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: National Security Archive
December 9, 2005
More than three years before the 9/11 attack on the United States, U.S. officials warned Saudi Arabia that Osama bin Laden "might take the course of least resistance and turn to a civilian [aircraft] target," according to a declassified cable released by the National Security Archive today. The warning was made by the U.S. regional security officer and a civil aviation official in Riyadh based on a public threat bin Laden made against "military passenger aircraft" and his sta
Source: Wa Po
December 9, 2005
With a glut of memorials, monuments and museums waiting to be built, and other champions for other causes in the wings, the question of whether the Mall should be considered "a finished piece of civic art" gained new momentum this week during a meeting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
Rick Harlan Schneider is one of a growing number of planners whose solution is rethinking the Mall itself, reconfiguring and expanding the space, the way a Senate commission did about 100 year
Source: Perspecitves (American Historical Association)
December 9, 2005
For the first time in six years, the Department of Education (DoE) reported both a real increase in the number of undergraduate history degrees awarded as well as a relative improvement in comparison to other fields—critical measures in drawing institutional resources to history departments. At the same time, the number of new history PhDs conferred declined for the third year, providing some hope to those looking for signs that the tight academic job market could loosen up a bit.
Source: Perspecitves (American Historical Association)
December 9, 2005
The number of history books published in North America dipped slightly in 2004, but still remains near record highs. The data has to be read with caution as it contains a number of evident flaws and ambiguities. Not all history books are equal, after all, in the eyes of the history profession. Nevertheless, the vital importance of books and monographs to the health of the discipline and profession of history makes even an impressionistic picture of the state of the industry helpful. Perhaps most
Source: NYT
December 8, 2005
Fans of London's double-decker Routemaster buses were out early on a foggy morning Friday hoping to catch a ride on the last day of regular service after half a century. The red Routemasters, with their conductors and hop-on, hop-off open platforms, were scheduled to make their last regular trip at midday.
''It's a sad day. The buses have all been overhauled and they were OK for several more years,'' said Rustom Battiwalla, 37, a former bus driver who came to London on Friday from t
Source: USA Today
December 9, 2005
For Smithsonian Institution curator David Shayt, ordinary objects - a chunk of concrete from a collapsed floodwall, a piece from a broken garden gate and a vintage 1930s clarinet that a local jazz musician rescued from the mud - help chronicle the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
Shayt will take these and other artifacts from one of the nation's worst natural disasters to the National Mall in Washington, where someday they will go on display. Shayt want
Source: AP
December 9, 2005
Cape Cod was the backdrop for the most iconic images of President John F. Kennedy: a robust leader at the helm of a sailboat, with hair tousled and sunlight splashed on his face.
Now, 42 years after Kennedy's assassination, the place he called home may finally erect a statue to honor the 35th president. A sculptor has nearly completed what would be Cape Cod's first Kennedy statue. The 6-foot, 400-pound bronze cast will be walking barefoot on a mound of real sand accented with live e
Source: KSTP-TV
December 9, 2005
Possibly the most recognizable pair of shoes in movie history - the sequined ruby slippers Dorothy wore in "The Wizard of Oz" - were reported stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn. on Sunday.
The slippers are one of four remaining pair of the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the filming of the 1939 classic movie. The famous shoes are owned by Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw and were on loan to the museum for the su
Source: Science Daily
December 9, 2005
A University of Calgary archaeologist and her international team of researchers have discovered the earliest known portrait of a woman that the Maya carved into stone, demonstrating that women held positions of authority very early in Maya history – either as queens or patron deities.
The discovery was made earlier this year in Guatemala at the site of Naachtun, a Maya city located some 90 kilometres through dense jungle north of the more famous Maya city of Tikal. The woman's face,
Source: USA Today
December 8, 2005
For Smithsonian Institution curator David Shayt, ordinary objects — a chunk of concrete from a collapsed floodwall, a piece from a broken garden gate and a vintage 1930s clarinet that a local jazz musician rescued from the mud — help chronicle the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
Shayt will take these and other artifacts from one of the nation's worst natural disasters to the National Mall in Washington, where someday they will go on display.
Shayt wants objec
Source: NYT
December 8, 2005
Israeli officials braced for the worst when they heard that Steven Spielberg was tackling Middle East violence in "Munich," his forthcoming thriller about the massacre at the 1972 Olympics and the retaliatory assassinations of Palestinian terrorists.
But Israel's first official response to the movie, which is set to open in the United States on Dec. 23, came with a shrug: It's not so great for Israel, but so what?It's a Hollywood movie,&quo
Source: AP
December 8, 2005
Cold, damp barrack walls, weathered from years of neglect, stand as a reminder of the detainment center that housed thousands of Chinese during the early 1900s on this mountainous island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.
Beneath layers of chipping gray paint, however, is a nearly forgotten piece of the human story - one of longing, disappointment, fear and rage, etched as poems into the decaying wood panels by immigrants held for weeks or months during enforcement of Chinese exclu
Source: Inside Higher Ed
December 8, 2005
A choice by a self-proclaimed student supporter of some Nazi ideas to wear a “Blood & Honour” armband both on and off the Bellarmine University campus this semester has led to fierce debate over freedom of expression at the Roman Catholic institution in Louisville. Administrators have created a committee to study what to do, while professors and students cope with what some are calling blatant intimidation left unchecked — and that others see as free expression.
Source: Reuters
December 7, 2005
Japan should reflect on the pain it caused China and South Korea in the past, but history should not be made into an obstacle to future ties, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said on Wednesday.
"I think it's necessary to view seriously the pain that we have inflicted on the people of South Korea and China in the past and Japan must also always have a feeling of reflection and consideration as a neighbour," Aso said in a speech.He urged Ch
Source: NYT
December 8, 2005
Three weeks after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority started digging a subway tunnel under Battery Park, the project hit a wall. A really old wall. Possibly the oldest wall still standing in Manhattan.
It was a 45-foot-long section of a stone wall that archaeologists believe is a remnant of the original battery that protected the Colonial settlement at the southern tip of the island. Depending on which archaeologist you ask, it was built in the 1760's or as long ago as the la
Source: NYT
December 8, 2005
Vice Adm. Frederick L. Ashworth, a Navy weapons specialist who was the crewman in control of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II's climactic strike, died Saturday at a hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 93 and lived in Santa Fe, N.M. On the morning of Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the B-29 Superfortress named the Bockscar dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, killing and wounding tens of t
Source: Reuters
December 8, 2005
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday expressed doubt that the Holocaust occurred and suggested Israel be moved to Europe.
His comments, reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency from a news conference he gave in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, follow his call in October for Israel to be "wiped off the map", which sparked widespread international condemnation."Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed m
Source: Chicago Tribune
December 8, 2005
At first, librarian Erik Kraft thought the bulky books on top of a University of Illinois study table were only out of place.
But after opening the dusty, bound volumes Tuesday night, he realized they were the missing editions of a rare sports newspaper credited with first reporting the 1919 White Sox gambling scandal. With his find, Kraft became a library hero and the Case of the Missing Collyer's Eye was solved--sort of. It remains unclear how the large volume
Source: Boston Globe
December 8, 2005
Iran's hard-liner president, who has called for Israel's destruction, said Thursday that the Jewish state should be moved to Europe if the West wants to make up for the Holocaust.Israeli officials condemned the remarks as "outrageous and even racist."
Speaking to reporters at an Islamic summit in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad implied that European countries backed the founding of Israel in the Middle East in 1948 out of guilt ov
Source: Email sent to HNN
December 8, 2005
Foreign graduate assistants, including many studying history, have signed a petition to NYU President John Sexton to protest the university's decision to cut off stipends to students participating in the nearly month-long strike. They say their visas will be in jeopardy if they lose their teaching jobs.PETITION
John Sexton
President
New York University
This is in reply to your letter of November 28, 2005, stipulating the deadline of De
