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 News
November 30, 2011
Investigators have found that in 2007 the German Intelligence Service (BND) destroyed files of 250 BND employees who had been in the Nazi SS or Gestapo.The BND confirmed the loss, calling it "regrettable and annoying".Four independent historians are investigating the BND's old links with the Nazis. They say some of the missing papers concern suspected war criminals.The historians did not allege a deliberate cover-up, but they urged the BND not to destroy any more files.They said the BND should consult them before shredding any more documents, and called for a full investigation into the 2007 incident....
Source: StAugustine.com
November 26, 2011
MIAMI — A congresswoman from Florida is pressuring National Public Radio stations, the cable television network CNBC and others to stop airing sponsorships and advertising by a giant German insurer that collaborated with the Nazis.U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is pushing legislation that would allow Holocaust survivors to sue Allianz AG, has launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at blocking the insurer from advertising with any U.S. media until it pays off all Holocaust survivors’ life insurance claims. During World War II, Allianz insured concentration camp facilities and sent money to the Nazis instead of rightful Jewish beneficiaries.“Allianz is no ordinary insurance conglomerate,” Ros-Lehtinen recently wrote to the media companies. “This company was involved in one of the greatest atrocities in recent history and has gone to great lengths to dodge acceptance of responsibility for its actions....
Source: CNN.com
November 26, 2011
(CNN) -- Alison Shein considers herself an amateur genealogist, spending hours online searching for information about family members she never knew.Among them: Alison's great-great-grandmother Bella Shein, who died in the Holocaust. The circumstances surrounding her death are still murky."They were living in this town called Volkovysk, which is currently in Belarus, and when the Germans were coming, some of her children and her grandchildren said, 'OK, we're going to leave. We're going to go with the Russian army.' And she said, 'I'm too old. I'm going to stay behind.' And that was the last they saw of her."...Shein is one of more than 2,100 volunteers around the world who have signed on to the World Memory Project, a joint effort by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ancestry.com, a family research website, to create the world's largest online searchable database of records related to victims of the Holocaust....
Source: BBC News
November 25, 2011
Like thousands of women, Steven Sinclair's mother took Thalidomide to ease morning sickness."She was suffering very badly with morning sickness," he said."They called the family doctor and he gave her three pills out of his bag. They didn't make much difference and she didn't bother asking for more."Three pills, and she's lived with the guilt all these years."This weekend marks 50 years since Thalidomide was withdrawn from sale, 12 days after two doctors voiced suspicions that the drug was to blame for a spate of deformities....
Source: Spiegel Online
November 25, 2011
The wreath is still quite fresh. It was laid on the war memorial on Nov. 13, Germany's day of national mourning for the victims of war, to commemorate the fallen of World War II, whose names are engraved on stone slabs. According to the community's official history, the war took "a very high toll in blood" in the municipality.But it is not the slabs with the names of the fallen soldiers that are attracting visitors' attention at this war memorial in Tümlauer-Koog, located on the Eiderstedt peninsula near the Danish border in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Instead, it is a massive bell that dominates the memorial -- and it is dedicated to Nazi leader Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler's second-in-command.The small settlement of Tümlauer-Koog is built on land reclaimed from the sea ("Koog" is a northern German word for polder) during the Nazi period, under the influence of Hitler's "blood and soil" ideology, which glorified rural living and promoted the idea of Lebensraum ("living space"). Up until 1945, the community was known as Hermann-Göring-Koog. Göring himself traveled to the newly reclaimed polder in 1935 to inaugurate it.
Source: Yahoo News
November 28, 2011
Archeologists have discovered two new pits at the mysterious Stonehenge site that shed potential light on its ritual use. The pits are aligned in a celestial pattern, suggesting that they could have been used for sunrise and sunset rituals; the pits pre-date the construction of the famous rock formations more than 5,000 years ago....
Source: Fox News
November 29, 2011
Serving a life sentence for his role in the Oklahoma City Bombing, Terry Nichols has a lot of time to think and write about the decisions he made."It was just so wrong as to what happened," Nichols wrote in April 2010. "There was actually no justification for it. And my heart breaks and grieves daily knowing that I had a part in such a devastating tragedy."Nichols, 56, is locked up in a small prison cell in Florence, Colo. He has no chance of parole. Several of his letters, published Monday in The Oklahoman newspaper, were written to Jannie Coverdale, who lost two young grandsons in the bombing....
Source: Penn State Press
October 5, 2011
The state of North Carolina unveiled a commemorative license plate for the Civil War yesterday, promoting the official themes of the state's sesquicentennial observance: Freedom, Sacrifice, and Memory. While some state legislatures established official commissions to guide their commemorative programs, North Carolina's did not. Instead, the state's Office of Archives and History in the Department of Cultural Resources formed a Civil War 150 committee to devise programs to mark the sesquicentennial. The office ought to be commended for consciously choosing themes that cover a wide range of subjects and engage a variety of perspectives on the war, from men and women to secessionists and unionists, soldiers and non-combatants, and slaves and freedpeople, among others....
Source: AFP
November 27, 2011
JAMESTOWN, Virginia — Archeologist William Kelso is certain he's discovered the remains of the oldest Protestant church in the United States, standing between two holes he insists once held wooden posts.In 1614, Pocahontas was "married right here, I guarantee," Kelso told AFP at the Jamestown, Virginia archeological site southeast of the nation's capital.Near the James River, on May 14, 1607, a group of about a hundred men landed on commission from England to form the first colony in the Americas."It's fantastically exciting and significant because Jamestown is usually depicted -- the whole early settlement depicted -- as it was carried out by lazy gentlemen who wanted to get rich quick, and go right back to England."The area was carefully excavated to reveal several large post holes 6.5 feet (two meters) deep and the trace remnants of four graves....
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
November 30, 2011
Because of incomplete records or categorization errors, those searching for black or Native American ancestors may hit a wall.Slave records often were incomplete, and American Indians often were described as negro or black.The Virginia Historical Society recently launched Unknown No Longer, a database of Virginia slave names. The database builds on work of the Historical Society's "Guide to African American Manuscripts," said Lauranett Lee, curator of African American history at the Virginia Historical Society....
Source: NYT
November 29, 2011
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — To step into the Tin & Lint bar here is to be surrounded by stories. Carved into the wooden walls, booths and benches are 30 years of names, dates and declared loves: Mike was here; Don loves Joanna 4EVER; Amy and Jennifer, 1989.But the biggest story, nearly as much a part of this upstate city’s lore as its racetrack and mineral waters, is revealed on a small, worn plaque above the third booth from the door: “American Pie written by Don McLean, Summer 1970.”With its low tin ceilings and stained-glass lamps, the bar seems like the type of place where Mr. McLean would have written his generational anthem of rock’s lost innocence.Or, maybe not.Mr. McLean put the legend to rest last weekend in an article in The Post-Star of Glens Falls, N.Y. He also debunked a parallel tale that claimed he first performed the song at Caffè Lena around the corner from the Tin & Lint....
Source: AP
November 28, 2011
SALT LAKE CITY — Museum-goers are taking in the sounds, smell and feel of ancient life and landscapes at a new $100 million building in Salt Lake City.The Natural History Museum of Utah engages the senses, allowing visitors to mingle inside exhibits, touch artifacts, get a whiff of desert plants or rotting flesh and hear the soft warbling of birds.People are even walking on top of exhibits, with glass-panel floors covering fossil dig sites. Over the years, they’ll also be able to watch paleontologists separate fossils from rock in a glass-walled working laboratory.The museum, which opened Nov. 18, is located in the Rio Tinto Center on the University of Utah campus. The center’s copper and stone exterior is designed to blend into the high foothills of the Wasatch Range, and it’s named for the mining company that donated the copper — 100,000 pounds of it — for the outside panels. The center was also designed to meet specifications for top ratings from the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building systems, with features like a planted roof and parking tiers that percolate rainwater. Rooftop solar panels will satisfy a quarter of the building’s energy demands....
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
November 28, 2011
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., went out needling in announcing his retirement on Monday, taking delight in digs at Republican presidential candidate ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich.“I will be neither a lobbyist nor a historian,” Frank, former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters.It was a dig at Gingrich, who took $1.8 million from Freddie Mac — the troubled federal mortgage giant — for what Gingrich described as his services “as a historian.”Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae have served as favorite Republican targets. During one debate — before his gig as a “historian” came to light — Gingrich said that Frank should go to jail because of his ties to Freddie Mac....
Source: LA Times
November 28, 2011
Director D.W. Griffith once said of French filmmaker Georges Méliès, "I owe him everything." Charlie Chaplin described him as "the alchemist of light." Méliès built the first movie studio in Europe and was the first filmmaker to use production sketches and storyboards. Film historians consider him the "father of special effects" — he created the first double exposure on screen, the split screen and the dissolve. Not to mention that he was one of the first filmmakers to have nudity in his films — he was French, after all.
Source: PBS NewsHour
November 25, 2011
It's hard to imagine an American president in this intensely security-conscious age leaving the White House in the middle of the night to meet protesters on their turf.It happened in May 1970. President Richard Nixon was under intense criticism for widening the Vietnam War to Cambodia. Four Kent State University students had been killed by National Guardsmen just days before. Thousands of young protesters quickly mobilized and headed to Washington, D.C.Around 4:00 a.m. on May 9, Mr. Nixon abruptly decided to surprise a group gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. The Nixon Presidential Library and Museum has released a series of recordings, including dictation from President Nixon to his chief staff, H.R. Haldeman, describing his version of that night's events....
Source: Reuters
November 28, 2011
(Reuters) - Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi stole ancient Roman artefacts when they fled Tripoli, bundled them into sacks and planned to sell them abroad, Libya's new rulers said on Saturday as they displayed the haul for the first time since its recovery.The artefacts -- a collection of 17 stone heads, most the size of tennis balls, and terracotta fragments dating from the second or third centuries A.D. -- were recovered on August 23 when anti-Gaddafi fighters intercepted a convoy of loyalists heading south from Tripoli."All of them (the artefacts) date back to Roman times but with very strong local influence," said Saleh Algabe, director of the Antiquities Department in the new Libyan government....
Source: CBS News
November 28, 2011
(AP) BOSTON — Step into the sanctuary of the African Meeting House and you will walk on the same ancient floorboards where Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and other prominent abolitionists railed against slavery in the 19th century, and where free black men gathered to shape the famed 54th Massachusetts Civil War regiment.Following a painstaking, $9 million restoration, the nation's oldest black church building is set to reopen to the public early next month. Beverly Morgan-Welch, who has spent more than a decade spearheading the project, calls the three-story brick building the nation's most important African American historic landmark."This space has the echo of so many of the greats of their time ... who were trying to figure out a way to end slavery," said Morgan-Welch, executive director of the Museum of African American History....
Source: Nature
November 23, 2011
The beautifully preserved leather trappings of an ancient Egyptian chariot have been rediscovered in a storeroom of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Researchers say that the find, which includes intact harnesses, gauntlets and a bow case, is unique, and will help them to reconstruct how such chariots were made and used.The ancient Egyptians used chariots — typically with one or two riders and pulled by two horses — for hunting and warfare as well as in processions. They are frequently shown in ancient Egyptian art, and several examples of the wooden frames survive, including six dismantled chariots found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb, dating to around 3,300 years ago.But researchers knew little about the leather trappings and harnesses used with such chariots, as leather decomposes quickly if any moisture is present. Barely any leather survives on the chariots from Tutankhamun’s tomb, though some fragments are known from chariots found in other tombs, such as that of Yuya and Thuya, Tutankhamun’s great-grandparents....
Source: National Geographic
November 23, 2011
Long before the dinosaurs, a bleak environment of widespread fires and oxygen-poor coastal seawater killed off some 90 percent of all Earth's living species. The whole process took less than 200,000 years, according to a new study of the planet's most catastrophic mass-extinction event.The end-Permian extinction probably isn't as well known as the Cretaceous extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. But the end-Permian collapse nearly spelled the end of life on Earth.Now scientists have painted a picture of just how fast the "Great Dying" unfolded 252 million years ago (prehistoric time line).
Source: Hudson Heritage
November 28, 2011
Doodles on the wall of a London flat where the Sex Pistols used to live has been unearthed by historians. The graffiti, drawn by frontman John Lydon, was discovered in the upper room of a two-storey 19th century property at 6 Denmark Street, which was known as Tin Pan Alley in the 60s, and consists of eight cartoons depicting members of the band and their manager, the late Malcolm McLaren (pictured).The building is now used as offices, and while historians have know of its previous residents, the drawings were only unearthed following a chance remark on a BBC 6 Music programme, which led to the discovery by Dr John Schofield, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, and Paul Graves-Brown, an archaeologist specialising in the contemporary past.In the spirit of the punk frontrunners, Dr Schofield has courted his own controversy by claiming that the markings discovered on the walls of the flat the group rented in the mid-1970s lend themselves to archaeological investigation as much as drawings made by early humans in the caves of Lascaux in southern France....
