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: Guardian (UK)
April 5, 2011
If you want to wind up a Pole of a certain age, there is no more reliable means than quoting the old myth about Polish lancers charging at German panzer divisions in the second world war.
The story feeds a stereotype about Polish men being hopelessly romantic, hopelessly moustachioed idiots who would actually gallop their horses at big steel tanks.
Even this newspaper fell into the trap less than two years ago, when a columnist described the mythical charge as "the
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
April 5, 2011
Chilling confessions of PoWs captured by the British have laid bare the brutality and excesses of ‘ordinary’ German soldiers in the Second World War.
A book of transcripts to be published in Germany next week reveals how the honour of its old army was lost amid the frenzy to be ‘perfect, pitiless Nazis’.
In the interrogation transcripts, the German soldiers speak of the ‘fun’ and ‘pure enjoyment’ of massacring innocent civilians and enemy troops.
Historians
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 5, 2011
Britain is responsible for many of the world’s historic problems, including the conflict in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, David Cameron has said.
The Prime Minister appeared to distance himself from the imperial past when he suggested that Britain was to blame for decades of tension and several wars over the disputed territory, as well as other global conflicts.
His remarks came on a visit to Pakistan, when he was asked how Britain could help to end the row over K
Source: AP
June 4, 2011
Leland Davidson always knew he was an American. Now he has a certificate from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to prove it.
Davidson, 95, was the oldest of more than 50 people who had their citizenship confirmed Tuesday in a ceremony in Seattle. Most were children of parents who have become naturalized citizens or were adopted from overseas.
Davidson, a resident of Centralia, was born in British Columbia and qualifies as a U.S. citizen because his parents w
Source: BBC News
April 6, 2011
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is hoping to use social media and web technology to trace more than 1,000 children who survived World War II but became separated from their families in its aftermath. Photographs taken at the time by aid workers at refugee centres are the only record of the children's identities - and their fate remains a mystery.
Many of the children in the pictures, who are both Jewish and non-Jewish, are infants, too young to remember the war that disp
Source: BBC News
June 4, 2011
An original version of 1951 novel From Here to Eternity is to be reissued digitally, with previously censored references to homosexuality restored.
The heirs of author James Jones have struck a deal with ebook firm Open Road to put out a new edition that includes two scenes with gay content.
Jones's novel, about US soldiers serving in Hawaii in the months prior to Pearl Harbor, was filmed in 1953.
The uncensored version will be made available online from 10
Source: BBC News
April 6, 2011
Researchers will attempt to identify the woman who sat for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, by digging up the remains of an Italian noblewoman.
Art historian Silvano Vinceti believes that by locating the remains of Lisa Gherardini, he can prove whether or not she was the artist's model.
A recently discovered death certificate suggests she died in 1542 and is interred in a convent in Florence.
The excavation will begin at Saint Orsola later this month.
Source: CBS News (video)
April 5, 2011
It's been 46 years since Malcolm X was gunned down in New York. The details were always murky. As CBS News national correspondent Jim Axelrod reports, a new biography of the controversial activist shines a new light on his murder and has sparked a new call for justice.
"Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," the new book by Columbia University professor Manning Marable, outlines why the investigation should be reopened. Marable died last week, just before publication.
Source: BBC
April 4, 2011
A whisky buried beneath a hut used by explorer Ernest Shackleton during his unsuccessful expedition to reach the South Pole has been recreated.
Distillers Whyte & Mackay, which owns the MacKinlay whisky found in 2007, hopes to sell 50,000 bottles at £100.
A percentage of the price will go to the Antarctic Heritage Trust, which recovered five cases of whisky.
Samples of the Shackleton whisky were analysed at Whyte & Mackay's Invergordon distillery.
Source: BBC News
April 5, 2011
A statue is to be erected in London to mark the achievements of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
The zinc-alloy figure will sit just off The Mall, next to Admiralty Arch.
Gagarin made history on 12 April 1961 when he circled the Earth in 108 minutes in his Vostok capsule.
He subsequently went on a world tour, which included the UK.
Admiralty Arch was where he met the then Prime Minister Harold MacMillan.
It is also very near t
Source: BBC
April 5, 2011
It is hoped a 1,700-year-old African skeleton unearthed in Warwickshire could provide data about the DNA history of later populations and the ethnic origin of modern Britons.
The male skeleton, thought to be of a Roman soldier, was found earlier this year in a Roman cemetery in Stratford.
Discovered by Archaeology Warwickshire, the skeleton is thought to belong to the county's earliest known African.
Further tests aim to determine the man's place of birth..
Source: CNN
April 3, 2011
A group of 9/11 victims' family members are up in arms over a plan to house the unidentified remains of those who died at ground zero in the lower level of the museum being built to honor the tragedy.
Critics are against storing the remains underground and claim they were never consulted about the decision of where to build a repository. The plan calls for a repository and laboratory controlled by the city medical examiner to be built on the ground floor of the National September 11
Source: BBC
April 5, 2011
Libya's former foreign minister is a "sick and old" man who has no secrets about the Lockerbie bombing, Colonel Gaddafi's son has told the BBC.
In an interview with John Simpson, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said Moussa Koussa left Libya to ensure he could continue treatment at a private London hospital.
Prosecutors investigating the Lockerbie bombing said they were hoping to meet Mr Koussa "in the next few days".
They believe he has informati
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 5, 2011
Thousands of documents detailing Britain’s involvement in the bloody Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya have been unearthed ahead of a High Court case this week.
The 300 boxes of documents were unearthed after four elderly Kenyans took steps earlier this year to sue the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), claiming they were tortured between 1952 and 1960.
A judge ordered the Foreign Office to produce all relevant evidence.
The 1500 files held by the National Ar
Source: The Arizona Republic
April 4, 2011
Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger recognizes there are some inconsistencies in his life story that might make people curious.
Wollschlaeger is the son of a German tank commander who was personally decorated by Adolph Hitler during World War II. After beginning to question Germany's role in the Holocaust as a teen, Wollschlaeger later converted to Judaism and immigrated to Israel.
Now a physician living in south Florida, Wollschlaeger wrote a book about his life and speaks about w
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
April 1, 2011
A former British soldier and prisoner of war has recalled the horror he felt after swapping uniforms with a Dutch Jew - and breaking into Auschwitz.
Denis Avey, 92, was captured during the Second World War and sent to the IG Farben plant, known as Auschwitz III, where the deadly gas was produced.
But when Mr Avey was told about the mass killings and smelled the horrendous stench from nearby crematoriums he vowed to witness the atrocities for himself.
The br
Source: Telgraph (UK)
April 5, 2011
Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, returned to orbit today as a Russian rocket emblazoned with his image blasted off to join the international space station.
A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off in pre-dawn darkness in the craft which had been specially painted in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight.
As the rocket launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome as scheduled at 4:18 am it turned the darkness into broad daylight for
Source: BBC
April 5, 2011
Part of a tall ship built in Aberdeen in 1877 is on board the International Space Station.
Elissa, which became the official tall ship of Texas, was built 134 years ago by Alexander Hall and Co.
Volunteers at the Galveston Historical Foundation in Texas asked astronaut Catherine Coleman, a friend of theirs, to take the memento - some deck - into space.
Aberdeen Maritime Museum said it was "special" to have an Aberdeen-built ship in space....
Source: BBC News
April 5, 2011
The wife of Europe's most wanted war crimes fugitive, Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, has gone on trial accused of illegal possession of weapons.
Bosiljka Mladic told the court in Belgrade she believed her husband was no longer alive.
"If he is alive, he would have found ways to call us," she said.
Gen Mladic has been on the run from the UN's War Crimes Tribunal since 1995 and faces genocide charges in connection with the 1992-95 Bosnia war.
Source: BBC
April 5, 2011
Details of the 1911 census have been released after 100 years under lock and key.
The results, released by the Registrar General for Scotland, reveal a snapshot of life during an era of mass migration and urban overcrowding.
The census was the last before World War I and features details of Scotland's 4.75 million citizens, including John Logie Baird.
The results are being made available to the public on a pay-per-view basis....
