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: Reuters
June 23, 2006
Japan and its Asian neighbours must agree to disagree over wartime history in order to move forward toward better ties, says Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, a dark horse candidate to be Japan's next prime minister. "Even among the same Americans, Yankees refer to the war between the North and the South as the 'Civil War', and those in Dixie call it the 'Northern Invasion'," Aso told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview this week.
"Even among th
Source: NYT
June 23, 2006
Russian newspapers Thursday unanimously paid tribute to the dead of World War II, known here as the Great Patriotic War, 65 years to the day after Nazi forces invaded the country.
The war, as Izvestia put it, echoing the sentiment of all the assorted papers, "trampled hopes, broke fates, doomed millions to death. But not to oblivion. Those who remain alive do not make their peace with death, they remember those they lost, and their children inherit this memory. And so the long
Source: Turkish Daily News (via Cronaca)
June 22, 2006
Turkish archaeologists announced on Tuesday that they have discovered an ancient Byzantine port in an area that was planned to be an underground station for a modern rail tunnel. They're calling the find the "Port of Theodosius," after the emperor of Rome and Byzantium who died in the year 395, and say the items they're digging up here could shed significant light on the commercial life of this ancient city.
The excavations are being conducted in the Yenikapı area, whi
Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
June 22, 2006
Ancient shells with holes bored into their centres may be the earliest evidence that modern humans used jewelry.Researchers re-examined beads excavated from one site in Israel and one in Algeria.
The beads date to around 100,000 years ago —about 25,000 years older than similar beads found in South Africa that were previously considered the record holder.
"Our paper supports the scenario that modern humans in Africa developed behaviours that are
Source: NYT
June 22, 2006
The J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles has agreed to return some "significant objects" to Italy from its collection of Etruscan and Roman art, including "several masterpieces," the trust announced Wednesday in a joint statement with the Italian government.
Although few details were provided, the breakthrough seems to pave the way for a settlement to Italy's claims to dozens of antiquities in the Getty Museum's collection. Italy has long argued that those objects
Source: NYT
June 22, 2006
Fifty years after Hungarian partisans waged a bloody but unsuccessful uprising against Communist rule, President Bush came to this eastern European capital today to lay a bouquet at the Eternal Flame monument, but also to draw a comparison to the current war in Iraq. "The sacrifice of the Hungarian people inspires all who love liberty," Mr. Bush said in a speech at Buda Castle on Gellert Hill, overlooking the Danube and the city below. He continued: "Ame
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
June 22, 2006
Plenty of other colleges and universities, of course, have histories nearly as interesting as Washington and Lee's, even if they don't number famous generals among their presidents. But hardly any put their histories on display in any engaging fashion — often the best that can be hoped for is a dry book by a retired history professor, supplemented by portraits of dead presidents in the administration building. Lee's years in Lexington, by contrast, spring to life not only in the university museu
Source: Inside Higher Ed
June 22, 2006
In 2003, when Tyler Mott was a student at the University of Arizona, he came to believe something was missing from classrooms: the American flag. He remembered the flag being prominent in every classroom in elementary and high school and wondered why it wasn’t at his college.
Mott wrote to legislators about his concerns and the result will be reaching the Arizona governor’s office: legislation to require every public college or university to display an American flag in every classro
Source: Hankooki.com
June 22, 2006
Scholars from the two Koreas will begin a joint excavation of a historical site in Kaesong, North Korea starting early next month.
A group of historians from the two Koreas will jointly research a historical site of the ancient Koryo Kingdom, the Cultural Heritage Administration, a South Korean governmental body that leads the project, said Thursday.
The two Koreas agreed to conduct the excavation at their latest ministerial meeting in April.
Preparations
Source: BBC
June 22, 2006
Experts have expressed confidence that they can find the sunken wreck of the ship made famous by legendary Solway born sailor John Paul Jones next month.
The Bonhomme Richard went down in 1779 off Flamborough Head in East Yorkshire as Jones famously said: "Surrender - I have not yet begun to fight."
Several bids have been made to recover the ship captained by a man credited as the founding father of the US Navy.
Now underwater archaeology experts wil
Source: AP
June 20, 2006
This two-part Associated Press series found that the national parks are facing unprecedented pressures inside and outside their borders from population growth, homeland security concerns and Americans’ desires for conveniences such as hotels, restaurants, stores, cell phones and vacation homes.
Source: Denver Post
June 22, 2006
The site of a new Interstate 25 exchange south of Denver turns out to have also been a campsite for Native Americans more than 1,000 years ago.
Archaeologists are finding thousands of stone tools and artifacts - some dating back 1,050 years - at the RidgeGate interchange, a mile south of Lincoln Avenue.
A nomadic group of hunter-gatherers repeatedly used the campsite to grind plants, fashion tools and roast game over thousands of years, archeologists say.
Source: BBC
June 22, 2006
The head of the Armenian Orthodox church is in the middle of a controversial visit to Istanbul. Karekin II has in the past angered Turks by accusing them of committing genocide against Armenians at the time of World War I. Turkey denies the charges of genocide.
Source: BBC
June 22, 2006
South African historians are searching for a gun buried by Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg before his 1963 arrest.
The former South African president has told how he buried the weapon on the farm where he was hiding at the time.
He and other ANC leaders were later arrested on the farm, and were jailed for their work against apartheid. Mr Mandela was freed in 1990.
Nicholas Wolpe, head of the trust which is carrying out the search, said he was confident that the
Source: Press Release -- Network of Concerned Historians
June 22, 2006
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) reports again about death threats against members of a Peruvian forensic team (see NCH #41). These teams excavate mass graves with evidence of past atrocities and are therefore of great concern to historians. Forensic teams throughout Latin America, particularly in Guatemala, have reported death threats against them presumably from individuals associated with the violence. Increased international attention to the forensic teams has b
Source: AP
June 22, 2006
In the summer of 1956, playwright Arthur Miller married screen idol Marilyn Monroe in a Jewish ceremony, an event of high-level gossip for much of the world and of high-level curiosity for the U.S. government.
"An anonymous telephone call" has been placed to the New York Daily News, an FBI report notes at the time. The caller stated that the "religious" wedding - Miller was Jewish and Monroe had converted - was an obvious "cover up" for Miller, who &quo
Source: The Gazette (Montreal)
June 22, 2006
A treasured Canadian artifact, hailed as the earliest map of the American Midwest - and proof of the 1673 discovery of the Mississippi River by two French Canadian explorers - has been dismissed as a "hoax" by a U.S. researcher, who claims it couldn't have been drawn before the War of 1812.
The map was discovered in the 1840s at a Montreal religious college among historical documents related to the Jesuit missionaries of early Canada.
It is held today by the J
Source: Christian Science Monitor
June 22, 2006
Only two years ago, saying "I love Germany" was practically taboo.
But now, in a sudden burst of pent-up patriotism, Germans seem anything but hesitant to profess their national pride. Giddy World Cup fans frolic through the street wearing flag togas and red, black, and gold mini-dresses, mohawk wigs, gummy bracelets, and jester hats.
One of the biggest flag-makers says sales are ten-fold what they were during Germany's jubilant 1989 reunification. Indeed, suc
Source: The Times
June 22, 2006
A mystery that has tantalised art scholars for centuries moved closer to resolution yesterday when part of a scandalous Renaissance fresco came to light after almost 400 years.
The fresco, painted by the early Renaissance artist Pinturicchio (1454-1513) for the Borgia apartments in the Vatican, showed the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, kneeling at the feet of the Madonna and child and cradling the infant Jesus's right foot in his hand.
It was an open secret at the court tha
Source: Wa Po
June 20, 2006
On Aug. 28, 1861, a month after the Union Army's disastrous defeat at the first Battle of Bull Run, President Abraham Lincoln sat down and wrote out a Riggs Bank check for $3 to "Mr. Johns (a sick man)."
It is not known who Johns was, where Lincoln encountered him or what prompted the beleaguered president to pause amid the opening weeks of the Civil War to give him a donation.
It is but a tantalizing shard of local history, one of the thousands that reside no
