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: New York Times
July 24, 2011
The 14th Amendment states that "the validity of the public debt of the United States ... shall not be questioned."
Source: NYT
July 24, 2011
PORT GAMBLE S’KLALLAM RESERVATION, Wash. — The canoe journeys are a new tradition for a very old people, but they already have one rigid rule that everyone knows not to break.That thing you are paddling is called a canoe. Do not call it something else.“If you call it a boat,” said Mariah Francis, 16, of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, “you’re either supposed to jump in the water or you’ll get thrown in.”And as paddlers are reminded each year, the water here is cold.For the 23rd summer in a row, a growing number of American Indians from tribes scattered across coastal regions of Washington State and British Columbia have climbed into traditionally designed cedar canoes and paddled as many as 40 miles a day, sometimes more, over two or three weeks, camping at a series of reservations until they converge at the home of a host tribe. There, several thousand people welcome them for a week of traditional dancing, singing and celebration....
Source: BBC
July 21, 2011
A 120-million-year-old fossil is the oldest pregnant lizard ever discovered, according to scientists.The fossil, found in China, is a very complete 30cm (12in) lizard with more than a dozen embryos in its body.Researchers from University College London, who studied the fossil, say it was just days from giving birth when it died and was buried during the Cretaceous period.The team reports the findings in the journal Naturwissenschaften.The fossil is especially interesting to scientists because it is a reptile that produced live young rather than laying eggs....
Source: BBC
July 24, 2011
The 600th anniversary of a famous Aberdeenshire battle has been remembered.The Battle of Harlaw was a clash between Scottish clans which was fought on 24 July, 1411, just north of Inverurie.Hundreds of men died in the fierce combat.A service was held at the Kirk of St Nicholas in Aberdeen before wreaths were laid at the Battle of Harlaw monument at Chapel of Garioch.The Lord Provost of Aberdeen, Peter Stephen, and the Provost of Aberdeenshire, Bill Howatson, were joined by representatives from clans involved in the battle...
Source: BBC
July 21, 2011
Thirty fugitives wanted for war crimes or crimes against humanity are believed to be hiding in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has said.The country's Border Services Agency website named the suspects, appealing for the public's help to find them.The fugitives are listed as having come from regions including the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the suspects should be tracked down and removed from Canada.The website said the wanted men came from Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and the former Yugoslavia....
Source: BBC
July 22, 2011
The top half of the Weary Herakles statue, which was bought by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1982, is to be returned to its native Turkey.After an ongoing dispute, the MFA will reunite the bust with its lower half at the Antalya Museum later this year.The announcement is seen as a victory for Turkey which is trying to retrieve artefacts it believes have been looted throughout the years.It is thought the full statue will return to Boston on a short-term loan.The top half of the sculpture of weary demigod Hercules was purchased in 1981 from a German dealer, by the MFA and late New York art collecter Leon Levy....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 24, 2011
Nelson Mandela, the former South African president, is to remain at his birthplace, his rural home in the Eastern Cape indefinitely, his family have confirmed.The 93-year-old flew to Qunu ahead of his birthday last week along with his wife Graca and a phalanx of doctors and staff.His family have confirmed that he asked to remain there and will not now return to his home in Houghton, Johannesburg as was expected....
Source: CNN
July 24, 2011
America's political leaders are paralyzed. The government is reeling from debt. Corrupt bankers foreclose on people's homes as a brutal recession sweeps the land.We're talking, of course, about the great debt standoff of 1786: Shays' Rebellion.Nervous Americans glancing at the upcoming August 2 deadline for raising the debt ceiling are being told that the nation is entering uncharted territory. But historians say they've seen this movie before.Many of the same issues driving this modern-day standoff -- disagreement on how to handle the national debt, ineffective government and a populist citizen's revolt -- drove the 18th-century uprising that's been called America's first civil war.Historians say the lesson that can be drawn from Shays' Rebellion and other transformative events in U.S. history is this: Protracted political gridlock is seldom resolved through compromise. It comes when one political party finally beats the other down.Many Americans, however, have told pollsters that they want the political parties to work together to solve the debt ceiling crisis. Yet political stability doesn't always come through give-and-take, some historians say....
Source: CNN
July 23, 2011
The iconic World Trade Center cross -- two intersecting steel beams that held up when the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001 -- was moved Saturday to its new home at the nearby 9/11 Memorial and Museum.Recovery workers and their families were among those invited to attend a ceremonial blessing before the cross, which was uncovered in the rubble of the collapsed buildings. The service was led by Father Brian Jordan, a Franciscan monk who ministered to workers clearing the area after the 9/11 attacks.This September 11 will mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks, and the memorial will be dedicated that day. It will open to the public the following day. A museum at the same site will open in 2012...
Source: University of Bristol
July 23, 2011
In a special issue of one of the world's leading medical journals, The Lancet, Gareth Williams, Professor of Medicine at the University, tells the story behind the greatest ever coup in the history of preventative medicine — the eradication of smallpox.The article, which forms part of an issue devoted to vaccination and is published today [23 July] explores the story of doctor and polymath, Edward Jenner, who successfully defeated smallpox, a disease once so feared it was known as the ‘angel of death’. The disease killed millions of people throughout history until, thirty years ago, it became the first – and, so far, only – disease to be eradicated from the planet.Professor Williams offers glimpses into Jenner’s life through his residence, The Chantry in Gloucestershire, now a museum dedicated to his pioneering work, where on 14 May 1796 he performed the first properly recorded vaccination, on his gardener’s eight-year-old son....
Source: Silicon Valley Mercurcy News
July 23, 2011
NEW ORLEANS—The gray, concrete, heavily scarred slabs that arrived at the National World War II Museum this week are more than just chunks of an old wall to historians. The slabs are part of Nazi Germany's Atlantic Wall, a string of defenses ordered by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in 1940. The defenses, also known as "Hitler's wall," stretched 3,200 miles from France to Norway and were designed to stop, or at least slow, the Allies from advancing inland during an invasion. Allan Millette, a history professor and director of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans, said the relic is a portal to studying what happened in 1944 and 1945, when Allied forces penetrated the wall and the tide began to turn against Germany....
Source: Fox News
July 22, 2011
NABLUS, West Bank – What happens when biblical history and modern turmoil collide? Archaeologists in tumultuous Palestine are digging up the ruins of Shekem, where Abraham once stopped, Jacob once camped -- and today litter is strewn.The biblical ruin lies inside a Palestinian city in the West Bank, where modern researchers are writing the latest chapter in a 100-year-old excavation that has been interrupted by two world wars and numerous rounds of Mideast upheaval.Working on an urban lot that long served residents of Nablus as an unofficial dump for garbage and old car parts, Dutch and Palestinian archaeologists are learning more about the ancient city of Shekhem -- and preparing to open the site to the public as an archaeological park next year....
Source: WSJ
July 23, 2011
The Oslo attacks come as European counterterrorism officials say terror groups are shifting their targets to countries where attacks have been less common, and perhaps more unexpected.A confidential June report by the European police agency Europol described the shift. Favored targets include Scandinavian countries, one senior intelligence official said, noting a string of recent incidents.In December, a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up among Christmas shoppers near a busy street in the center of Stockholm.In September, an Iraqi Kurd, one of three men arrested in July in the Oslo area and in the German city of Duisburg, confessed to planning a terrorist strike that may have targeted Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper known for publishing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad....
Source: Star Tribune
July 22, 2011
In a remarkable testament to new technology, the remains of three Minnesotans who died within weeks of one another as prisoners in the Korean War -- their whereabouts unknown for 60 years -- will be back at home within a month of each other.In a remarkable testament to fate, two of them may have been in the same prison camp at the same time in early 1951.One was James Sund, an Army corporal whose remains will be flown Friday evening to the airport in Fargo, N.D., and receive military honors. He will be buried Tuesday in his hometown of Highlanding, Minn. The other was Ralph Carlson, an Army sergeant and tank driver who was buried last month in his hometown of Braham, Minn.The third was Army Master Sgt. Michael C. Fastner, a 31-year-old St. Paul native who died about the same time at another prison camp about 120 miles away. Fastner, a prisoner of war in both World War II and the Korean War, will be buried Friday at Fort Snelling following a funeral service at the Church of St. Agnes in St. Paul....
Source: CNN.com
July 22, 2011
(CNN) -- America's political leaders are paralyzed. The government is reeling from debt. Corrupt bankers foreclose on people's homes as a brutal recession sweeps the land.We're talking, of course, about the great debt standoff of 1786: Shays' Rebellion.Nervous Americans glancing at the upcoming August 2 deadline for raising the debt ceiling are being told that the nation is entering uncharted territory. But historians say they've seen this movie before.Many of the same issues driving this modern-day standoff -- disagreement on how to handle the national debt, ineffective government and a populist citizen's revolt -- drove the 18th-century uprising that's been called America's first civil war.Historians say the lesson that can be drawn from Shays' Rebellion and other transformative events in U.S. history is this: Protracted political gridlock is seldom resolved through compromise. It comes when one political party finally beats the other down.Many Americans, however, have told pollsters that they want the political parties to work together to solve the debt ceiling crisis. Yet political stability doesn't always come through give-and-take, some historians say.
Source: NPR
July 22, 2011
Gay history is now a requirement in California public schools because of a new state law that says the contributions of gays and lesbians must be included in social studies instruction. Now teachers are figuring out how to incorporate the new material into their classes.Teachers Take Lessons On New LessonsEven though the first day of school is a long way off, teacher Eleanor Pracht-Smith is getting her lesson plans together. She's from a small district near Sacramento, but she and other educators traveled to San Francisco to learn about how they can address gay and lesbian issues in the classroom."I think it's important to recognize that people from any background can contribute to history, to affirm that they've made accomplishments is nice," Pracht-Smith says. "And I think that helps people who recognize themselves and identify with those groups."The law adds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans to a long list of groups that should be represented in social studies classes, such as African-Americans or Mexican-Americans. Pracht-Smith says she's a bit conflicted about how she'll put the law into practice.
Source: USC US-China Institute
July 21, 2011
As a candidate and in press conferences as president, Richard Nixon argued that the United States and the world would benefit from engaging China. He felt this was intrinsicly important because of China's size and inevitable importance. Nixon also saw China as a useful counterbalance to the Soviet Union. From the first days of his presidency he sought to signal China's leaders that he was willing to talk. The Americans sent private signals through Paris, Warsaw, and via the leaders of Romania and Pakistan. The documents summarized and linked to below detail these efforts which ultimately produced Henry Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing July 9-11, 1971. Kissinger, Nixon's National Security Advisor, flew to Beijing from Pakistan. His meetings there produced an agreement that President Nixon would visit China. Nixon went in February 1972. These documents are part of the USC U.S.-China Institute's collection of speeches, reports, memos, and images relating to U.S.-china ties. Click here to see other materials. Most of these documents have been declassified over the past decade (click here for National Archives press release). The annotations are by Clayton Dube....
Source: WaPo
July 21, 2011
Dignitaries, history buffs and thousands of reenactors gathered on the hills and fields outside Manassas on Thursday to mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War.Amid oppressive July weather, those assembled paused to remember the day — July 21, 1861 — when historians say the nation realized the war would not be a pageant, and instead could be long and bloody.The National Park Service hosted a morning ceremony outside its Henry Hill visitor center, where the battle climaxed that Sunday, and where University of Richmond President Edward L. Ayers said the battle was a kind of blessing.
Source: CBS
July 21, 2011
Say what you will about him, but Richard Nixon is one of the most fascinating figures in American history. Just when we think we know everything there is to know about him, we find out something else -- as it was Thursday, when the Nixon library released a new set of recordings.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
July 21, 2011
An excavation crew has unearthed a skull at the bottom of Pearl Harbor that archaeologists suspect is from a Japanese pilot who died in the historic attack in 1941. Archaeologist Jeff Fong, of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific, said early analysis of the startling find has made him '75 per cent sure' that the skull belongs to a Japanese pilot. The items found with the skull, which was determined not to be from a native Hawaiian, provided some clues - forks, scraps of metal and a Coca-Cola bottle Mr Fong said researchers determined was from the 1940s....
