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 1, 2011
A rare Michelangelo drawing is expected to sell for up to £5 million in London next month, according to Christie's.The male nude is one of only 24 sheets relating to The Battle of Cascina, an uncompleted work described by the auction house as "one of the greatest Western masterpieces that never was".The only time the drawing has been seen in public was in Vienna last year....
Source: BBC
May 31, 2011
The extradition of Ratko Mladic to the Netherlands for trial on genocide charges is particularly poignant.The Dutch have a special interest in bringing him to justice because of their role - some would call it complicity - in the Srebrenica massacre.More than any other nation, the Netherlands - whose peacekeepers failed to protect Muslim refugees in Srebrenica - has agitated for his arrest.
Source: BBC
June 1, 2011
Analysis of early human-like populations in southern Africa suggests females left their childhood homes, while males stayed at home.An international team examined tooth samples for metallic traces which can be linked to the geological areas in which individuals grew up.The conclusion was that while most the males lived and died around the same river valley, the females moved on.Similar patterns have been observed in chimpanzees, bonobos and modern humans.
Source: BBC
June 1, 2011
On 1 June 1941, a Nazi-inspired pogrom erupted in Baghdad, bringing to an end more than two millennia of peaceful existence for the city's Jewish minority. Some Jewish children witnessed the bloodshed, and retain vivid memories 70 years later.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 1, 2011
Military prosecutors have refiled terrorism and murder charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of September 11, at Guantánamo Bay.
The charges against Mohammed and four others allege that they were responsible for planning the attacks that sent hijacked commercial airliners into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Prosecutors have recommended that the trial be a capital case, which could bring the death penalty.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 1, 2011
A Pakistani doctor has said he was shocked to learn he had unwittingly been Osama bin Laden's family GP for up to five years. Dr Mehar Dil Wazir, an eminent paediatrician in Abbotabad, said he had not known the children he had treated for three years were the al-Qaeda leader's.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 1, 2011
Iran's defence minister was forced to leave Bolivia during a diplomatic trip after Argentina demanded his arrest in connection with the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 1, 2011
UN war crimes prosecutors have demanded that Serbia identify and arrest the "protective network" that hid Ratko Mladic from justice as allegations that his capture was a "set up" grow.
Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said he was waiting for "verifications" of how he had evaded an international manhunt, particularly in the period since 2006.
Source: 6-1-11
Sky News
Ratko Mladic will make his first appearance before a U.N. tribunal in The Hague on Friday to answer a list of war crimes charges that includes genocide.The former Bosnian Serb military commander is accused of masterminding atrocities throughout the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
Source: NYT
May 31, 2011
A group of mothers demanding justice for the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, said Tuesday that police officials in Beijing had contacted one family in April to discuss giving compensation for the death in that family. It was a rare instance in which officials had mentioned compensation in relation to the killings....
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
May 27, 2011
The House Education and Workforce Committee this week approved, by a strict party line vote of 23-16, 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
May 27, 2011
On May, 26, David S. Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, announced that the Pentagon Papers have been declassified and will be released in their entirety in hard copy and online in digital format on June 16– except for eleven words that will remain classified.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
May 27, 2011
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History recently announced that Barry M. Meyer, chairman and chief executive officer of Warner Bros., and Bob Uhler, chairman and chief executive Officer of MWH Global, Inc., have become members of its advisory board effective May 12. Three historians, Ellsworth Brown, David McCullough and Vicki Ruiz have also been reappointed to the board. The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents approved the five candidates for three-year terms.
Source: Cleveland Historical
May 31, 2011
CLEVELAND, May 31, 2011 -- /PRNewswire/ -- The launch of Cleveland Historical, a free mobile walking tour app for Android and iPhone users and the first of its kind for Cleveland, brings the city's history right to users' fingertips. The National Council on Public History recently recognized the project as one of the best in the world.
Source: Guardian (UK)
May 29, 2011
Which was more important in the making of Britain, a ruined abbey, a Dorset tree, a Liverpool cellar or a painted gable in Northern Ireland?
Source: BBC News
May 31, 2011
No other ship comes close to rivalling the gigantic shadow cast by the Titanic. A hundred years after its completion, it's still the most iconic vessel to have set sail.Its tragic maiden voyage has become shorthand for catastrophic hubris - the "unsinkable" ship that hit an iceberg and sank, causing the deaths of 1,503 passengers and crew. And yet in one corner of the UK, the Titanic is a byword not for disaster but a source of pride and nostalgia.
Source: Pew Research Center
May 31, 2011
Just one-in-ten Americans (9%) have a positive reaction when they see the Confederate flag displayed. Fewer than a third (30%) have a negative reaction, though. A 58%-majority say they have neither a positive or negative reaction when seeing the Confederate flag....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
May 27, 2011
With her steering jammed and her speed slashed by torpedo attacks, the Bismarck and her crew of 2,200 were a sitting duck for the Royal Navy.
And in two hours the German battleship was a helpless wreck of twisted metal, raging fires and dead and dying crew.
But the ship’s agony was not over. After the bombardment by British battleships, she was finished off by torpedoes, slipping under the Atlantic with all but 200 of those aboard.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
May 26, 2011
Witness statements taken by a British policemen 67 years ago following a Nazi wartime atrocity have helped convict three former German soldiers of multiple murder.Sgt Charles Edmonson's papers relating to the war crime were sold by an auction house last year to a Chinese collector but Italian prosecutors managed to track them down and use them in their court case.The chilling account led to life sentences for three former Nazi soldiers - captain Ernst Pistor, 91, Marshall Fritz Jauss, 94, and Sergeant Johan Robert Riss, 88.
Source: The Scotsman
May 27, 2011
The discovery of the remains of five "high status" individuals beneath Stirling Castle throws new light on the Wars of Independence of the 13th and 14th centuries. The significant find offers an extraordinarily rare insight into medieval warfare....
