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
February 12, 2007
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados -- The newly renovated Barbados home where George Washington lived as a young man in 1751 has attracted hundreds of visitors from the United States and Britain only weeks after opening, officials said.
The George Washington House and Museum, completed in mid-January after an 8-year restoration project costing nearly $3.5 million, honors the first U.S. president and documents his time in the Caribbean.
The site in the Garrison Historic district, just
Source: AP
February 14, 2007
VERSAILLES -- At last, the Hall of Mirrors is once again fit for a king.
Workers at the Chateau of Versailles are putting the finishing touches on a 3-year, $15.6 million renovation of the gilded gallery of 357 mirrors where King Louis XIV entertained — and intimidated — diplomats and courtiers.
The hall's grand reopening will likely come sometime in June.
...The vaulted ceiling is especially astonishing.
Before the renovation, Charles Le Brun's ove
Source: Press Release -- Helise Flickstein
February 13, 2007
Freddie Mac Bank has donated the childhood home of Susan B. Anthony to New York State Parks Department for $1. Helise Flickstein, mother of five children, is the sole person who convinced the bank to donate the house has plans to make it into a museum. She had also gotten the house on the New York State & National Historic Register! She has the knowledge of five years of research behind her in regards to the Anthonys & the Stantons. Coline Jenkins, the great great grand daughter of E
Source: AP
February 13, 2007
BUENOS AIRES -- Argentina said Tuesday it has sent Spain an extradition request for former President Isabel Peron, who is wanted for questioning about a disappearance that occurred when death squads terrorized the country during her rule.
The Foreign Ministry said extradition papers were sent at the request of Federal Judge Raul Acosta in Mendoza, who last month ordered Isabel Peron detained for questioning about the February 1976 disappearance of leftist Hector Aldo Fagetti Gallego
Source: AP
February 13, 2007
OSLO -- A German submarine that was sunk off Norway at the end of World War II will be buried in special sand to protect the coastline from its cargo of toxic mercury, the government announced Tuesday.
The U-864 submarine, which was found by the Royal Norwegian Navy in March 2003, is believed to have about 70 tons of mercury on board.
Despite demands from local villagers to remove the mercury, Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Dag Terje Andersen said the governm
Source: Guardian/Mortar Board (blog)
February 13, 2007
First modern foreign languages, now history. Just as ministers are about to embark on a shake-up of the school curriculum to place more emphasis on "Britishness" in history lessons, more bad news comes their way.
Seven out of 10 schoolchildren have given up studying history by the time they are 14, according to Paul Armitage, history adviser for the education standards watchdog Ofsted, who spoke at a conference yesterday.
Mr Armitage gave the example of seven
Source: KVUE-TV (Austin, Tex.)
February 13, 2007
It appears efforts to move a giant historic live oak tree [in downtown Austin] over the weekend were successful.
The tree is estimated to weigh about 400,000 pounds and could be between 200 and 300 years old.
The tree used to sit on a hill at the corner of 9th Street and Neches. It was moved across the street to the property of the First Baptist Church...to make way for a new 10-story condominium project being built by a company called Noble Development Group.
Source: AP
February 13, 2007
BRUSSELS -- A government-backed report released Tuesday blamed Belgian authorities and the ruling elite for collaborating with the Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II.
Although Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has already recognized the level of collaboration, the report was the first time it had been presented in such detail.
"The Belgian authorities cooperated with the racial anti-Jewish policies during the occupation," and acted in a way "unwort
Source: Kampala (Uganda) Monitor
February 12, 2007
KAMPALA, Uganda -- It is exactly one week since the historic unveiling of the [President's] Shs40 million shilling statue at Kabamba military barracks.
It depicts a youthful Popular Resistance Army (PRA) guerrilla leader, Yoweri Museveni [now president of Uganda], directing the attack on the armoury at the beginning of the five year 'bush war' between 1981 and 1986 against the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) government of the late Dr Apollo Milton Obote.
The world over s
Source: AP
February 13, 2007
BERLIN -- A German court threw out a bid Monday to prevent the closure of the capital's historic Tempelhof Airport, clearing the way for the one-time base of the Berlin airlift to close to passengers next year.
Thirteen companies that use the inner-city airport had sought to block its closure as part of plans to build a new airport hub on the edge of the capital...
Tempelhof opened in 1923 and was expanded under the Nazis into a huge horseshoe-shaped complex. Its massiv
Source: Denver Post
February 13, 2007
The National Archives and Records Administration has proposed that the depositions of the parents of the Columbine High School killers be kept at its Denver regional center and ideally be made public after 20 years.
The agency, weighing in on a legal debate over what to do with statements given by the parents in connection with various now-settled lawsuits, said that any materials from Columbine given to it would be considered to be of significant historical value and would be perma
Source: UPI
February 13, 2007
EDINBURGH -- Contractors renovating a building in Edinburgh, Scotland, were surprised to find a mummified cat believed about 180 years old under basement floorboards.
In fact, none of the workers would even touch the cat, which has distinct features and its paw resting on its face, The Scotsman reported Tuesday.
DX Network Services Manager Angus Philip said...he is donating his ancient -- and rather dead -- pet to the National Museum of Scotland.
The museum
Source: ABC-Radio Australia
February 14, 2007
The Australian Government says it is commited to repatriating Aboriginal remains held in overseas collections.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has obtained a court injunction in Britain, preventing that country's Natural History Museum from carrying out scientific tests on the remains of 17 Aborigines, before they are returned to Australia.
The centre wants the federal government to help fund its continuing legal challenge.
The attorney-general Philip Ruddo
Source: Public Radio International/The World
February 13, 2007
[Transcript + audio] Jeb Sharp: The memorial at Murambi sits on a hilltop near the town of Gikongoro in the southwest. The site was supposed to be a technical college. The campus was still under construction when the genocide began. Thousands of Tutsis sought refuge in the empty buildings. They were slaughtered there. The bodies were dumped into mass graves.
The day I visit with my translator, the place is deserted. There are two guides who work at the memorial. They catch a ride u
Source: Reuters
February 13, 2007
DUBLIN -- Britain removed the last of its armoured watch towers in Northern Ireland on Tuesday in a significant symbolic step towards erasing the visible reminders of the province's 30-year conflict.
Improved security conditions following the 1997 cease-fire by the IRA have seen Britain drastically reduce its military presence in Northern Ireland.
It began dismantling the watch posts that dotted the countryside and towered over small towns and villages in 2000 and has p
Source: VOA News
February 13, 2007
Italian archaeologists say they will not separate the remains of stone age lovers, which they unearthed last week on the outskirts of the northern city of Mantua.
Archaeologists said Tuesday they would scoop out the tightly embraced male and female skeletons and keep them together. The couple was buried between 5,000- and-6,000 years ago. They are believed to have died young because their teeth were found intact.
The discovery during construction work has sparked theori
Source: MSNBC
February 13, 2007
Chemists have solved a 20-year mystery surrounding the date of a Madonna and Child painting, the "de Brecy Tondo," painted by an as-yet unidentified artist. However, a debate continues as to who painted the "de Brecy Tondo," which looks suspiciously similar to the "Sistine Madonna," painted by the renowned Italian Renaissance artist Raphael.Howell Edwards, a specialist in Raman spectroscopy at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, us
Source: AP
February 13, 2007
A debate over how evolution is taught in Kansas also has become a debate over what students should hear in science classes about the Nazis, forced sterilization and an infamous study of syphilis in black men.A brief passage about history in science standards for the state's public schools became an issue Monday, as the State Board of Education prepared to vote on a new set of guidelines. Seeking to rewrite anti-evolution standards adopted in 2005, the board targeted for dele
Source: Pan Armenian Net
February 13, 2007
Examination of mass graves discovered on October of 2006 in Turkish district of Nusaybin will be carried out by an international expedition. Swedish historian David Gaunt is sure that the graves belongs to 270 Armenians and Assyrians, who were killed by order of a Young Turks chieftain. Turkish authorities have not carried out any investigation, journalists were not allowed to approach the burial and obtain more information.n this connection Hans Dinden, a deputy from Swedis
Source: Christian Science Monitor
February 13, 2007
Using a tiny global-positioning device to measure their location via satellite and a map superimposed on topographical images provided by Google Earth, Daniel Adamson and Mahmoud Twaissi are tracking the route that Abraham might have trod.
The ends, however, are as ancient as can be. The two researchers – one British, one Jordanian – are tracing the footsteps of the ancestral patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the hope that people today will rediscover the common root
