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: NYT
March 9, 2011
WASHINGTON — For Representative Peter T. King, as he seizes the national spotlight this week with a hearing on the radicalization of American Muslims, it is the most awkward of résumé entries. Long before he became an outspoken voice in Congress about the threat from terrorism, he was a fervent supporter of a terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army.
“We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British
Source: NBC Bay Area
March 7, 2011
We're learning more about the people who lived here thousands of years ago. For one thing, they were slobs, leaving their stuff lying all over the place.
But a more important discovery indicates that settlers 13,000 years ago arrived from up north, not from back east. That's counter to prevailing theories about California's original first settlers.
A collection of relics was found near the Channel Islands by an archaeology team, and recently documented in the journal Sc
Source: Yahoo News
March 2, 2011
CHICAGO (Reuters) – A new edition of one the most popular English-language Bibles will offer substitutes for words such as "booty" and "holocaust" to better reflect modern understanding, a Catholic group said on Wednesday.
Nearly 50 scholars from all faiths and a committee of Roman Catholic bishops have labored since 1994 over the first fresh edition of the New American Bible since 1970, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said.
The annual best-s
Source: BBC
March 7, 2011
A landmark documentary about the Holocaust is to be shown on a satellite TV channel which broadcasts into Iran.
Claude Lanzmann's 1985 film Shoah is to be dubbed into Farsi and shown from Monday on the private Pars channel, which broadcasts from Los Angeles.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the Holocaust as a myth and has called for an end to the Israeli state.
Satellite TV dishes are illegal in Iran but enforcement is patchy.
Source: Live Science
March 7, 2011
Almost 2,000 years ago, 19 Roman soldiers rushed into a cramped underground tunnel, prepared to defend the Roman-held Syrian city of Dura-Europos from an army of Persians digging to undermine the city's mudbrick walls. But instead of Persian soldiers, the Romans met with a wall of noxious black smoke that turned to acid in their lungs. Their crystal-pommeled swords were no match for this weapon; the Romans choked and died in moments, many with their last pay of coins still slung in purses on the
Source: NYT
March 8, 2011
Condition: 27 years old, 150 million miles traveled, somewhat dinged but well maintained.
Price: $0.
Dealer preparation and destination charges: $28.8 million.
So, does anyone want to buy a used space shuttle?
Yes, it turns out. This old vehicle — the space shuttle Discovery — is an object of fervent desire for museums around of the country, which would love to add it or one of its mates, the Endeavour and the Atlantis, to their collections. (
Source: Guardian (UK)
March 7, 2011
It is a last-ditch effort to save a city built as a monument to modernity and hope but now threatened by neglect and the fierce demands of the global art market. Chandigarh, 180 miles north of Delhi, was built by Le Corbusier 60 years ago.
Since then, many of its finest buildings, recognised as modernist masterpieces, have been neglected. Recently, international art dealers have made substantial sums selling hundreds of chairs, tables, carvings and prints designed by Le Corbusier an
Source: AP
March 7, 2011
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The last surviving great-grandson of Ulysses S. Grant has died in a southwest Missouri home brimming with artifacts from the nation's 18th president and commander of the Union forces in the Civil War.
Ulysses S. Grant VI says his grandfather Ulysses S. Grant V died Wednesday at age 90 at his home near the town of Battlefield, named for its proximity to a Civil War clash....
Source: NYT
March 7, 2011
...There are certain rare syndromes in which the usual asymmetry of organs is reversed — I remember how disconcerting it was the first time I examined a child with dextrocardia, a heart on the right side, and heard the heart sounds in unexpected places. But when it comes to handedness, another basic human asymmetry, which reflects the structure and function of the brain, the reversed pattern is relatively common, and for all that, not easily understood.
Over the centuries, left-hand
Source: NYT
March 8, 2011
In 1932, as the Nazis rose to power in Germany, a Jewish librarian in Frankfurt published a catalog of 15,000 books he had painstakingly collected for decades.
It listed the key texts of a groundbreaking field called the Science of Judaism, in which scholars analyzed the religion’s philosophy and culture as they would study those of ancient Greece or Rome. The school of thought became the foundation for modern Jewish studies around the world.
In the tumult of war, great
Source: Discovery News
March 7, 2011
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius broke apart a tomb inscription for a husband and wife. Now the names have been joined again.
A married couple from Pompeii have been reunited with the recovery of a missing piece of a 2000-year-old marble puzzle made of several inscribed fragments.
Broken apart and buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., the pieces belonged to a tomb inscription.
They were unearthed in 1813 along the Via dei Sepolcri in Pompei
Source: Science Line
March 7, 2011
Archaeologists look into whether Neanderthals copied human tools or innovated their own designs.
Could a Neanderthal use a hammer? Maybe. But could he build one himself without imitating humans? The question of whether our close hominid cousins had the ability to innovate new kinds of tools, and not just imitate, is coming up in scientific circles as archaeologists re-evaluate old archaeological sites.
Two recent studies examined the possibility that Neanderthals create
Source: Gettysburg Times
March 4, 2011
Contractors are taking extra precaution when they dig up streets in Gettysburg this summer, as part of several multi-million dollar roadway upgrades.
After all, this is historic Gettysburg, and you never know what crews may unearth.
Procedures are in place so that when contractors excavate an unexpected Civil War relic — or even bones — work stops immediately, pending further inspection.
In fact, the state’s Department of Transportation has conducted archae
Source: Guardian (UK)
March 7, 2011
The crime writer used face cream to restore the ivories discovered in the city of Nimrud by her archaeologist husband
Despite the best efforts of Agatha Christie and her pot of face cream, many of the ivory treasures just acquired by the British Museum from the Assyrian city of Nimrud are still scorched by the fire that brought one of the great palaces of the ancient world crashing down on top of them 2,600 years ago.
A fundraising appeal that brought in £750,000 in six
Source: BBC
March 7, 2011
A new military headquarters in northern Sri Lanka has been built on the site of a Tamil Tiger graveyard earlier flattened by the army, it has emerged.
The construction has come in for sharp criticism.
The army says it was allocated the plot as government land and that it was unaware of "unhappiness" over the site.
The Tamil Tigers departed from Hindu traditions of cremation and built large graveyards which experts say was part of a cult of mart
Source: The Times of India
March 7, 2011
Archaeologists and historians, who have taken up excavation and study of skulls discovered in Annigeri near here have said that the manner in which the human skulls are neatly arranged indicates that it could be a case of mass beheading.
Director of the department of archaeology and museums R Gopal and historian M S Krisnamurthy, who paid a visit to the site along with Dharwad deputy commissioner Darpan Jain on Monday also termed it to be a rare find in the history of India's archa
Source: BBC
March 7, 2011
A farmer who became a millionaire when a Roman helmet found on his land sold for £2m, says the windfall has not changed his way of life.
Eric Robinson took half of the cash while two metal detector enthusiasts who found the helmet at Crosby Garret, Cumbria, took the rest.
Mr Robinson said his only major expenditure had been the purchase of homes for his two daughters.
A mystery bidder bought the helmet at Christie's in London in October.
The p
Source: NYT
March 6, 2011
...Colonel Qaddafi has... built a persona, in particular as a revolutionary still tilting at distant colonial powers, that in some ways resonates with Libyans who remember their bitter experiences under Italian rule. His personal mythology has helped him stay on top of a fractious, tribal and deeply divided society for longer than any other living leader in North Africa or the Middle East.
“He may have been mad,” said Prof. Diederick Vandewalle, of Dartmouth, a Libya specialist. “Bu
Source: Grind TV
March 4, 2011
People are discovering antique fishing tackle all the time, in closets and at garage sales, but none of that compares to discoveries made recently by archaeologists at two of the Channel Islands off Southern California.
Looking for signs of ancient human settlement, they unearthed meticulously-crafted spearheads and other tools (see photo at right) that date back 12,000 years and provide insight into the lives of a seafaring culture that obtained bounty from the ocean.
Source: Yahoo News
March 4, 2011
LONDON (Reuters) – A 350-year-old notebook which documents the trials of women convicted of witchcraft in England during the 17th century has been published online.
The notebook written by Nehemiah Wallington, an English Puritan, recounts the fate of women accused of having relationships with the devil at a time when England was embroiled in a bitter civil war.
The document reveals the details of a witchcraft trial held in Chelmsford in July 1645, when more than a hundr
