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: Daily Mail (UK)
July 6, 2011
The finishing touches to HMS Victory were made 246 years ago in Chatham Dock before she set to sea and went on to cover herself in glory at the Battle of Trafalgar.She served for a total of 47 years - a period of time seldom matched by any modern warship - before being taken out of service in 1812.Since then she has remained on display at Portsmouth harbour and now a ten-year battle to restore Lord Nelson's flagship to her full glory has begun.It will combine the ship-building skills used on wooden craft with cutting edge technology used on modern warships....
Source: Fox News
July 5, 2011
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California lawmakers on Tuesday sent the governor a bill that would make the state the first requiring public schools to include the contributions of gays and lesbians in social studies curriculum.The bill, passed on a party-line vote, adds lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as well as people with disabilities to the list of groups that schools must include in the lessons. It also would prohibit material that reflects adversely on gays.Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco says SB48 is crucial because of the bullying that happens to gay students. Republicans called it a well-intentioned but ill-conceived bill and raised concerns that it would indoctrinate children to accept homosexuality....
Source: AHA Today
July 6, 2011
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History is celebrating its centennial. To look back over the past 100 years, the museum has created a section on its website to highlight items from its collections, present accounts of scientific expeditions, tell stories and collect oral histories of those who’ve worked at the museum over the years, and more.
Source: NYT
July 5, 2011
Members of Albert Fritsch’s family descended on Grand Central Terminal on Friday to visit a family heirloom (and 45-pound tchotchke) that is now the three-dimensional centerpiece of the exhibition “The Once and Future Pennsylvania Station.”What’s that you say? Why is their heirloom-tchotchke-lawn ornament on display at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex?
Source: Salon
July 6, 2011
Hoop skirts and washboards don't appeal much to Joyce Henry, so she found another way to relive the Civil War -- as a man.With her breasts tightly bound, shoulder-length red hair tucked under a shaggy auburn wig and upper lip hidden by a drooping mustache, Henry impersonates Lt. Harry T. Buford, a real-life Confederate soldier.The impression could hardly be more accurate since Buford, too, was a woman. He was invented by Loreta Janeta Velazquez, a Cuban-born woman from New Orleans who fought as a man in a series of Civil War battles including the First Battle of Bull Run, according to her autobiography.Researchers have documented more than 200 such cases. And today, a small number of women follow suit by donning blue and gray uniforms as Civil War re-enactors....
Source: AP
July 5, 2011
A British coroner has closed the case on a 130-year-old London murder mystery, ruling that a skull recently found in a garden belonged to a woman killed in 1879.West London Coroner Alison Thompson confirmed Tuesday that the skull found in the neighborhood of Richmond was that of Julia Thomas, a wealthy widow who was murdered by her housekeeper very close to the site.Thompson ruled that Thomas was unlawfully killed and that the cause of death was asphyxiation and head injury....
Source: BBC
July 5, 2011
A 13th Century pottery vessel found in the Vale of Glamorgan could indicate a thriving local craft in medieval times.Several fragments of the aquamanile, decorated with a ram's head, were discovered at the site of a manor house at Cosmeston, near Penarth.The vessels were used by guests to wash their hands at the dinner table.Professor John Hines from Cardiff University, leader of the dig, said they had never found such an elegant piece made from the local Vale Ware.The 20-strong team from the university's school of history, archaeology and religion has been digging at the Cosmeston medieval village for the last 4 years.They have been exploring the site of a manor house, which had not been excavated when archaeology work was first carried out in the area in the 1980s....
Source: BBC
July 5, 2011
Mass graves found in York contained the skeletons of English Civil War soldiers, according to a new investigation.Mass graves containing 113 male skeletons were unearthed just outside the city walls in 2008.It is thought the men had fought for the Parliamentarians during the siege of York in 1644.An investigation for the BBC series History Cold Case has concluded the men probably died from typhus fever.The programme features a team from the Centre of Anatomy and Human Identification at the University of Dundee....
Source: BBC
July 5, 2011
A skull recovered in the back garden of broadcaster Sir David Attenborough in south-west London belonged to a woman murdered in 1879, a coroner has ruled.Julia Martha Thomas was killed by her maid, Kate Webster, but her head remained missing. The case became known as "the Barnes mystery".The skull was found during building work in Richmond last October.The coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful killing and the cause of death as asphyxiation and a head injury....
Source: AP
July 5, 2011
The Vatican will display 100 select documents from its Secret Archives at an unprecedented exhibit next year that includes previously unpublished papers from its World War II papacy.
Source: CNN
July 4, 2011
The New York Times store is selling an exceptionally rare version of the Declaration of Independence, a broadside printed about July 13, 1776, in Salem, Massachusetts. One of only six copies in existence, it can be yours for $1.6 million.The store is selling it in conjunction with the Caren Archive, which according to its website has the most significant private collection of rare newspapers and broadsides in the United States.Mones said the Caren Archives and the Times store decided on the price of $1.6 million based on the document's rarity and historical value. The seller is not being identified, and the only other copy not in a public institution is privately owned....
Source: Marist Poll
July 1, 2011
Just in time for the July 4th weekend, the Marist Poll has asked Americans in which year the United States declared its independence. And, the result is many Americans need to brush up on their American history.Click Here for Complete July 1, 2011 USA Poll Release and TablesOnly 58% of residents know that the United States declared its independence in 1776. 26% are unsure, and 16% mentioned another date.There are age differences on this question. Younger Americans are the least likely to know the correct answer. Only 31% of adults younger than 30 say that 1776 is the year in which the United States broke away from Great Britain. 59% of residents between 30 and 44 report the same. Americans 45 to 59 — 75% — are the age group most likely to have the correct answer. Among those 60 and older, 60% report that 1776 is the year in which the United States declared its independence....
Source: NPR
July 4, 2011
On Monday, New York's Coney Island will host Nathan's Famous annual hot dog eating contest. The contest is in its 96th year.But the origin of the popular summer food is still cloudy.Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the online magazine Visual Thesaurus, says there are a lot of myths about the name "hot dog." One is about a New York Evening Journal cartoonist, Tad Dorgan."Around 1901, Tad Dorgan was at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan; it's where New York's baseball Giants used to play. He was at the ball game [and] one of the concessionaires was selling red-hots, these frankfurter sandwiches, and he had the idea to make a cartoon with a dachshund in a roll, and so he drew this picture for this cartoon," he tells Morning Edition's Renee Montagne....
Source: LA Times
July 4, 2011
Abdullah Saadi fingers the fine brown leather belt with holsters for thimble-sized coffee cups and a dagger. He is a keeper of customs, Baghdad's professional server of coffee. He sits in a brick house behind an iron gate in the cramped warrens of Sadr City. The room is painted bright lemon in contrast to the gray street outside. His mother walks through the room, half-embarrassed, singing for guests, "I am the mother of the coffee maker." She thumps her chest and laughs at her son.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
July 5, 2011
On March 4, 2012, Chicago will celebrate the 175th anniversary of its incorporation as a city — and the City Council’s resident historian doesn’t want the “important historical milestone” to pass unnoticed.At the behest of Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), the City Council’s Finance and Special Events committees approved a resolution Tuesday urging City Hall to start planning the appropriate celebration.Burke said he has no particular celebration in mind. In fact, he’s wide open.“I would envision, perhaps, an essay contest in the schools or a contest to have a piece of public art dedicated or a symposium to bring leaders from around the world to Chicago or a lecture series where historians — some of the authors of Chicago books — can shed light on how Chicago developed into this great metropolis,” the alderman said.
Source: AOL News
July 1, 2011
The Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa is eager to attract tourists, but is torn about the creation of a Nazi museum in the nearby bunker where Hitler stayed several times during WWII, which they say could be a magnet for neo-Nazis.According to the BBC, Communist Party leaders are particularly worried about the opening of the Wehrwolf command center because the new attraction's operators plan on allowing visitors to dress up in Nazi uniforms and pose with swastika flags. Hitler used this bunker while helping to plan the expansion of the Eastern Front. German soldiers destroyed most of the sprawling site, which was built largely by forced Ukrainian labor, as they retreated in 1944, but left three large bunkers and most of a swimming pool, which is the sites most obvious marker. A mass grave was also left behind, filled with the more than 10,000 POWs and locals who were forced to build Wehrwolf....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 30, 2011
John Gordon, who in 1845 was the last person to be executed in the state of Rhode Island, was hanged for supposedly murdering Amasa Sprague, a wealthy mill-owner from an important local family.Lincoln Chafee, the Governor of Rhode Island, said that Mr Gordon had been “put to death after a highly questionable judicial process and based on no concrete evidence”.Mr Sprague was the brother of the one-time state governor and US Senator William Sprague. His killing inflamed tensions between Rhode Island's ‘Yankee’ protestant majority and the newly-arrived Irish population.After Mr Sprague's body was found brutally beaten on a snowy road on New Year's Day 1844, Mr Gordon and his two brothers, Nicholas and William, were quickly placed in the frame....
Source: Guardian (UK)
July 4, 2011
The inventory of every gun, bullet, rocket launcher, grenade and explosive put beyond use by the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries will not be made public, the body that oversaw the disarmament process in Northern Ireland has said.In the final report of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, it said files on the weapons and explosives decommissioned by the paramilitary organisations will instead be held by the US state department in Washington.The commission said part of the reason behind its decision was to avoid discouraging future acts of decommissioning by other terror groups in Ireland. This would include those anti-ceasefire republicans such as the Real IRA who are still engaged in "armed struggle"....
Source: Discovery News
June 28, 2011
Hundreds of bodies stacked one of top of the other emerged during restoration work in the church of Roccapelago, a remote mountain village in north-central Italy.About one-third of the mass grave, consisting of 281 bodies of adults, infants and children, turned out to be mummies....
Source: Guardian (UK)
July 4, 2011
The fashion for dental bling goes back 1,000 years, according to a new discovery by archaeologists. Long before contemporary trends for gold dental caps or teeth inlaid with diamonds became popular, young Viking warriors were having patterns filed into their teeth.If their intention was to intimidate the enemy, they failed: the evidence has come from front teeth from a pit full of decapitated skeletons, found during roadworks in Dorset and now believed to be victims of a massacre of Viking invaders by local Britons.The front teeth have horizontal lines that were so neatly filed, archaeologists believe it must have been done by a skilled craftsman rather than by their owners, and the process undoubtedly would have been excruciating....
