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: CBS News
February 24, 2011
Our medieval ancestors had any number of habits we now find odd - among them their pursuit of a formula to turn base metals into gold. That's one reason why we often equate the word "alchemist" with "charlatan." But the often-derided practice is now getting a second look from historians, who say the popular image we have of alchemy does not accurately comport with the reality.
That topic was taken up in earnest during a recent meeting of American Association fo
Source: Irish Times
February 25, 2011
AN ARCHAEOLOGY enthusiast in Co Westmeath has unearthed human remains dating back more than 4,000 years in his back garden.
The National Museum of Ireland has described as “significant” the find by Pat Tiernan at Rickardstown, Collinstown.
Mr Tiernan had been excavating soil for the construction of a “lean-to”, or shed, at the rear of his home when a spell of bad weather led to a small landslide.
“I looked out the window and saw bones protruding out the bac
Source: Life Site News
February 24, 2011
Documents now open to the public reveal a new story about the fascinating inner workings of the Pontifical Commission on Population, Family, and Birth-rate, commonly referred to as the “Birth Control Commission,” which was behind the critical papal encyclical Humanae Vitae.
Dr. Germain Grisez, emeritus Professor of Christian Ethics at Mount St. Mary’s University and a close friend and advisor to Commission member Fr. John Ford, S.J., has made the documents available on his website,
Source: Guardian (UK)
February 25, 2011
The face in the sepia photograph is taut and strained, the glare fixed and defiant – for who knows the trials Mary Morrison had already undergone in life before her conviction at Manchester assize courts on 16 July 1883? Nearly 130 years on, her portrait, attached to her prison record, is one of hundreds of Victorian female prisoners placed online for the first time by a genealogy website.
Morrison, 40 and a servant, was convicted of throwing acid in the face of her estranged husban
Source: Unreported Heritage News
February 14, 2011
About 4,200 years ago a series of disasters struck cities and civilizations throughout the Middle East.
In Egypt the central government collapsed. The same state that had built the great pyramids, and kept pharaoh as the supreme authority, could no longer keep the country united. This ushered in an era of powerful provincial leaders (known as nomarchs) and rival claimants to the Egyptian throne.
A similar scenario happened in Mesopotamia where the Akkadian Empire, an entity wh
Source: Newsweek
February 27, 2011
To the casual observer, the visiting Europeans at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial in the hills above Jerusalem, looked like any other foreign delegation. In the Garden of the Righteous Among Nations, where Gentiles who protected Jews are honored, they laid a wreath and posed for a photo before signing the visitors’ book with the solemn promise: “We will want to make sure that ‘never again’ really means never again.”
But these were no ordinary travelers with Zionist sympathie
Source: BBC
March 1, 2011
A miraculous tale of human ingenuity and bravery lies behind an exhibition of treasures from Afghanistan that opens at the British Museum this week.
In 17 years of war after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, and five years of Taliban rule, most of the Afghan national museum's riches were looted and some were deliberately destroyed.
But the most valuable items survived, in a vault deep beneath the presidential palace, thanks to five men - among them museum director Omar Khan M
Source: BBC
March 1, 2011
A letter revealing the story behind who put the Royal Palace in touch with speech therapist, Lionel Logue, has been uncovered in Edinburgh.
Mr Logue treated the stammer of the Duke of York, who went on to become King George VI.
The story inspired the Oscar-winning film, The King's Speech.
The letter, dated 18 May 1925, is from Baron Stamfordham, King George VI's father's private secretary, to John Murray V, who recommended Mr Logue.
The letter
Source: BBC
March 1, 2011
The bones of people who died up to 100 years ago are being used to develop new treatments for chronic back pain.
The research uses computer modelling techniques devised at Leeds University and archaeology and anthropology expertise at Bristol University.
Spines from 40 skeletons in museums and anatomy collections are being analysed....
Source: Fox News
February 28, 2011
Two years ago this month, President Obama met with the families of Sept. 11 victims and other victims of terrorism at a special meeting in Washington, D.C., and promised “swift and certain justice” for the perpetrators. But the high expectations of that meeting have given way to frustration for many who met with Obama.
But with no timetable for a trial for those charged with being behind the attacks, Hamilton Peterson, who lost his father and stepmother on 9/11, says the families fe
Source: CNN
February 28, 2011
One of the most eccentric dying requests has finally been fulfilled as a mansion closed for most of the 20th century reopens to the public.
Maison Mantin was left to the town of Moulins in central France by Louis Mantin, in a will written months before his death in 1905. The landowner, who had inherited several properties, died unmarried and childless aged 54, only eight years after his house was completed.
Despite rumors that Mantin had demanded the house be closed for
Source: CNN
March 1, 2011
Christian Dior has started proceedings to fire designer John Galliano after he was filmed making anti-Semitic comments in a Paris restaurant, the fashion giant said Tuesday.
The statement came hours after Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman condemned Galliano's praise of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
The statement came hours after Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman condemned Galliano's praise of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler....
Source: BBC News
February 25, 2011
It is a spectacular work of art and a highlight at Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology.
The semicircle of gleaming green feathers held together by rows of golden beads was, it is said, the headdress of Mexico's last Aztec ruler, Moctezuma.
But the spectacular artefact is not real - it's a replica. The original lies thousands of kilometres away in a collection at Vienna's Ethnology Museum.
The exact origin of the headdress or "penacho" is disp
Source: Ahram Omline (Egypt)
February 24, 2011
Archaeologists succeeded in thwarting a looting attempt of a 160-ton colossus of the 19th dynasty king Ramses II.
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the statue of king Ramses II
the statue of king Ramses II
the statue of king Ramses II
Last night looters sneaked into the southern quarry of the upper Egyptian city of Aswan in an attempt to cut and remove the statue of King Ramses II. The statue is half buried in the sand as it was originally cut in red
Source: Japan Times
February 26, 2011
A terra cotta figurine unearthed from a late fourth-century tomb in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, is thought to be the oldest "haniwa" found yet, according to the local authority.
The figurine, which is holding a shield and appears to be smiling, was apparently meant to guard the Chihara Ohaka tomb, the Sakurai board of education said Thursday.
The earliest haniwa in human form had until now been dated to the first half of the fifth century, but the Sakurai figuri
Source: Science Now
February 24, 2011
About 11,500 years ago, at a seasonal base camp in central Alaska, a 3-year-old child died. Its family burned the small body, perhaps ceremonially, in the house's central hearth, and then they moved on, never to use the home again.
Last year, archaeologists discovered the remains of the house and burial, providing a rare slice of life of the first Americans. Some aspects of the burial resemble those in both Siberia and North America, but in other respects the new find is completely
Source: AFP
February 25, 2011
Archeologists have discovered a group of ancient tombs in the mountainous jungle of southeastern Peru they say is as important as the discovery of the lost city of Machu Picchu.
The tombs belonging to the Wari culture were found on the jungle-covered eastern slope of the Andes in Cuzco department at a long-abandoned city thought to be the last redoubt of Inca resistance to Spanish colonial rule.
The Waris, a pre-Inca civilization, had an enormous cultural impact in the
Source: CHarlotte Observer
January 3, 2011
She left France 65 years ago, a war bride with a baby boy.
Speaking no English, with little money and only the clothes on her back, she found bad news waiting in the U.S.: Her GI husband wanted her to go home and leave the infant behind.
Even though the soldier offered to pay for the trip, Josette Laney, then 23, knew there would be more opportunity in America.
In Gaston County, where her husband was from, she built a new life as a single parent. She worked
Source: National Parks Traveler
January 3, 2011
Ken Wild knew that somewhere in Virgin Islands National Park's tangle of mango, lime, and tamarind trees, intertwined with various palm species and thick, cloaking pockets of Sansevieria, was an ancient carving in rock. An old roll of film confirmed as much.
But where?
The images, taken from the roll that had itself gotten overlooked for an unknown period of time -- in the park's archives, not within its lush tropical forests -- included some of the well-known Taino car
Source: Tourism Review.com
February 28, 2011
The town of Stepina in the south-eastern Poland hides one of the best preserved fortified shelters built by Germans during the WWII. The concrete complex was supposed to protect Nazi trains as well as the special train of Adolf Hitler called ‘Amerika’. Similar fortification can be also found in nearby Strzyżów where Hitler had one of his headquarters.
Trains were one of the favourite means of transport for the Nazi commanders because they were fast and mobile. Since they we
