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
March 20, 2007
The image of Captain Cook stepping onto the shores of Botany Bay has been a staple of British history books for generations but now it seems the explorer may have been beaten to Australia by the Portuguese, who arrived 250 years earlier.
A new appraisal of 16th century maps offers evidence that a small Portuguese fleet charted much of Australia's coast as early as 1522.
It has long been known that Cook was preceded by Dutch navigators, whose ships were wrecked on the co
Source: New York Times
March 20, 2007
The songwriter, labor organizer and folk hero Joe Hill has been the subject of poems, songs, an opera, books and movies. His will, written in verse the night before a Utah firing squad executed him in 1915 and later put to music, became part of the labor movement’s soundtrack. Now the original copy of that penciled will is among the unexpected historical gems unearthed from a vast collection of papers and photographs never before seen publicly that the Communist Party USA has donated to New York
Source: AP
March 19, 2007
BANGKOK, Thailand -- From the creators of the $25,000 dinner, there's another pricey gourmet feast on the horizon.
Wealthy foodies can mark their calendars for Dec. 12, 2008, when top chefs from around the world will be flown to Egypt to cook a dinner in front of the ancient Pyramids of Giza, organizer Deepak Ohri said Monday...
Some 500 tickets will be sold for the dinner to be cooked by 30 3-star Michelin chefs...
A kitchen half a mile long will be set up
Source: ABC News
March 18, 2007
Four thousand feet below the canyon rim, the Colorado River continues to slowly eat away at rock formations that created this vast and awe-inspiring canyon.
But this is not the Grand Canyon tourists have come to know and love. This is Grand Canyon West, 90 miles downstream from Grand Canyon National Park, on land owned by the Hualapai Indian Tribe.Now, the Hualapai are about to do something no one has ever dreamed of before.
Later this m
Source: BBC
March 19, 2007
Conservators at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum are a step closer to solving a 250-year-old mystery.
They have been working on an 18th Century portrait to uncover a black servant who some experts believed was deliberately painted out.
The portrait of tobacco merchant John Glassford and his family was painted in the 1760s by Archibald McLauchlan.
The wealthy Glaswegian's black servant was included in the picture as an indicator of his wealth and status...
Source: AFP
March 18, 2007
Sudan's archaeology is finally stepping out of Egypt's shadow as teams work against the clock to rescue an entire swathe of Nile Valley heritage from the rising waters of a Chinese-built dam.
"The paradox is that, yes, an entire area is being wiped off the map but thanks to the rescue project, Sudanese archaeology is being put on the map," said Sudan's antiquities chief Salah Ahmed.
The Merowe dam is a controversial hydro-electric project -- one of the largest
Source: AP
March 19, 2007
GLOUCESTER, Va. — The excavation of a hidden chamber at the former home of Thomas Jefferson's girlfriend has not turned up any love letters — yet.
''We still have about 2 feet further down to dig,'' said archaeologist Thane Harpole, who is leading the project along with fellow archaeologist David Brown.
Fairfield Plantation was the Gloucester County home of Rebecca Burwell, who was 16 when she met College of William and Mary student Thomas Jefferson. The house was built
Source: Newsday
March 19, 2007
The museum's 138-million-page presidential archive could play an important role in determining how Hillary Rodham Clinton's controversial White House past will affect her attempt to reclaim 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
"I haven't received any documents or even a note indicating that they're searching the records," said Jeff Gerth, a former New York Times reporter who requested a wide range of the first lady's files for an unauthorized Clinton biography he's working on.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
March 19, 2007
A proposed "General Records Schedule" (GRS) that would authorize
the disposal and destruction of various CFO records is
"fundamentally flawed," wrote one Archives analyst last year."I really cannot say anything positive about this proposed
GRS," wrote another analyst, in internal comments. "It is
flawed, troubling, and misleading." It is "unimplementable"
and "will lead to the destruction of permanent records."
Source: International Herald Tribune
March 18, 2007
IWO JIMA, Japan -- A breeze carried the scent of salt off sun-speckled waves, and a pod of whales spouted playfully near shore, but it was a prayer of mourning that Yoshitaka Shindo directed toward the sand and surf that stretched before him.
This was Invasion Beach, where 62 years ago 61,000 American marines poured onto this remote volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean, in one of the bloodiest and final campaigns of World War II. It was Shindo's grandfather, Lieutenant General Tadam
Source: Times (of London)
March 19, 2007
FERRARA, Italy -- The Hermitage in St Petersburg, struggling to display or even catalogue its vast collection of art treasures, is to establish a satellite branch in Italy as its “window on the West”.
The treasures will be housed in the 14th-century Castello Estense, the “jewel” at the heart of Ferrara. A palazzo and park will also be restored to provide a residential study centre for Italian and Russian art experts.
“The Hermitage has three million items and even the R
Source: AFP
March 15, 2007
CAIRO -- Archaeology in Iraq these days, explains the new caretaker of the country's 5,000-year-old heritage, is less about making new discoveries than finding out what has already been stolen.
"We need a government that takes responsibility for protecting the monuments of all Iraqis," antiquities director Abbas Ali al-Hussainy told AFP in an interview during a recent visit to Cairo.
"Right now we need to take measures to figure out where the sites are an
Source: Los Angeles Times
March 19, 2007
ATLANTA —- More than 140 years after slavery was abolished, Congress and a growing number of elected officials in states and cities are wrestling with whether to formally apologize.
The movement began in the former Confederate capital, Richmond, Va., with state legislators last month unanimously passing a resolution expressing "profound regret" over Virginia's role in slavery and the Jim Crow era.
Now, lawmakers in Georgia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Missou
Source: Reuters
March 18, 2007
LAHORE, Pakistan -- Many Pakistani archaeological sites from its thousands of years of rich history are crumbling away as officials tussle over who should look after them.
A cradle of ancient civilizations and crossroads of Greek, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim cultures, Pakistan has a treasure-trove of ruins but many are being built over, pilfered by art thieves and villagers or succumbing to the elements.
The federal government's archaeology department has control over mo
Source: Washington Post
March 19, 2007
Internal Smithsonian documents offer a glimpse into what one senator called the "Dom Perignon" lifestyle of the taxpayer-supported institution's chief official, who turned in a $15,000 receipt for the replacement of French doors at his home and spent $48,000 for two chairs, a conference table and upholstery for his office suite.
Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small's spending has been the subject of intense public scrutiny after The Washington Post published details las
Source: Washington Post
March 19, 2007
The U.S. war in Iraq enters its fifth year today. That, and 3,197 U.S. military deaths reported by the Pentagon as of 10 a.m. Friday, are among the few numerical certainties in a conflict characterized from the start by confusion and misuse of key data.
In the fog of modern counterinsurgency warfare, statistics have replaced conquered territory as measures of success. Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld once dismissed questions about the level of combat-ready Iraqi troops by s
Source: Times (of London)
March 19, 2007
PAILIN, Cambodia -- Ten minutes’ bumpy drive from the border with Thailand, past a strip of gaudy casinos and brothels in a landscape of denuded hillsides, is a place where travellers fear to stop.
Throughout Cambodia the border town of Pailin is known —- apart from its gemstones —- as the last bastion of the Khmer Rouge, from where its remnants fought the Government until 1998.
The reputation is enough to send most travellers rushing through to the capital, Phnom Penh,
Source: Guardian
March 19, 2007
A film is to be made about a woman whom Italy's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, tried to airbrush out of history.
Ida Dalser and her son by Mussolini both died in mental institutions after she tried unsuccessfully to force the dictator to recognise their marriage and his son, also named Benito. "Not Even Nero or Caligula would have done what you have done," she once wrote to him.
The story has considerable current relevance because of efforts by the Italia
Source: AP
March 18, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2007 list of a"Dozen Distinctive Destinations" ranges from the town where Monticello is located to Hillsborough, N.C., cited in part as the home of a 1949 NASCAR speedway.
The organization recognizes 12 places each year for their dedication to historic preservation and recommends them as vacation destinations.
While New Orleans was not on the list of 12, the National Trust also commended the city for"exemplary achievement i
Source: AP
March 18, 2007
SEOUL -- South Korea urged Japan to "face up to history" and expressed official regret on Saturday, a day after Tokyo insisted there was no evidence its military or government forced women to work in World War II military brothels.
Japan's Cabinet said in a formal statement Friday that it could not find any proof that the military or government agencies coerced so-called "comfort women" into sexual slavery during the war, repeating a similar claim by Prime Minist
