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: Telegraph (UK)
February 11, 2011
Oberleutnant Gunther Pluschow was the sole enemy servicemen to make it off the British mainland after breaking out of a PoW camp in Derbyshire, it can be revealed.
The airman displayed incredible effort and determination and enjoyed amazing good fortune during his daring escape in the summer of 1915.
After hoodwinking the authorities, changing his appearance and swimming across the Thames Estuary, Pluschow stowed away on a Dutch steamer ship at Tilbury doc
Source: Stanford University
February 16, 2011
Stanford Libraries Share a Treasure Trove of American History In a room filled with antiquarian books of all sizes, Stanford Library Exhibition Designer Elizabeth Fischbach selects an unassuming brown book and carefully opens it. She points out two signatures scrawled on the title page of the Dublin 1751 edition John Milton’s Paradise Lost. In faded ink, Thomas Jefferson's signature is clearly legible; nearby on the page, the traces of James Madison's si
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 17, 2011
Scientists have discovered the remains of three humans – including a child-of-three – that appear to have been killed for food, their bodies butchered and then eaten.
The bones showed precision cuts to extract the maximum amount of meat and the skulls had been carved into cups and bowls for drinking and eating.
The fragments – which are 14,700 years old- are thought to be the oldest examples in the world of skull cups and the first evidence of ritual killing in Britain.
Source: AP
February 14, 2011
CHAMPION, Wis. – The Vatican has named a tiny shrine in a small northeast Wisconsin town as a holy site.
The Catholic Church has recognized the chapel in Champion near Green Bay as the location of an official sighting of the Virgin Mary. WTMJ AM says it is the only site in the country with that distinction....
Source: Education Week
February 16, 2011
A majority of states received failing or near-failing grades on the quality of their standards for teaching history in K-12 schools, according to the latest reviewRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
In “The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011,” the research and advocacy group says the average grade across all states was barely a D. The majority—28 states—received scores of D or lower and only one state, South Carolina, earned a
Source: NYT
February 16, 2011
BOSTON — Halfway around the world from Tahrir Square in Cairo, an aging American intellectual shuffles about his cluttered brick row house in a working-class neighborhood here. His name is Gene Sharp. Stoop-shouldered and white-haired at 83, he grows orchids, has yet to master the Internet and hardly seems like a dangerous man.
But for the world’s despots, his ideas can be fatal.
Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolen
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
February 16, 2011
The National Coalition for History is asking you to email letters to your U.S. Senators as soon as possible urging them to save the Teaching American History (TAH) Grants Program and Civic Education funding (through competitive grants). Legislation
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 16, 2011
The governor of Mississippi has refused to denounce a Southern heritage group's proposal for a state-issued vehicle license plate that would honour a rebel general who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Haley Barbour, a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate, said he did not think the state legislature would approve the plate bearing the name of Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest that was proposed by the Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans....
Source: Polskie Radio
February 14, 2011
The late Marek Edelman, one of the three commanders of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and a prominent dissident during the communist period, is to have his mini-museum dedicated to him in his home town of Lodz, central Poland.
The City Council has approved a plan to set aside a small section of the Historical Museum and arrange it as Edelman’s apartment, with the furniture, books, photographs and objects of everyday use recreating the atmosphere of his home inLodz .
Source: Ahram online (Egypt)
February 14, 2011
After searching the Egyptian museum and its grounds for the eight artifacts that have been missing since the recent break-in, three items have been recovered.
The objects were found on the ground at the eastern side of the museum beside the gift shop. These items are the heart-shaped amulet of Tutankhamun’s grandfather Yoya; one of his missing wooden ushabti figurines and a part of the broken, anthropoid wooden sarcophagus on display in the New Kingdom hall.
Minister of
Source: Der Spiegel (Germany)
February 15, 2011
A new parliamentary proposal to establish a commemoration day in honor of those Germans expelled from Eastern Europe following World War II has revived an ongoing debate about Germany's 20th century history. Dozens of accomplished academics have blasted the idea in an open letter.
To an outsider, it could almost seem like just another item on a packed parliamentary calendar. Last week, Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag -- led by Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and
Source: Der Spiegel (Germany)
February 16, 2011
Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, is having historians look into its shadowy early years, when the organization hired former Nazi criminals. The coming revelations could prove embarrassing for Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democrats and may even tarnish the legacy of former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
They called Johannes Clemens the "Tiger of Como." When an SS captain bore a nickname like that, it rarely meant anything good. Clemens belonged to a squad that
Source: Variety Magazine
February 15, 2011
Films shot on 3D in pre-war Nazi Germany have been unearthed in Berlin's Federal Archives.
Two 30 minute black and white propaganda films in 1936 were found by Australian director Philippe Mora, who is prepping a feature length documentary on how the Nazis used images to manipulate reality.
Mora broke new ground with his first film "Swastika" when it was released in 1973 featuring previously unseen color footage from Hitler's "home" movies shot on a
Source: AP
February 15, 2011
The Senate voted Tuesday to extend for 90 days the legal life of three post-Sept. 11 terrorism-fighting measures, including the use of roving wiretaps, that are set to expire at the end of the month.
The short-term extension gives lawmakers a chance to review the measures that critics from both the right and left say are unconstitutional infringements on personal liberties.
The Senate voted 86-12 a day after the House of Representatives agreed to extend the three provis
Source: BBC News
February 15, 2011
The ashes of Raymond Chandler's wife have been buried over his casket in a Valentine's Day ceremony in San Diego.
It had been the crime thriller writer's wish to be buried alongside Cissy Chandler, who died in 1954.
But because he left no instruction for what to do with her ashes after his death in 1959, it has taken more than five decades to bring them together.
More than 100 literary fans gathered on Monday to see a grave marker unveiled to commemorate th
Source: BBC News
February 16, 2011
A special £2 coin is being issued to mark the 500th anniversary of the launch of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose.
The limited edition coin will enter circulation later this year. Special commemorative versions will be struck in gold and silver.
The Mary Rose sank during a battle with a French invasion fleet in 1545, and was raised from the sea bed in 1982.
A new museum to house the ship will open in Portsmouth in 2012.
The new £2 coin depi
Source: The China Beat (Blog)
February 11, 2011
Have you ever wondered how you might have fared as an opium trader in the early decades of the nineteenth century? Maybe not . . . but now you can try your hand at the trade nevertheless. UC Irvine grad student Christopher Heselton alerted us to this opportunity by sending along a link to High Tea, available free online from Armor Games. Players are given a tea order that they have to meet by a certain deadline, but
Source: NJ.com
February 15, 2011
The price is right: an affordable $1.4 million.
Lots of space at 1.5 acres and a hilltop view of, well everything.
Cozy, too with 37 rooms.
And if you love beer, you gotta have this baby.
The Feigenspan Mansion, the brownstone landmark in Newark’s Central Ward built for a beer baron and his wife more than a century ago, is on the market.
Except for a caretaker, the house on the High Street hill hasn’t been lived in since 1999, when
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 15, 2011
Italy’s plans to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding as a modern state have run into trouble before they have even started, with bitter resentment over the cost and threats by one region not to take part at all.
The anniversary of the country’s unification has exposed long-running regional tensions and recalled Metternich’s dismissive observation that Italy was nothing more than “a geographical expression”.
The biggest dampener on what is meant to be a joyo
Source: Guardian (UK)
February 15, 2011
The Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan, has vowed to find the remains of about 12,000 soldiers still missing on Iwo To (also known as Iwo Jima) more than 65 years after the island was the scene of one of the most deadly battles of the second world war.
Speaking at a ceremony in Tokyo to inter the remains of 882 people found on the island last year, Kan said the authorities would locate the missing men as soon as possible.
"Many fallen soldiers remain," he said
