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: Pittsburgh-Tibune Review
November 11, 2005
An ancient stone found by a team led by a Pittsburgh professor contains the earliest alphabet ever discovered, but it may not be enough to settle a hot debate among biblical scholars. Ron Tappy, a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Highland Park, announced Wednesday that an excavation that he led in Israel this summer unearthed a complete alphabet inscribed on a stone set inside a building. The building, which dates to the 10th century B.C., is in an
Source: Jerusalem Post
November 11, 2005
A very small ceramic shard unearthed by Bar-Ilan University archaeologists digging at Tell es-Safi, the biblical city "Gath of the Philistines," may hold a very large clue into the history of the well-known biblical figure Goliath.
The shard, which contains the earliest known Philistine inscription ever to be discovered, mentions two names that are remarkably similar to the name "Goliath". The discovery is of particular importan
Source: Wa Po
November 11, 2005
No one knows exactly how many of America's World War I veterans will celebrate Veterans Day, which marks the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, that ended what then was considered the Great War. An estimated 2 million Americans served in Europe after the U.S. entered the war in 1917.
Today, the Veterans Affairs Department lists just eight veterans as receiving disability benefits or pension compensation from service in World War I. It says a few dozen other veterans of the war probably are
Source: BBC News
November 11, 2005
Britain's oldest war veteran said he would "like to join up again" after attending memorial services in France on Armistice Day.
Henry Allingham, 109, from Eastbourne in East Sussex, was an aircraft engineer in World War I and is the last founder member of the Royal Air Force.
He laid wreaths at memorials in St Omer, near Calais, in honour of his fallen comrades. The last survivor of the Battle of Jutland said: "By coming here
Source: Montreal Gazette
November 11, 2005
Canadian students are finishing high school without a basic understanding of their country's history, and schools are ignoring the subject in favour of a new fixation with math and science, says the Dominion Institute.The private, Toronto-based advocacy group says provincial governments could help solve the problem by making Canadian history a mandatory requirement of high school graduation.
The institute's Remembrance Day poll - a national survey conducted last
Source: Newsday
November 10, 2005
Hofstra University's 11th Presidential Conference, this one analyzing Bill Clinton's eight years in office, begins today, ushering in what presidential historian Douglas Brinkley called the "opening salvo of scholarship" on the 42nd president.Clinton is scheduled to give a speech at the conference today. About a dozen cabinet members and former staffers will speak at the three-day event.
Among those scheduled for the first day are Madeleine K. Albright
Source: Herald (UK)
November 11, 2005
A leading archaeologist united with environmental campaigners yesterday to demand changes to laws protecting historic sites, amid fears that one of Scotland's most famous battlefields could be defaced by huge electricity pylons.Dr Tony Pollard, of the Two Men In a Trench TV programme, has joined protests over a proposed 160-mile power line which some fear would destroy the site of the battle of Sheriffmuir, which signalled the bloody denouement of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion
Source: CBS
November 10, 2005
Scientists' hopes that DNA testing would identify a nearly 400-year-old skeleton found at Jamestown have been dashed, but they remain confident that the remains are those of an unsung founder of North America's first English settlement.
American and British scientists had hoped DNA they believe to be of Bartholomew Gosnold would match with that of a woman buried in England who they had thought was his sister. Tests, however, found the woman wasn't a blood relative of Gosnold, the no
Source: Inside Higher Ed
November 10, 2005
A 41 year old engineering graduate student has hired a lawyer to possibly sue history blogger Bitch PhD--an anonymous blogger--for libel. Paul Deignan and Bitch PhD tangled over the question of abortion on their blogs and comment boards. Threats of a lawsuit followed when University of Northern Iowa history professor Wallace Hettle complained to Deignan's advisor about the tenor of his posts on Bitch PhD's blog. Deignan says he is considering suing both Bitch PhD and Hettle.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
November 9, 2005
More than 40 years after the JFK assassination, the Central Intelligence Agency is refusing to release certain assassination-related records that it holds."We are asking for discovery of JFK assassination records related to the late George Joannides, chief of the Psychological Warfare Branch of the CIA's Miami Station in 1963," said Jefferson Morley, a researcher and Washington Post writer who is pursuing the CIA records.
"The CIA has acknow
Source: scotsman.com
November 9, 2005
A LEADING academic today demands an urgent statement from the Scottish Executive on the future of history in the nation's schools.
Professor Tom Devine, widely viewed as Scotland's top historian, says suggestions by Peter Peacock, the education minister, that the subject may not be offered as a stand-alone part of the curriculum in the first two years of secondary school are "an educational disgrace". Mr Peacock has said the curriculum review bei
Source: Independent (UK)
November 9, 2005
The National Museum of Iraq is now a sorry sight. The rusting gates are shut to the public, inside layers of dust lie across the 28 galleries empty of everything except a dozen ancient statues which are just too vast to move.
More than two and half years after the ransacking of the museum by a mob following the 'liberation' of Baghdad by US troops, almost 10,000 items, including some of the most precious treasures of antiquity in the world, are still missing.
Source: Guardian
November 9, 2005
The Guardian's "DC Confidential" colunist has recounted that Henry Kissinger at the Bohemian Grove in 2002 laid out 3 conditions for a justified attack on Iraq. None were met.
In July 2002 I was invited to spend a long weekend at something called the Bohemian Grove, an institution that has its origins in the 19th century. It started out as a club in San Francisco for writers, artists and intellectuals. It purchased a large tract of virgin land in n
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 9, 2005
Alistair Horne writes in the Daily Telegraph, "having spent weeks immersed both in the intricacies of Watergate in 1973 and the current scandal that is electrifying Washington, I cannot help but see echoes of the episode that brought down Richard Nixon.... Many of the pundits are in denial about the Watergate parallels. They stress that this President, much as they loathe him, and unless we're missing something, could have no stained cocktail dress hidden away, and - dumb as he is - would n
Source: Howard Kurtz in the Wa Po
November 9, 2005
After a year of silence about the biggest scandal in CBS News history, Mary Mapes has plenty to say -- about George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Les Moonves, her father, bloggers, the mainstream press and others who she believes contributed to her downfall.What took her so long?
CBS producer Mary Mapes with British soldiers and a young Afghan in Afghanistan in 2001. (Family Photo)
"I was extremely battered," she said in an interview yesterda
Source: AP
November 9, 2005
Archeologists said Wednesday they have unearthed burial mounds dating back to the third millennium B.C. which they believe contain remains and trinkets from ancient Aryan nomads.
Historian Hakob Simonian said Wednesday that the four mounds were among 30 discovered about 35 miles west of the Armenian capital Yerevan, containing beads made of agate, carnelian and as well as the remains of what appears to be a man, aged 50-55.Also found were remains of domesticated
Source: Xinhuanet
November 9, 2005
The Chinese might have learned to adorn themselves with periwigs more than 2,000 years ago, said archeologists who unearthed a skeleton wearing a hairpiece from an ancient tombs in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The wig, found on the lower part of the skull, was made of hemprope, says Zhang Rong, a heritage repairs technician with a local museum in Liangshan prefecture, where the finding was reported. Zhang said she had consulted several seasoned hemp knit
Source: LAT
November 8, 2005
Italian authorities have identified more than 100 allegedly looted antiquities at six leading museums in the United States as well as galleries, private collections and museums in Europe and Asia.
According to Italian court records, prosecutors have used a trove of captured Polaroid photographs to trace objects to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Toledo Museum of Art and Princeton University Art Museum, in addition to the J. Paul Getty Museum and
Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer
November 8, 2005
Rep. Sherrod Brown wrote to Sen. Mike DeWine last Friday, voicing concern about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's labor record. Brown's language was crisp -- and was plagiarized. Roughly 90 percent of what Brown, an Avon Democrat, wrote in his letter was lifted from an Internet posting by a blogger, as Brown's office acknowledged Monday when The Plain Dealer presented the similarities.
Brown had not credited the blogger, Nathan Newman of NathanNewman.org, or any other source.
Source: AP
November 9, 2005
New York University's graduate teaching assistants are expected to go on strike today. At issue is NYU refusal to recognize the teaching assistants as a union and negotiate with them.From 2000 until August of this year, about 1,000 teaching and research assistants were represented by Local 2110 of the United Automobile Workers. But when their contract expired on August 31st, NYU said it would no longer recognize a graduate student union.
The universi
