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: BBC
August 6, 2006
A previously unseen photograph of Florence Nightingale is going on display to mark the 150th anniversary of her return from the Crimean War.
Taken by amateur photographer William Slater, the picture shows the "lady of the lamp" sitting reading outside her family home in Embley Park, Hampshire.
The newly discovered photograph will go on display until 7 November at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London.
She gained worldwide renown for her work as a nu
Source: AP
August 7, 2006
EASTON, Md.--The Great House still stands on the plantation where Frederick Douglass spent his childhood. But the quarters where the famed abolitionist once lived along with other slaves are long gone from the 350-year-old estate.
While the history of the Lloyd family, which has owned the property since the 1600s, is well documented, much less is known about the daily lives of their slaves.
University of Maryland archaeologists hoping to flesh out the story of those who
Source: scotsman.com
August 7, 2006
ACTOR Mel Gibson was once involved in providing support for a friend who was member of a far-right group in Australia known for its antisemitic views, according to newspaper reports.
The actor, who last week allegedly harangued police with an antisemitic outburst after being arrested on suspicion of drunk driving California, was said to have campaigned for Robin Taylor, a member of the Australian League of Rights, who stood unsuccessfully for a local government seat in northern Vict
Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
August 7, 2006
he weathered skull in Chris Stojanowski's luggage passed through Atlanta's airport security without turning a single head.
As cold cases go, the cranium in his custom-made carry-on case was a classic. A long time ago, someone lost his head --- this particular head --- near present-day Darien, on the Georgia coast.
Now Stojanowski, a bioarchaeologist at Arizona State University's new School of Human Evolution and Social Change, wants to find out more about the brittle sk
Source: US News
August 6, 2006
Four people in England, back in 1953, gazed at the mysterious image called Photo 51. It wasn't much--a grainy picture showing a black X. But three of these people won the Nobel Prize for figuring out what the photo really showed--the shape of DNA, the basic unit of life on Earth. The discovery brought fame and fortune to scientists James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins. The fourth, the one who actually made the picture, was left out.
Her name was Rosalind Franklin. "
Source: BBC
August 6, 2006
Archaeologists have discovered a precious golden dagger dated to about 3,000BC in a Thracian tomb in the centre of Bulgaria.It is the latest find from one of many tombs believed to have formed the cradle of Thracian civilisation.
The dagger, made of an alloy of gold and platinum, was found near the village of Dubovo.
Bozhidar Dimitrov, head of Bulgaria's National Museum, told Reuters news agency the discovery was "sensational".
Source: LAT
August 6, 2006
FIDEL CASTRO once famously acknowledged that his revolution required an "enemy," an "antithesis," a "counterrevolution" in order to develop. For nearly half a century, Cuban Americans have also largely defined themselves, socially and politically, in opposition to their enemy, Castro's regime.
Preferring to see themselves as exiles rather than as immigrants, Cubans in the United States cling to a powerful exodus story -- full of loss, longing and redemp
Source: The Hartford Courant
August 6, 2006
The Battle of Flamborough Head, as it came to be called, entered sailing history as one of the most epic single-ship actions ever, and made Jones a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. The Bonhomme Richard and its opponent, the HMS Serapis, each lost half its crew in a battle so improbably fearsome it would seem lifted from a Patrick O'Brian novel. For more than an hour, the two ships fought hull-to-hull, firing and on fire at the same time. Bound together by grappling hooks and fallen masts
Source: NYT
August 6, 2006
AS the seasonal tide of film biographies begins to rise, Hollywood will soon be caught up in a favorite debate of recent years: Is it better to mimic or to transcend?In a simpler era the choice usually wasn’t difficult: movie stars were expected to outshine their subjects. Henry Fonda was among the handsomest leading men on the 20th Century Fox lot, but that didn’t stop him from portraying perhaps our homeliest president in John Ford’s “Young Mr. Lincoln,” or oth
Source: NYT
August 6, 2006
The independent federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks did not pursue a tough enough line of questioning with former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani during a hearing two years ago because its members feared public anger if they challenged him, according to a new book written by the panel’s leaders.
“It proved difficult, if not impossible, to raise hard questions about 9/11 in New York without it being perceived as criticism of the individual police and firefighters or of Ma
Source: AP
August 4, 2006
Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers.
Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works.
Source: NYT
August 5, 2006
"Despite talk of ‘culture wars’ and the high visibility of activist groups on both sides of the cultural divide, there has been no polarization of the public into liberal and conservative camps.”
That was the conclusion that researchers from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life drew from the latest in their periodic surveys of public opinion, conducted from July 6 to July 19 and released Thursday.
Source: NYT
August 5, 2006
Shinzo Abe, the front-runner in the race to become the next prime minister, visited the Yasukuni Shrine war memorial in April, according to Japanese news reports. Mr. Abe, the chief cabinet secretary and a right-wing nationalist who is expected to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when he retires next month, refused to confirm news of his visit, which was reported by all the major news media. The reports of the visit drew criticism from South Korean and Chinese officials, who regard the s
Source: Newsweek
August 7, 2006
IBM delivered the first disk drive 50 years ago. It was about the size of two refrigerators and weighed a ton.If there's a bottle of vintage champagne you've been saving, next month is the time to pop it open: it's the 50th anniversary of hard-disk storage. Don't laugh. On Sept. 13, 1956, IBM shipped the first unit of the RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) and set in motion a process that would change the way we live.
The RAMAC, designed in B
Source: Introduction to the newly revised report filed by Rep. John Conyers
August 3, 2006
I (anti-immigrant “Palmer Raids”); World War II
(internment of Japanese Americans); and the Vietnam War (COINTELPRO); the risks to
our citizens’ rights today are potentially more grave, as the war on terror has no
specific end point.
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are quite serious. However, the current Majority Party has shown little inclination to
engage in basic oversight, let alone question the Administration directly. The media,
though showing some signs of aggressiveness as of late, is increasingly conce
Source: USA Today
August 3, 2006
Local folklore has it that the small town of Bluffton, Ind., once had an ordinance to keep blacks out, Mayor Ted Ellis says. He never found proof but says he wondered why Bluffton remained 96% white while many other cities became more diverse.
"I always thought that Bluffton was no more hostile than other communities around," Ellis says.
Then came an anonymous letter about 18 months ago. It was a photocopy of a newspaper clipping about the opening of a restaurant in
Source: WaPo
August 4, 2006
When Waskar Ari traveled to Bolivia last year, after completing a doctorate at Georgetown University, he meant to stay there for 10 days. The historian was due back last fall to start a professorship at the University of Nebraska. A year later, he is still waiting to return. Ari, an Aymara Indian, is one of a growing number of foreign scholars whose visas have been revoked or whose applications have been denied -- barred, according to civil rights and academic groups, for their ideological or po
Source: The Age )Australia)
August 4, 2006
The history wars are about to be reignited, thanks to a paper that argues that Australian history in schools focuses "excessively" on topics such as the Vietnam War and the Whitlam government while ignoring issues such as economic development.The paper, commissioned by the Federal Government for consideration at a national Australian history summit this month, also stresses the need to tackle the common perception that "Australian history is crap … 'cause noth
Source: WaPo
August 4, 2006
When Waskar Ari traveled to Bolivia last year, after completing a doctorate at Georgetown University, he meant to stay there for 10 days. The historian was due back last fall to start a professorship at the University of Nebraska. A year later, he is still waiting to return.
Ari, an Aymara Indian, is one of a growing number of foreign scholars whose visas have been revoked or whose applications have been denied -- barred, according to civil rights and academic groups, for their ideo
Source: Hartford Courant
August 3, 2006
An attempt is underway to literally resurrect John Paul Jones' ship, the Bonhomme Richard, and its place in history. Since mid-July, an expedition launched from the Avery Point campus of the University of Connecticut in Groton has been searching the North Sea for the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard. The day before he left for England, the chief organizer of the hunt, Ret. Navy Capt. John "Jack" Ringelberg, turned on his office computer and punched up a map of the app
