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: NYT
September 27, 2011
When Julian Bond, the former Georgia lawmaker and civil rights activist, turned to teaching two decades ago, he often quizzed his college students to gauge their awareness of the civil rights movement. He did not want to underestimate their grasp of the topic or talk down to them, he said.“My fears were misplaced,” Mr. Bond said. No student had heard of George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, he said. One student guessed that Mr. Wallace might have been a CBS newsman.That ignorance by American students of the basic history of the civil rights movement has not changed — in fact, it has worsened, according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, on whose board Mr. Bond sits. The report says that states’ academic standards for public schools are one major cause of the problem.“Across the country, state educational standards virtually ignore our civil rights history,” concludes the report, which is to be released on Wednesday....
Source: WaPo
September 27, 2011
The 5.8-magnitude earthquake that shook the East Coast and damaged the Washington Monument enough for it to be closed indefinitely may have done more damage than the National Park Service had previously revealed. Armed with tiny hammers to test the monument’s soundness and to search for further damage, a team of engineers will be rappelling the 555-foot-tall structure over the next five days.
NBC Video here
Source: CBS
September 27, 2011
The SS Gairsoppa, a British cargo ship sunk during World War II by a Nazi U-Boat, sits 3 miles below the ocean's surface with $220 million worth of silver stored aboard.
Source: SF Chronicle
September 26, 2011
Greece is at the center of the sovereign debt crisis that is worrying many investors and increasing the volatility of stock markets across the world. This is not a new phenomenon for that country, which has defaulted on its external debt many times since achieving independence at the beginning of the 19th century. Here are some facts that all investors should know about the history of Greek sovereign debt defaults.Ancient DefaultThe first recorded default in Greek history occurred in the fourth century B.C., when 13 Greek city states borrowed funds from the Temple of Delos. Most of the borrowers never made good on the loans and the temple took an 80% loss on its principal.
Source: Civil War Librarian (Blog)
September 22, 2011
The Gettysburg National Military Park announced its most recent property acquisition Wednesday afternoon, the Josiah Benner House in Straban Township. Purchased in May, GNMP took possession of the nine-acre, 980 Old Harrisburg Road property Monday. In 2001, the park purchased the three-acre parcel next door, which includes the Josiah Benner barn, but this $405,000 purchase of the farmhouse and springhouse completed the package.The farmhouse, springhouse and barn are all contributing features to the park's listing on the National Register of Historic Places according to GNMP spokesperson Katie Lawhon. Lawhon said that the property was previously a private residence and that billboards removed from the site in June. "Even though there is a Congressionally authorized boundary of the park, inside that boundary there is still more than 900 acres of non-protected lands," said Katie Lawhon of the 5,989 acre park.Lawhon said that GNMP received help from the Civil War Trust, America's largest non-profit organization devoted to the preservation of America's Civil War battlefields. In a 24-year span, the Civil War Trust has worked to preserve more than 30,000 acres of battlefield land at 110 battlefields in 20 states....
Source: Guardian (UK)
September 23, 2011
Are we going to find out more about one of the north of England's first great writers, the Venerable Bede who recorded the history of Anglo-Saxon England?Although never actually canonised, he has always been seen as a potential patron for journalists, because he is said to have written his mighty work The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation without ever leaving his monastery in Jarrow.Like pretty much everything else about him, however, that allegation is unproven and unprovable. But this might just change. A survey by ground-penetrating radar has revealed what may be an underground chamber below St Paul's church in the Tyneside town, where the monastery stood....
Source: Fox News
September 24, 2011
LONG BEACH, Washington – It was a long time coming, but the descendants of explorer William Clark have tried to make amends for a 205-year-old theft.A descendant of the explorer in the Corps of Discovery expedition that opened a land route to the American West presented the Chinook Indian Nation with a replica of a canoe that the corps stole in 1806.
Source: The Boston Globe
September 24, 2011
The Museum of Fine Arts ended a more than two-decade-old dispute with Turkey Thursday by returning the top half of its “Weary Herakles’’ statue to Turkish officials. The 1,800-year-old Roman sculpture has been at the MFA since 1982. But after years of negotiations, the MFA acknowledged in July that the statue, which experts believe was probably looted from an excavation in Turkey, should be sent back to that country.Turkish officials met with MFA leaders for less than an hour on Thursday to sign an agreement transferring ownership of the sculpture to the Turkish government. The agreement stated that the MFA acquired the work in good faith and without knowing about any of the questionable circumstances surrounding its path from Turkey to Boston.The MFA’s top half of “Weary Herakles’’ will be reunited with its bottom half in a museum in Antalya, Turkey. MFA officials had pressed to have the sculpture of the muscular hero reassembled in Boston and shown whole at the MFA first, but they were rebuffed by Turkish officials.In July, the MFA first publicly confirmed the ongoing negotiations and acknowledged that the piece should be reunited with its lower half and returned to Turkey.
Source: BBC
September 25, 2011
The previously unpublished first novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will finally be available to buy from Monday.Entitled The Narrative of John Smith, the novel - written between 1883 and 1884 - comprises the reflections of a man confined to his room by gout.Conan Doyle sent it to a publisher but it was lost in the post. The book was then reconstructed from memory.The British Library is now releasing the novel, alongside an audiobook read by actor Robert Lindsay.The four notebooks that comprise the manuscript form part of an exhibition that runs at the Library until 5 January....
Source: BBC
September 27, 2011
A blue and white porcelain jar about to be thrown in a skip has been sold for £1,700 after being identified as from the Ming dynasty.The jar, which had considerable damage, had been used as a stick stand by the front door of a country house in Herefordshire.Jeremy Lamond, fine art director at Halls auctioneers in Shrewsbury, said it was about to be thrown in a skip.But he identified it as being from the early 17th Century....
Source: BBC
September 21, 2011
Exactly 35 years ago, an audacious assassination occurred just a stone's throw from the White House. Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean government minister, was murdered when his car exploded in Washington DC's embassy district.Letelier was foreign minister in the cabinet of Chile's first Socialist president, Salvador Allende. But when the government was overthrown in Augusto Pinochet's military coup in 1973, Letelier was one of the first to be arrested.An FBI investigation revealed that the assassination had been orchestrated by agents of Dina, the Chilean secret police, led by an American called Michael Townley. They hired right-wing Cuban militants to carry out this hit.Two days before the explosion they had taped a remote-controlled bomb underneath the car.Although CIA evidence showed the Chilean leader had direct knowledge of the assassination, Pinochet was never charged.....
Source: CNN
September 27, 2011
The case of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbesset al Megrahi is "closed," Libya's transitional justice minister told reporters.Jamal Ben Noor, a senior official with Libya's Justice and Human Rights Ministry, said Tuesday the government has not received any official request from Scottish authorities regarding the case. But he said Libya will cooperate if such a request is received from the Scottish or British government to reveal documents or provide access to individuals.Late last month, CNN's Nic Robertson found al Megrahi under the care of his family in his palatial Tripoli villa. He was bedridden, comatose, and surviving on oxygen and an intravenous drip....
Source: Reuters
September 26, 2011
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) -A new documentary about Mayan civilization will provide evidence of extraterrestrial contact with the ancient culture, according to a Mexican government official and the film's producer....In a release to TheWrap, Luis Augusto Garcia Rosado, the minister of tourism for the Mexican state of Campeche, said new evidence has emerged "of contact between the Mayans and extraterrestrials, supported by translations of certain codices, which the government has kept secure in underground vaults for some time."He also spoke, in a phone conversation, of "landing pads in the jungle that are 3,000 years old."...[N]ot only has Rosado changed his tune [from previous interviews], but the Guatemalan government has joined the project, as well, giving access to artifacts and newly discovered prophecies...
Source: BBC News
September 27, 2011
A high-ranking Nazi officer who helped develop a mobile gas chamber became a spy for West Germany after World War II, archives have revealed.Former SS officer Walther Rauff worked for West German intelligence service, the BND, between 1958 and 1962....[The] BND traced him and recruited him as spy, ostensibly to go to Cuba to spy on leader Fidel Castro.He was denied entry but still earned more than DM70,000 ($18,000, £11,500) during his time with the service.Publicly he became a wanted man when his wartime role was brought to light but - even after his arrest by Chilean police in 1962 - he was being supported by the BND....
Source: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Press Release
September 27, 2011
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a gift of $17.2 million from the estate of Eric F. Ross of Palm Beach, FL, and West Orange, NJ. It is the largest single gift to the institution. Eric and his late wife, Lore, both of whom were refugees from Nazi Germany, donated more than $12 million to the institution during their lifetimes. In total, they have contributed more than $30 million to the Museum.This gift will support the Museum’s endowment fund, which will provide vital permanent resources to secure the Museum’s future and global impact, ensuring that the timeless lessons of the Holocaust remain a transformative force in the 21st century. Over the next eight years, the Museum aims to raise an additional $200 million for its endowment fund. “Having experienced firsthand Nazi antisemitism and hatred, Eric and Lore Ross became determined and generous investors in Holocaust education,” says Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield. “Their loss and suffering inspired remarkable generosity.”
Source: PC Magazine
September 26, 2011
The Dead Sea Scrolls have made their way online some 2,000 years after they were written through a partnership between Google and Israel’s national museum.The important documents are available in searchable, high-resolution images, accompanied by informative videos, background information, and historical data. So far five of the scrolls have been digitized, including the biblical Book of Isaiah, the Temple Scroll, and three others.Managing Director of Google’s R&D Center in Israel, Professor Yossi Matias said they plan to add additional Dead Sea Scroll documents to the site in the future. The AP says nearly all the scrolls will be online by 2016.While smaller selections of the scrolls are owned by private collections and organizations, the Israel Museum owns the most complete scrolls. These documents are housed in a secured building in Jerusalem called the Shrine of the Book, which requires three keys to enter.
Source: NYT
September 25, 2011
In 1941, a Nazi torpedo tore a hole in a British merchant ship carrying a fortune in silver to England from India. The ship was part of a convoy headed for Liverpool, but it went down about 300 miles southwest of Ireland, disappearing in icy waters nearly three miles deep, deeper than the resting place of the Titanic.Now, divers say they have found the wreck intact and they estimate its cargo at up to 240 tons of silver — a trove worth more than $200 million. They plan to recover it this spring.The recovery, if successful, would be history’s deepest and largest retrieval of a precious cargo lost at sea and highlight the growing power of ocean technology, according to Odyssey Marine Exploration, the company that found the ship. It is working under contract to the British government and says it verified the ship’s identity this month.“We were fortunate to find the shipwreck sitting upright, with the holds open and easily accessible,” said Greg Stemm, chief executive of Odyssey, which is based in Tampa, Fla. “This should enable to us to unload cargo through the hatches, as would happen with a ship alongside a cargo terminal.”
Source: Fox News
September 22, 2011
For years, Arkansas historians have searched for a valuable lunar rock from the Apollo 17 mission, one of the moon rocks NASA presented to each state in the 1970s.
Source: History.com
September 22, 2011
A team of archaeologists has unearthed what might be the first major ancient Roman shipyard ever discovered. Located at Portus, a site that served as Rome’s main maritime trading hub between the first and sixth centuries, a newly discovered building larger than a football field could have been used for assembling, servicing and storing merchant ships and other vessels. Archaeologists believe they’ve uncovered a major shipyard from the second century A.D. on the site of Rome’s ancient port, the University of Southampton announced today. A massive building recently excavated by the international team was likely used for constructing, repairing and housing vessels that ferried goods in and out of imperial Rome. Bigger than a football field and five stories high, the structure featured piers and bays that opened onto a hexagonal basin linked to the Tiber river, which served as the empire’s gateway to the Mediterranean....
Source: Guardian (UK)
September 20, 2011
A statue of a bare-breasted woman whose torso was discreetly covered for centuries has been found in a Bristol church house where John Wesley worshipped.There is speculation that the half-clad figure was considered too much of a distraction for Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and his followers.The figure, holding a cornucopia of fruit, is suspected to be Abundantia – a Roman personification of abundance and prosperity.The statue is thought to have arrived in the UK from Europe and to have been placed in the house soon after it was built in the 17th century.In the 18th century theologian Wesley (1703-91) held prayer meetings in the building before his move to a purpose-built place of worship – the New Room....
