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: Irish Times
May 12, 2011
BOG BUTTER found in a timber vessel in a bog at Shancloon near Caherlistrane, north Galway, could be 2,000 to 2,500 years old, according to a specialist from the National Museum of Ireland.
The butter, weighing almost two stone, was found in a timber keg which may have been hewn from a tree trunk and shaped into a barrel using early Iron Age implements.
The container of bog butter was found in a plot of bog where Ray Moylan from Liss, Headford, was having his annual supply of turf cut by local contractor Declan McDonagh.
Mr Moylan, a part-time bus driver, contacted t
Source: BBC
May 12, 2011
A row has broken out after an idea to re-enact the siege of Conwy Castle by English forces was rejected.
Cadw said no to the event despite an earlier re-enactment of Owain Glyndŵr's capture of the castle in 1404.
One councillor said there were fears people might be offended but insisted this was not the case and that the event would boost tourism.
A member of Conwy's Chamber of Trade disagreed, saying it would be too "negative".
Historic monuments body Cadw said it rejected the idea on the basis it was "out of line" with their historical in
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 12, 2011
Vladimir Putin has become the object of veneration for a bizarre Russian all-female sect whose followers believe that the tough-talking prime minister is a reincarnation of the early Christian missionary Paul the Apostle.
Source: 5-12-11
Fox News
Mike Huckabee continues to spark speculation about whether he will get into the 2012 presidential race, but for now, the former Arkansas governor is getting into the educational cartoon field.
Huckabee has launched a new educational company called Learn Our History that aims to get kids excited about studying the nation's past.
Source: Secrecy News
May 11, 2011
Forty years after they were famously leaked by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, the Pentagon Papers will be officially released next month at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.
Source: ANI
May 12, 2011
Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old wine pot in Henan province.
A Western Han dynasty ancient tomb group was accidentally found at a construction site in Puyang city, China's Henan province, on April 10.
During the excavation, archaeologists discovered an airtight copper pot covered in rust. They found the pot had a liquid weighing about half a kilogram in it, reports People Daily Online.
They are now sampling the liquid....
Source: Wales Online
May 11, 2011
Bloodstained mattresses were left strewn around, while a rotten stench hung heavily in the air.
This was Hitler’s Berlin bunker as victorious Allied troops descended on the German capital through the eyes of a young South Wales soldier.
Stephen Moore-Haines, now a 90-year-old World War II veteran, still has the Nazi iron cross he picked up from the famous site of the Fuhrer’s death.
The medal, with the inscription “sur treue dienfte” (for true service) on the back, was in the blood-soaked passageway leading to the room where Hitler shot himself on April 30, 1945.
Source: BBC News
May 12, 2011
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which investigates Nazi war criminals, has published its latest list of its most wanted surviving suspects.
Those on the list are "wanted" because they have not been punished, even if they have extradition orders against them or have been tried and convicted. In some cases it is unclear whether they are still alive. They remain on the list until it is proven that they are dead....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleea
Alastair Campbell, the former Downing Street communications director, has been accused by a former military intelligence chief of “misrepresenting” the purpose of the so-called dodgy dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in his evidence to the Iraq inquiry.
Last year Mr Campbell refuted suggestions that he had been asked to “beef up” the dossier, saying its purpose had not been “to make a case for war” in
Source: CNN
May 12, 2011
Forty years after they ended, the 1960s remain the most controversial decade of the 20th century. Either you believe that they destroyed America, or they cured it.
Put me down as a fervent believer in their success as a cure.
Before 1960, only undivorced white Protestant men had ever served in the White House.
Source: WaPo
May 12, 2011
MUNICH — Retired U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk was convicted of thousands of counts of acting as an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp and sentenced on Thursday to five years in prison, a groundbreaking verdict that closed one chapter in a decades-long legal battle.Judges ordered him released pending appeal, on the ground that he did not pose a flight risk.
Source: History.com
May 11, 2011
Last week, Charles Darwin became the latest “patient” at an annual conference that aims to unravel the medical mysteries of long-dead historical figures. A leading gastroenterologist diagnosed three conditions that may have plagued the English naturalist throughout his life and contributed to his death at 73.
Source: Science
May 9, 2011
Researchers have long debated how long Neandertals stuck around after modern humans invaded their home territories in Europe and Asia around 40,000 years ago. Some say as long as 10,000 years; others think Neandertals went extinct almost immediately. A new radiocarbon dating study of a Neandertal site in Russia concludes that the latter scenario is most likely, and that Neandertals and modern humans were probably like ships in the night. But don’t expect this to be the last word on this contentious subject.
Source: AP
May 11, 2011
On April 15, 1994, just days into a bloodletting that would leave nearly a tenth of Rwanda's population dead, a mob of ethnic Hutus gathered in the village marketplace in Birambo. Incited and possibly organized by local Hutu leaders, the mob ransacked homes and businesses owned by ethnic Tutsis. In the days that followed, hundreds of Tutsis who fled into the nearby mountains were hunted down and killed.
Source: Discovery News
May 9, 2011
Egyptian authorities put another archaeological site on the country’s tourist map yesterday by opening a visitor center at Madinet Madi in the Fayoum region south of Cairo.Founded during the reigns of Amenemhat III (about 1859-1813 B.C.) and Amenemhat IV (about 1814-1805 B.C.) of the 12th Dynasty, Madinet Madi contains the ruins of the only Middle Kingdom temple in Egypt.Approached by a paved processional way lined by lions and sphinxes, the temple was dedicated to the cobra-headed goddess Renenutet, and the crocodile-headed god, Sobek of Scedet, patron god of the region.
Source: CNN
May 10, 2011
When Sada Mire fled war-torn Somalia as a frightened teenager, the nation was descending into darkness, mired in the grip of a long civil conflict.But several years later, when she returned to the Horn of Africa as an ambitious archaeologist, her fierce determination and meticulous fieldwork brought to light the region's rich cultural heritage.In 2007, her archaeological pursuits resulted in the discovery of 5,000-year-old rock art in Somaliland, a breakaway state in the northwest corner of Somalia.
Source: BBC
May 11, 2011
Argentine authorities have arrested three former policemen in connection with what became known as flights of death during military rule.They are accused of being the crew when French nun Leonie Duquet and rights activist Azucena Villaflor were thrown from a plane in 1977.Their bodies washed ashore and were buried in an unmarked grave until their remains were identified in 2005.Hundreds of political prisoners are known to have died this way.
Source: BBC
May 11, 2011
Seven pieces of art have been stolen from the Palace Museum inside Beijing's former imperial palace, the Forbidden City, in the first theft for 20 years.The stolen items - which were on loan to the museum - include a purse and women's make-up cases.Police are reported to be looking for a 27-year-old man in connection with the theft.The valuable items were stolen from one of China's top historical sites in the heart of Beijing.News reports say the thief got into the complex by knocking a hole in a wall.
Source: CNN
May 7, 2011
Three German torpedoes ripped through the icy waters of the Atlantic off the coast of Greenland. On February 2, 1943, the USS Dorchester was transporting 902 U.S. servicemen to war. Only one torpedo hit, but it struck a deathblow - killing scores instantly and resetting the ship's course to the bottom of the ocean.
Source: AKI
May 10, 2011
Switzerland's Museum of Basel will this week return to Egypt a limestone stele dating from over four thousand years ago - the first ancient treasure to be given back by another country since the revolt that toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak in February.
The 51-centimetre stele depicts its owner hunting and is from Egypt's Old Kingdom period (c.
