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
June 22, 2011
The notebooks of the Scottish folklore pioneer Alexander Carmichael have been prepared for publication.
It will be the first time Carmichael's work has been available in its entirety.
From 1860, he spent 50 years collecting legends, songs, curses and oral history from Gaelic-speakers.
Researchers and archivists have worked for two years preparing the notes for publication by the University of Edinburgh.
Carmichael's work has led to him being likened to the brothers Grimm in Germany.
His volume Carmina Gadelica,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 22, 2011
A Picasso painting that was donated to an Australian university has raised £13.5m for scientific research at a sale in London.
Jeune Fille Endormie was given to the University Of Sydney by an anonymous American donor last year on the condition that it be sold and the money raised be spent on research into obesity.
At a Christie's art auction in London it fetched £13.5m, exceeding expectations by more than £1m.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
June 21, 2011
Editor's Note: The Organization of American Historians sent out a mass email to its membership today requesting that they act TODAY, June 22, by calling or faxing their representatives and/or the Committee chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Hal Rogers (R-KY).
Source: HNN Staff
June 22, 2011
Various news agencies are reporting this morning that imprisoned artist Ai Weiwei has been released on bail.
Source: NYT
June 21, 2011
MOSCOW — In April an amateur video of a distressed Tupolev Tu-154 jet flying low over the city circulated on the Internet and the craft became known as the Dancing Airplane, as it appeared to waltz in the air — because of equipment failure, officials said. The plane, which the pilots astonishingly managed to land safely, was being flown to a repair shop and was not carrying passengers.
Source: NYT
June 22, 2011
As Tuesday dawned, what we knew about an anonymous photo album by a Nazi photographer was only what could be inferred from its 214 pictures (all but one uncaptioned). We could see he had amazing access: taking portraits of Russian and Jewish prisoners one month, standing just a few feet from Adolf Hitler the next. We knew he had been to the Eastern Front, we surmised that he worked for the Propagandakompanie and we guessed that the pretty woman in the album’s closing pages was someone special....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
June 17, 2011
Waving goodbye to her grandchildren, Gudrun Burwitz has the look of a woman ready to live the rest of her days in peace and quiet.Instead, the 81-year-old daughter of Heinrich Himmler still works at a ruthless pace to keep the Nazi flame alive.Mrs Burwitz has always nurtured the memory of her father, believing the man who ran the Gestapo, the SS and the extermination programme which murdered six million Jews, to be good and worthy.And despite her advanced years, she continues to help the ageing remnants of the Nazi regime to evade justice.
Source: Greenbiz.com
June 19, 2011
Question:What does a rack of high-performance, network blade-servers have in common with the 15th century Flemish tapestry The Hunt for the Unicorn?Answer: Both are being watched over by some of IBM's most advanced smart building systems.
Source: Guardian (UK)
June 20, 2011
A major dig close to Hadrian's Wall has revealed traces of a suspected refugee camp which would have housed tribespeople fleeing south from a breakdown of society north of the imperial border in the third century AD.Archaeologists were initially puzzled to unearth the foundations of temporary but well-built structures on the site of an earlier fort within the sprawling perimeter of the Roman fortress of Vindolanda.
Source: Guardian (UK)
June 20, 2011
A scrap of twisted silver found a few weeks ago by a metal detector in Lancashire will take its place among masterpieces of medieval art at the British Museum, in an exhibition opening this week of the bejewelled shrines made to hold the relics of saints and martyrs.
Source: eWeek Europe
June 20, 2011
Google is teaming up with the British Library to digitise 250,000 books, published between 1700 and 1870.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 21, 2011
Traditional British weather was unable to dampen the spirits of 18,000 revellers who thronged Stonehenge at dawn today to celebrate the summer solstice.
Source: Science Daily
June 20, 2011
A recent find by a University of Cincinnati archeologist suggests an ancient Cypriot city was well protected from outside threats.
That research, by UC's Gisela Walberg, professor of classics, will be presented at the annual workshop of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Center in Nicosia, Cyprus, on June 25, 2011.
Since 2001, Walberg has worked in modern Cyprus to uncover the ancient city of Bamboula, a Bronze Age city that was an important trading center for the Middle East, Egypt and Greece.
Source: BBC
June 21, 2011
The remains of a Roman bath complex have been uncovered in York.
The baths, which date from the second and third centuries AD, were discovered during construction of a new council headquarters building.
The edge of the complex was first discovered in the 1840s when the original railway station in the city was built on the site.
This is the first time archaeologists have been able to investigate the site since the 19th Century.
Chief archaeologist, Nick Pearson from On Site Archaeology, said the discovery was very signif
Source: BBC
June 21, 2011
Russia and other parts of the former USSR commemorate one of the darkest days of their history on Wednesday, the 70th anniversary of Hitler's invasion.It has long been known that Stalin received warnings of an impending attack, prompting one of the great questions of military history: why were Soviet forces, despite their impressive numbers, so ill-prepared to withstand the Nazi blitzkrieg?
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 21, 2011
The Van Gogh Museum said on Tuesday its experts now believe one of Vincent van Gogh's paintings previously thought to be a self-portrait actually depicts his brother, Theo.
Source: AP
June 21, 2011
Brazilian woman listed by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person has died -- just weeks shy of her 115th birthday.
On May 18, Guinness determined that Valentim was 48 days older than the person previously considered the world's oldest human, Besse Cooper of Monroe, Georgia.
Guinness verified that Valentim was born July 9, 1896, in Carangola, where she lived all her life....
Source: CNN
June 21, 2011
Eliot Ness would probably be a little annoyed to see his nemesis's revolver drawing six-figure bids.
The Prohibition agent of "Untouchables" fame spent about two years trying to nail Al Capone and his murderous cabal, only to see the Chicago gangster dodge charges of smuggling, bootlegging, prostitution or, if we're pointing fingers in the 1929 St.
Source: NYT
June 21, 2011
PRORA, Germany — Three years before the outbreak of World War II, Adolf Hitler’s lieutenants ordered the construction of what was portrayed as a remarkable perquisite for the toiling masses of the Third Reich — a vacation complex along the Baltic coast with 10,000 sea-view rooms in eight identical six-story blocks of steel-reinforced concrete, each one the length of five football fields.
Source: NYT
June 20, 2011
There are certainly many photo albums of Nazi leaders and many photo albums of the Nazis’ victims. But it’s hard to imagine many albums depicting both, just a few pages apart.At least one does, however, and it has surfaced in New York City. Its creator was able — apparently within weeks — to photograph Hitler as he warred on Russia and also to photograph some of the earliest victims of that brutal campaign, known as Operation Barbarossa, which began 70 years ago Wednesday.
