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
November 7, 2006
Britain's lawmakers Tuesday granted posthumous pardons for soldiers executed during World War I, ending years of campaigning by the families of men condemned to death for cowardice.
Around 300 soldiers, who were executed during the 1914-1918 conflict for failing to return to the front lines, were included in the pardon. The government has said it is continuing research to identify other soldiers who were brought before firing squads after only summary trials.
The deci
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 8, 2006
The colonel who commanded one of the Army's most famous feats of arms was a real-life Manchurian Candidate, brainwashed by communists to return home and create confusion in Britain.
Lt Col James Power "Fred" Carne, the commander of the 1st Bn Gloucestershire Regt (the Glorious Glosters) at the battle of Imjin, Korea, in April 1951, fell into Chinese captivity after his 700-man battalion's astonishing resistance against an estimated 11,000 attackers was finally overcome.
Source: San Francisco Examiner
November 6, 2006
The latest piece of public art on San Francisco Port land will likely stand 7 feet high and span 30 feet, honoring the Bay Area Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
The San Francisco Port Commission is expected to vote Nov. 14 on whether to allow the artwork’s installation near the east wall of the Vaillancourt Fountain at Justin Herman Plaza. It would be only the third monument to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the United States.
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade was par
Source: Bruce Craig in the newsletter of the National Coalition for History
November 8, 2006
[T]here are some casualties of the elections including several long-term friends of the history and archive communities who went down to defeat. Most notable is Jim Leach (R-ID) who was a prime mover and supporter of the House Humanities Caucus. Leach is also one of the few strong and vocal Republican voices for the humanities and also a staunch advocate for funding for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) which the White House Office of Management and Budget has b
Source: NYT
November 8, 2006
federal judge refused yesterday to bar Christie’s in New York from auctioning a painting by Picasso that a German banker’s heir says was sold under duress in Nazi Germany.
Source: Boston Globe
November 5, 2006
The war in Iraq is as unpopular today as the Vietnam War was at its height -- yet there are no mass demonstrations on America's streets. Can an antiwar movement confined largely to the Internet and the voting booth change the course of a war?ON MARCH 22, 2003, two days after the start of the bombing campaign that began the US-led invasion of Iraq, more than 100,000 people took to the streets of New York City in protest. At a rally there the month before, organize
Source: AP
November 7, 2006
LYON, France -- A French far-right leader and member of the European Parliament went on trial Tuesday over remarks in which he questioned the existence of Nazi gas chambers.
Bruno Gollnisch, the No. 2 in France's National Front party, is accused of "disputing a crime against humanity" in the trial in Lyon in southeast France.
A verdict is expected Wednesday. He faces up to one year in prison if convicted.
Source: Reuters
November 7, 2006
One of the most poignant events of World War One, described by a soldier in a letter home to his "dear mater," is to be auctioned Tuesday.
The rare letter, which gives an account of the Christmas Day truce in 1914, is one of the few uncensored accounts of life in the trenches.
Nothing is known about the writer and whether he survived the horrors that were to come. Only referring to himself as "Boy," he epitomizes the spirit of the Unknown Soldier.
Source: Alastair Northedge in The Art newspaper
November 2, 2006
[The writer is the professor of Islamic art and architecture at the Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) ]
At the end of August, The Art Newspaper revealed the stunning news that Donny George, president of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq, had been forced to flee the country in fear of his life and take refuge in Damascus. In recent months, Dr George sealed up the treasures of the National Museum in Baghdad behind concrete walls, as it was too dangerous to le
Source: AP
November 7, 2006
AIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- From ancient ruins in Thailand to a 12th-century settlement off Africa's eastern coast, prized sites around the world have withstood centuries of wars, looting and natural disasters. But experts say they might not survive a more recent menace: a swiftly warming planet.
"Our world is changing, there is no going back," Tom Downing of the Stockholm Environment Institute said Tuesday at the U.N. climate conference, where he released a report on threats to
Source: AP
November 6, 2006
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) - Daniel Ortega appeared headed back to the presidency 16 years after a U.S.-backed rebellion helped oust the former Marxist revolutionary, as partial results and the country's top electoral watchdog indicated he had easily defeated four opponents.
The Sandinista leader's victory in Sunday's election, if confirmed by final results, would expand the club of leftist Latin rulers led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who has tried to help his Nicaraguan ally by shippi
Source: WaPo
November 6, 2006
In June 1604, fur traders led by Samuel de Champlain and Pierre Dugua found a site they thought would be ideal for the first settlement in New France. The tiny island in the middle of the St. Croix River, now part of Maine's Acadia National Park, had high bluffs and a clear view downriver to watch for their English rivals.
But winter that year came early and hard, and St. Croix Island proved to be a prison. The men were stuck, trapped by dangerous ice floes moving on the tremendous
Source: http://www.jp.dk/english
November 6, 2006
Archaeologists from Vejle Museum think they may have found a third 'Jellinge stone' - a large rock with carved runes and considered the first examples of written language in Denmark.
The researchers have found seven stones in all, which they believe date from the 10th century. Jellinge stones tell of the founding of Denmark and of Christianity's arrival in the country.
Even if the stones do not yield a true Jellinge stone, the find is still significant.
Source: AP
November 3, 2006
BERLIN -- For decades they suffered in silence, aging Germans who as children were selected by the Nazis for their Aryan qualities and handed over to SS families. Collectively known as "Lebensborn children," some will gather publicly Saturday for the first time.
Many are trying to make peace with pasts they long kept cloaked from shame. They are asking questions, tracing their roots and demanding that the truth be told about SS chief Heinrich Himmler's Lebensborn, or &quo
Source: Times Online (UK)
November 6, 2006
AT THE height of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, Brigadier General John Nicholson stormed into the officers’ mess several hours late for dinner.
“I am sorry, gentlemen,” he said. “I have been hanging your cooks.” The entrance was typical of the Irishman who crushed the Mutiny, earning a reputation as one of the most brilliant but brutal figures of the British Raj.
Hailed at the time as the “Hero of Delhi”, he was more recently described as an “imperial psychopath” by the a
Source: AP
November 5, 2006
CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands -- A paper trail documents their lives as human property, from their passage across the Atlantic to their sale as slaves for sugar plantations. Now a newly discovered burial ground promises to shed extensive new light on the lives and deaths of Africans in the Caribbean.
Researchers from Denmark and the U.S. Virgin Islands want to unearth up to 50 skeletons next year, hoping to learn about their diet, illnesses and causes of death, and thus bro
Source: AP
November 5, 2006
On a hot August afternoon in 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to a mostly black audience from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
On Nov. 13, a half-mile from Lincoln's iconic statue, a diverse group of celebrities, corporate leaders and ordinary Americans will help turn the first shovels of dirt for a memorial honoring the civil rights leader who was slain 38 years ago. It will be the first monument to an African American on the Nati
Source: AP
November 5, 2006
It was mere days after he had grabbed power when Saddam Hussein summoned 400 top Iraqi officials, announcing he had uncovered a plot against the ruling party. The conspirators, he said, were in that very room.
As the 42-year-old coolly puffed on a cigar, the plotters' names were read out. As each was called, secret police led them away, executing 22. To make sure his countrymen got the message, Saddam videotaped the whole thing and sent copies around the country.
The pl
Source: LAT
November 5, 2006
One of the most arresting images from the last days of the Vietnam War shows an unruly crowd rushing the door of a plane in Nha Trang, a rural seaside city north of Saigon. The focal point of the photograph is a balding, middle-aged American who is landing a jab to the head of a Vietnamese man desperate to board.
The American is all grim determination; his jaw is clenched as he lunges right, extending his arm like a ramrod into the face of the intruder. Resolute in the crush of bodi
Source: NYT
November 5, 2006
“We are losing our culture,” said Devere Dressler, 55, a fifth-generation rancher whose family has sold off all but 150 acres here in the Carson Valley in northern Nevada, home to some of the state’s oldest ranches and some of the newest mansions.
Once, the Dresslers owned 20,000 acres, but economic realities clashed with romantic ideals, and family members have sold most of the land, including large chunks for a housing development called, with a bit of paradox, Gardnerville Rancho
