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: Telegraph (UK)
October 11, 2011
Spain may exhume the remains of dictator Francisco Franco from the vast mausoleum erected using the forced labour of political prisoners in the hills near Madrid and convert the site into a museum of reconciliation.Under proposals to be considered by the Spanish government the dictator's corpse could be transferred from the controversial Valley of the Fallen to the El Pardo cemetery in central Madrid and buried alongside his wife, Carmen Polo.The remains of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of Franco's Falangist party, which currently lie next to the late dictator, would be removed from the basilica and placed in a separate grave within the complex.The proposals have been made by a commission of experts tasked with deciding the fate of a memorial that even 36 years after the death of the General still casts a dark shadow over Spain....
Source: Reuters
October 12, 2011
BERLIN (Reuters) - The newly published diary of an indignant small-town official in Nazi Germany has stirred the sensitive debate over how much ordinary Germans knew of atrocities committed under Hitler, creating a wave of interest at home and abroad.The diary of Friedrich Kellner "'All Minds Blurred and Darkened' Diaries 1939-1945" came to prominence thanks to the intervention of the elder former U.S. President George Bush.Filled with scathing commentaries on events, newspaper clippings and records of private conversations, Kellner's 940-page chronicle gives an insight into what information was available to ordinary Germans.Kellner, a mid-ranking court official who was in his mid-50s when he started writing, vents his anger at Hitler, hopes his country will be defeated in the war and laments reports of mysterious deaths at mental homes and mass shootings of Jews....
Source: Fox News
October 12, 2011
After nearly six decades, a Korean War veteran in California received a Purple Heart for rescuing a wounded Marine during a fierce firefight -- one in which he was injured, too, and then returned to the fight only to be hurt again, The Mercury News reported.
Source: NYT
October 12, 2011
After the Black Death reached London in 1348, about 2,400 people were buried in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, in a cemetery that had been prepared for the plague’s arrival. From the teeth of four of those victims, researchers have now reconstructed the full DNA of a microbe that within five years felled one-third to one-half of the population of Western Europe.The bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, is still highly virulent today but has different symptoms, leading some historians to doubt that it was the agent of the Black Death.Those doubts were laid to rest last year by detection of the bacterium’s DNA in plague victims from mass graves across Europe. With the full genome now in hand, the researchers hope to recreate the microbe itself so as to understand what made the Black Death outbreak so deadly.So far, the evidence points more toward the conditions of the time than to properties of the bacterium itself. The genome recovered from the East Smithfield victims is remarkably similar to that of the present-day bacterium, says the research team, led by Kirsten I. Bos of McMaster University in Ontario and Johannes Krause of the University of Tübingen in Germany....
Source: Medievalists.net
October 3, 2011
A graveyard dating back to the 7th century has been discovered just of Dublin. The site was uncovered as part of construction on an underground electrical line in the village of Rush by Eirgrid, Ireland’s state-owned electric power transmission operator.The burial site was discovered in June and tests conducted at Queen’s University, Belfast date the graveyard to between 617 to 675 AD, the pre-Viking era which saw the conversion of the country to Christianity.John Fitzgerald, project director with Eirgrid, said: “It is an interesting historical discovery for the project, local archaeologists and the local community. We are working with Fingal County Council and the National Monuments Service, and will provide more detailed information to the public about the archaeological site as soon as we know more.”...
Source: BBC
October 4, 2011
Experts believe rare 12th Century slate inscriptions found on a castle were probably made to protect against evil.The dozen scratchings were uncovered during a three-week excavation at Nevern in Pembrokeshire.Archaeologists think the stars and other designs were made by a serf, labourer or soldier some time between 1170 and 1190 when the castle was built.They say they also give an insight into the beliefs of medieval working men....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
October 11, 2011
Two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine shot a torpedo at an American oil tanker just off the California coast, sinking the ship and sending three million gallons (11.36 million litres) of crude to the ocean bottom.All 38 people on board were rescued in what remains an overlooked chapter of World War II - it was one of several attacks by Japanese and German forces on the U.S. mainland during the war.The SS Montebello has sat mostly intact 900 feet below the surface with the oil remarkably still on board after seven decades.A mission to see how much of the oil remains in the hold of the 440-foot ship launches this week to help officials determine how to prevent the crude from leaking and marring the celebrated central California coastline.A catastrophic release, such as an earthquake, could crack the hull of the wreck and send the crude spewing into the ocean....
Source: NYT
October 13, 2011
LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. — When Arizona executes prisoners, it uses lethal injection — not drawing and quartering, hanging or beheading, all of which have fallen out of favor since they were used with some regularity in Europe centuries back.But for a brief period this week, the state will be simulating that gorier era, when the most notorious outlaws have their heads put on stakes and displayed for all to see. Red food dye will take the place of real blood, of course, and plastic mannequin heads will be used instead of actual skulls.Forty years have passed since Robert P. McCulloch, an Arizona real estate developer with a penchant for pie-in-the-sky ideas, bought the actual London Bridge that once spanned the Thames, dismantled it, transported it halfway around the world and had it rebuilt, stone by stone, in this desert oasis near the California line....
Source: Shoreline Times
October 12, 2011
ESSEX – A “ship’s knee” found in the mud of the Connecticut River may have come from the wreck of an American ship that was run aground by the British Navy some 200 years ago, marine historians say.And, the discovery of this mystery relic may help the Connecticut River Museum with their quest to get their property designated a national historic battle site and to get the state to name Essex (more specifically, the peninsula where the town is located), a state historic battle site.While this discovery was made in June, the artifact has only been on display at the Connecticut River Museum the past two weeks.At the museum, the old ship’s knee is kept in a tank of fresh water that is changed every two weeks to leech the salt water out, in an effort to preserve the aged wood, according to Jerry Roberts, director of the museum. Once the 200-year-old ship’s knee was taken out of the water and exposed to the air, salt would only damage the wood, crystallizing on its surface, turning the wood sponge-like, he adds.“The salt water is very dangerous to the wood,” he says....
Source: Bristol University
October 10, 2011
An extremely rare Egyptian coffin, possibly belonging to the son of a king or a very senior official, has been ‘discovered’ at Torquay Museum by an archaeologist at the University of Bristol.Dr Aidan Dodson, a senior research fellow in Bristol’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology made the discovery while undertaking a long-term project to catalogue every single Egyptian coffin in English and Welsh provincial museums.Dr Dodson said: “When I walked into Torquay Museum for the first time I realised that the coffin was something really special. Not only was it of a design of which there is probably only one other example in the UK (in Bristol), but the quality was exceptional.“Cut from a single log of cedar wood, it is exquisitely carved, inlaid and painted. For a child to have been given something like that, he must have had very important parents – perhaps even a king and queen. Unfortunately, the part of the inscription which named the boy and his parents is so badly damaged that we cannot be certain.
Source: WaPo
October 12, 2011
After spending 90 minutes debating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Rick Perry decided to go over to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house and talk a little history and states’ rights, a favorite topic of the 10th amendment enthusiast.NBC’s Carrie Dann reported that Perry suffered a “head-slapping gaffe” after the debate when he answered a young woman’s question by saying that one of the “reasons we fought the revolution in the 16th century was to get away from the kind of onerous crown.”But as most history buffs know, the American revolution was fought in the 18th century....
Source: UPI
October 12, 2011
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- The transcript of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon's testimony to the Watergate grand jury will be made public Nov. 10, a man who pushed for the release said.Historian Stanley Kutler told The Washington Post the Nixon Presidential Library and Archives in California will release a series of recordings and documents in addition to the grand jury transcript.Kutler was among a group of historians who sued to make the materials available to the public.Previously Nixon's testimony had been redacted under laws that shield grand jury materials.Steven Aftergood, who directs the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, called the upcoming release "a missing piece or the puzzle about the Nixon administration."...
Source: ScienceNews
October 6, 2011
South America’s ancient Inca rulers didn’t establish the largest empire in the New World by being sweethearts. But their reputation as warmongers, at least according to some influential 16th- and 17th-century Spanish accounts of Inca history, appears to be undeserved, a new study of skeletal remains suggests.It’s more likely that Inca bigwigs adopted a range of largely nonviolent takeover tactics starting around 1000, say anthropologists Valerie Andrushko of Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven and Elva Torres of the National Institute of Culture in Cuzco, Peru, once the capital of the Inca empire. Head injuries suggestive of warfare appear on only a small proportion of skeletons previously excavated at Inca-controlled sites located near Cuzco, the researchers report in a paper published online September 30 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.“It appears that the Inca relied less on warfare to conquer other groups and more on political alliances, bloodless takeovers and ideological control tactics,” Andrushko says....
Source: AP
October 11, 2011
A modern wedge of glass, concrete and steel rips through a 135-year-old former armory building for the armies of Kaiser Wilhelm I, its silvery shimmer and stark lines contrasting sharply with the neoclassical building that it now bisects.American architect Daniel Libeskind knew when he won the bid to redesign Dresden's Museum of Military History that he wanted to create a radical departure — something symbolic of Germany's rigid authoritarian past giving way to the liberal democracy of today."He said from the beginning that we must transform the building," said Libeskind's project leader Jochen Klein, in a preview of the building Tuesday ahead of its official reopening to the public on Saturday. "We needed to give the old building a new meaning....
Source: Agence France-Presse
October 11, 2011
The winners of this year’s Nobel prize in economics said yesterday that the eurozone crisis is mainly a political issue, not an economic one.New York University’s Thomas Sargent, who with Princeton University colleague Christopher Sims captured the annual prize for economics, said the founding of the United States shows what the issues and solutions are.“There are no new issues in economic theory with Europe and the euro... the difficult thing is the politics,” Sargent told a news conference in Princeton. “In the 1780s, the United States is a basket case,” he added, with 13 sovereign governments, each of which could raise taxes and print money.In contrast, the nation had a very weak center, not having yet established a central bank or gained taxing power....
Source: WaPo
October 10, 2011
Occupy Wall Street has arrived. Facebook is all-aflutter, and Twitter is all-atweeter, as news of “occupations” and clashes with the powers-that-be spread like wildfire around the country.Now entering its fourth week, the Wall Street occupation has become a national phenomenon. The president is interested, celebrities are popping by, and pizza shops are adding the OccuPie to their menus. There is even an Occupy video game in development. The movement has spawned hundreds of Occupy locales in a national Occupy Together network. And now there is talk of going global: Occupy the World.Inquiring minds want to know: Who are these people? What exactly are they demanding? Who is leading this thing?On these issues, the movement has been clear: This is a leaderless movement without an official set of demands. There are no projected outcomes, no bottom lines and no talking heads. In the Occupy movement, We are all leaders....
Source: Toronto Star
October 11, 2011
As long ago as 1842, with the War of 1812 just three decades in the rear-view mirror, Major John Richardson was already lamenting that its heroism and import were being forgotten in Canada.“It is a humiliating yet undeniable fact,” Richardson harrumphed, “that there are few young men of the present generation who are at all aware, except by vague and inaccurate report, of the brilliant feats of arms, and sterling loyalty displayed by their immediate progenitors.”...The War of 1812 has been called by U.S. historians “Our Strangest War,” “A Forgotten Conflict” and “Mr. Madison’s War” (after U.S. President James Madison). It’s also been called the War that Both Sides Won, “a curious little war,” “a silly little war” fought between creaking sailing ships, inexperienced armies and bumbling generals.Whatever the name, it remains the only real war, said the great historian J.M.S. Careless, fought in English Canada in defence of the country’s own soil.Thinking, doubtless, of Brock, the great chief Tecumseh and the heroine Laura Secord, Careless wrote that “the very creation of heroes and legends out of the conflict reveals the impact that it made on popular consciousness.”...
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
September 30, 2011
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee this week announced it would markup a bill reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) on October 18. Sen. Tom Harkin, (D-IA), the committee chairman, and Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY) the ranking Republican have been engaged in negotiations since early this year in crafting the bill.While the legislation has yet to be introduced, according to Education Week, it will be a comprehensive bill. House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-MN) has taken the opposite approach passing a series of smaller bills targeted at specific issues and sections of the ESEA. For example, his committee earlier this year approved H.R. 1891 the “Setting New Priorities in Education Act.” This bill would eliminate 43 programs at the Department of Education including Teaching American History (TAH) grants.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
September 30, 2011
On Sept. 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a Fiscal Year 2012 funding bill (S. 1599) that includes $46 million for the Teaching American History (TAH) grants program at the Department of Education. However a draft House Appropriations Committee version of the bill released on Sept. 29 would eliminate funding for TAH.The Teaching American History Grants program received $46 million in FY 11, but that funding went to existing TAH grantees.The Senate Appropriations Committee also recently marked up the Fiscal Year 2012 Financial Services and General Government (FS&GG) funding bill (S. 1573) that includes $5 million for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).This amount is $1.986 million less than the NHPRC received in FY ’11. However, it is the amount the Obama administration requested for FY ’12. As passed earlier this year the House Appropriations Committee’s version of the FS&GG FY ’12 bill only provides $1 million for the NHPRC.The federal government continues to function on a week-long continuing resolution (CR) since the current fiscal year expires on September 30. When it returns from recess next week Congress is expected to consider a longer CR that will run until November 18.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
September 30, 2011
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) has signed a cooperative agreement with the University of Virginia and its Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to provide pre-publication access to 68,000 historical papers of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington that have not yet been published in authoritative documentary editions.The agreement provides up to $2.5 million for the project.Documents Compass, a program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, affiliated with the University of Virginia, is carrying out this three-year project. Documents Compass, a program specializing in documentary editing in the electronic age, will update and improve existing transcriptions of the papers of the Founders of the Nation and make them available online through a new website. This work builds on its successful 2009 pilot project, funded through an NHPRC grant, which put online 5,000 unpublished documents from the Papers of James Madison and the Papers of John Adams.
