "This is Amelia Earhart...," are getting another look.
The previously unknown diary of an Associated Press reporter reveals a new perspective.
A team that has already found aircraft parts and pieces of a woman's shoe on a remote South Pacific atoll hopes
Source: AP
April 1, 2007
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- At least 25 bombers being escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen over Europe during World War II were shot down by enemy aircraft, according to a new Air Force report.
The report contradicts the legend that the famed black aviators never lost a plane to fire from enemy aircraft. But historian William Holton said the discovery of lost bombers doesn't tarnish the unit's record.
"It's impossible not to lose bombers," said Holton, national historian f
Source: Press Association
April 1, 2007
Schools are dropping controversial subjects from history lessons -- such as the Holocaust and the Crusades -- because teachers do not want to cause offence, Government research has found.
The way the slave trade is taught can lead white children -- as well as black pupils -- to feel alienated, according to the study by the Historical Association.
And a lack of factual knowledge among teachers, particularly in primary schools, is leading to "shallow" lessons on
Source: Baltimore Sun
March 31, 2007
NORFOLK, Va. -- It didn't take long yesterday for the handsome wooden boat to fill with dirty brown water...But swamp was exactly what the shallop -- a replica of explorer John Smith's vessel -- was supposed to do, and it came through with flying colors.
"It's great to be on a sinking boat," joked Capt. Ian Bystrom to bystanders along the city waterfront. "We're just washing her out."
Made of sturdy timber from Maryland's Elk Neck State Forest, the b
Source: New York Times
April 1, 2007
TOKYO -— In another sign that Japan is pressing ahead in revising its history of World War II, new high school textbooks will no longer acknowledge that the Imperial Army was responsible for a major atrocity in Okinawa, the government announced late Friday.
The Ministry of Education ordered publishers to delete passages stating that the Imperial Army ordered civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa, as the island was about to fall to American troops in the final
Source: Telegraph
April 1, 2007
Story includes audio links.
Scribbled in notebooks, diaries and even on pieces of lavatory paper, they provide a remarkable history of the music played and sung by the victims of the Holocaust.
Scores for thousands of waltzes, tangos, operas and folk songs will soon be made available to the public, thanks to the dedication of Francesco Lotoro, a professional pianist who for 16 years has been scouring Europe's capitals to amass his collection.
Mr Loto
Source: Washington Post
April 1, 2007
GDANSK, Poland -- Almost two decades have passed since dictatorship gave way to democracy in Poland, but after years of burying memories and avoiding the subject, this country is finally grappling with its communist past.
On March 15, a controversial law went into effect requiring an estimated 700,000 civil servants, teachers and journalists to sign an oath declaring whether they collaborated with the communist secret police before the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. Anyone caught
Source: San Jose Mercury News
March 30, 2007
NEW YORK -- In the historic Great Hall of Ellis Island, where 12 million immigrants once trudged through to build a nation, top government officials Friday tried to recharge a campaign to solve the modern dilemmas of immigration.
Bush administration security officials, including Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar, along with an historian, demographer, economist and former officials grappled with the biggest problem: what to do with another 12 million people -- the estimated number of
Source: Independent
March 31, 2007
The Red Scare on Washington Square began a week ago. News broke that New York University's Tamiment Library was giving sanctuary to the archives of the Communist Party of the USA -- Lenin buttons and all -- and that speakers at a planned seminar would include its current leaders.
The headline writers of Rupert Murdoch's local paper, the New York Post, predictably fulminated with headlines warning of a "Red 'Love-in" on campus. For some, it seems, the McCarthy mindset has s
