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: Donga.com (Dong-A Ilbo) (South Korea)
February 24, 2007
The founding of Korea’s ancient kingdom of Gojoseon will be officially written as part of national history in high school history textbooks. In addition, the Bronze Age on the Korean peninsula will be described to date back 1,000 years earlier than was previously thought.
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development announced yesterday its plan to deliver the revised history books to schools nationwide for the class of 2007.
Academic and political circles h
Source: Telegraph
February 23, 2007
A High Court fight to stop tests on the 100-year-old remains of 17 Tasmanian Aborigines was deferred yesterday.
Lawyers for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, which was recently made administrator of the estates of the Aborigines, claim that they are "souls in torment" while their remains are subjected to the "sacrilege" of experimentation at the Natural History Museum.
That would stop only when they were buried according to Aboriginal custom.
Source: Daily Princetonian
February 20, 2007
The Princeton Battlefield has been a place of quiet contemplation for more than two centuries, where scholars and aspiring history buffs can walk on the hallowed ground of one of the nation's most pivotal battles. Yet a new struggle has emerged on this land in recent years, not between the redcoats and the rebels, but between an academic institution and a local preservation society.
At stake is a parcel of land, roughly 25 acres in size, owned by the Institute of Advanced Study,
Source: BBC
February 22, 2007
Survivors and victims' families say more should be done to recognise those who died in one of Britain's biggest World War II disasters.
An estimated 4,000 people died when HMT Lancastria went down
A few miles off the coast of France lays the wreck of HMT Lancastria, sunk 67 years ago by German bombers.
It is a reminder of the afternoon of 17 June 1940, described as Britain's worst maritime disaster in history.
On that day an estimated 4,000 tro
Source: BBC
February 23, 2007
Ninety years after the battle of Passchendaele, officially known as the third battle of Ypres, a group of enthusiasts is attempting to dig up some of the key trenches of World War I.
Across a flat, muddy Flanders landscape, a solitary figure is plodding along the furrows.
Geophysicist Malcolm Weale is a battlefield detective who specialises in uncovering history that has lain hidden for generations.
In this case, the ground beneath his feet shields secrets
Source: CNN
February 22, 2007
Four decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the streets, avenues, boulevards and highways that bear his name remain crossroads of the nation's past and future.
In Atlanta, not far from where King grew up and preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr. Drive winds through the heart of the city. For 10 miles, the road dedicated in King's name in 1976 stretches past homes, schools, restaurants, liquor stores, strip malls, churches, barbershops, a
Source: Economist
February 23, 2007
THE archaeological site in Thonotosassa, which means “land of flint” in the Seminole-Creek language, is nothing much to look at: a few pits dug in the sandy soil among gnarled live oak trees, with cattle grazing round. No one guards it. Yet this place, about 17 miles (27km) north-east of Tampa, is a good spot to find Indian artefacts, on high ground close to fresh water. Robert Austin, an archaeologist who has dug there often, says that some of the remains discovered date back 12,000 years.
Source: http://savannahnow.com
February 20, 2007
Made from humble material, Ossabaw Island's three tabby slave cabins now represent a historical and archaeological treasure of immeasurable value.
The 19th-century tabbies are "probably the most-intact examples of their type in North America," said Georgia state archaeologist David Crass. They represent "wonderful archeology that can give voices to those who were voiceless in our history books."
The cabins survived the Civil War, stood through hurric
Source: AP
February 23, 2007
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A rare, 184-year-old copy of the Declaration of Independence found by a bargain hunter at a Nashville thrift shop is being valued by experts at about 100,000 times the $2.48 purchase price.
Michael Sparks, a music equipment technician, is selling the document in an auction March 22nd at Raynors' Historical Collectible Auctions in Burlington, North Carolina. The opening bid is $125,000 and appraisers have estimated it could sell for nearly twice that.
Source: AP
February 22, 2007
TALLINN, Estonia -- Estonia's president vetoed legislation Thursday calling for the removal of a Soviet war memorial, averting at least temporarily a confrontation with Russia.
The bill, which had provoked an angry response from Moscow, now goes back to parliament where lawmakers could override the veto.
The measure would prohibit the public display of monuments that glorify the five-decade Soviet occupation of Estonia. It was specifically aimed at the Bronze Soldier, a
Source: Maynard Institute website
February 21, 2007
The reporter who uncovered a 60-year pattern of expelling African Americans from communities around the country and wrote a series about it last year says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the flagship of the newspaper company he works for, tried to undermine what he produced.
In a book scheduled to arrive in retail stores by March 5, Elliot Jaspin quotes his boss, the Cox Newspapers Washington bureau chief, Andy Alexander, speaking of Julia Wallace, editor of the Atlanta newspaper.
Source: Telegraph
February 23, 2007
Women may have developed the first weapons to compete with physically stronger males, scientists have claimed.
Researchers studying chimpanzees, which share 98 per cent of their DNA with human beings, found it was mainly females who used crude spears to attack other animals.
They now believe that early human females could also have pioneered hunting with tools to compensate for their inferior size and strength.
“Females will have to come up with creative wa
Source: Telegraph
February 23, 2007
Personal details of millions of British soldiers who fought in the First World War are to be revealed online.
In a remarkable development for family-tree researchers and social historians, the records have been put on a genealogy website.
They amount to some 2.5 million names, 28 thousand reels of transcribed microfilm and countless forgotten details about physical appearance, discipline record, regimental movements, postings, next of kin, military career histories and,
Source: AP
February 22, 2007
CONCORD, N.H. -- The farm of orator and statesman Daniel Webster will be preserved under a deal announced Thursday after it had been slated to become a housing development.
The Trust for Public Land put together the $2.5 million deal with help from the state and federal governments, private donors and the state's public-private Land and Community Heritage Investment Program...
Webster was born in 1782 in Franklin, although not on the 141-acre farm on the Merrimack Rive
Source: Live Science
February 22, 2007
The Clovis People, a prehistoric group of mastodon hunters distinguished by their unique spear points and once thought to be the first Americans, likely populated North America after other humans had already arrived, a new study concludes.
The Clovis and their hunting technologies were not the first inhabitants of the New World, researchers write in the Feb. 23 issue of the journal Science, addressing a longstanding debate on the first New World humans.
Source: Dawn (Karachi, Pakistan)
February 22, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Religious parties in the National Assembly were on Wednesday up in arms against teaching Pakistan’s pre-Islamic history in schools...
Members of the six-party Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal also staged a token protest walkout over the inclusion of chapters about Hinduism, Buddhism and ancient emperor Chandragupta Maurya in the history textbooks for classes VI to VIII after a heated discussion...
Five MMA members had raised the history textbook issue... [
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
February 22, 2007
The lighthouses of the Golden Gate are going the way of the crow's nest, the sextant and Morse code.
The romantic icons of the sea have been replaced by high-tech buoys, shipboard computers and global positioning satellites. The Coast Guard no longer needs the lighthouses, no longer wants them and is giving them to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
"They're obsolete," Petty Officer Russ Tippets said Wednesday. "They're no longer relevant in today'
Source: HNN Staff summary of op ed in the WSJ
February 22, 2007
The writer Edward Jay Epstein claims in an op ed in the Wall Street Journal that the Spanish judge investigating terrorism has found that Ramzi Binalshibh and Mohamed Atta lied when they claimed they had seen no one else but each other on visits to Spain. Epstein says this suggests that it's possible others were involved in the 9/11 plot than has previously been disclosed, including perhaps, people in Spain, Iran, Hezbollah, Malaysia, Iraq, the Czech Republic or Pakistan.
Source: NYT
February 21, 2007
Maybe it is his compelling life story. Or perhaps it’s his insistence that Americans can look beyond race and rally around fresh ideas and the possibility of change. But by the time the charismatic African-American senator begins to speak passionately of his unwavering opposition to the war in Iraq, it is clear that something about the man and his message is resonating with the audience.
The man is former Senator Edward W. Brooke, Republican of Massachusetts and the first black poli
Source: Belfast Telegraph (N. Ireland)
February 22, 2007
The embarrassing case of a boat stranded at a Northern Ireland museum is to be the subject of yet another review by officials...
Stories surrounding The Result, a historic schooner, have been likened in Parliament to something from [the TV sitcom]'Yes, Minister'.
The vessel still lies under cover in the grounds of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum -- some 37 years after it was bought.
It has been estimated that around £627,000 [$1.2 million], at today's
