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 15, 2011
A balcony in Rome from which Mussolini gave rabble-rousing speeches to his Black Shirt supporters and declared war on Britain in 1940 is to be reopened to the public after decades of neglect.
Some of the most famous images of Il Duce were taken as he harangued the crowds from the stone balustrade, which overlooks Piazza Venezia, Rome’s answer to Trafalgar Square.
It has been shuttered for decades, partly out of embarrassment for its historical connotations and because
Source: VoA News
February 14, 2011
A campaign is underway to honor Noor Inayat Khan, an Indian woman who spied for Britain during World War II.
Born in 1914, she favored India's independence from Britain. But she put her feelings aside to help the British fight Nazi Germany. She was eventually caught in occupied France and executed at Dachau concentration camp.
Efforts are underway to raise about $155,000 to place a bronze bust of Noor Inayat Khan in the London square where she once lived. The bust would
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
February 15, 2011
The President’s fiscal year 2012 budget request for the Department of Education once again eliminates Teaching American History grants (TAH) as a separately funded program. As it did in FY ’11 the Administration proposed consolidating history education into a new program called
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
February 14, 2011
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report questioning the completion date, final cost and capabilities of the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Electronic Records Archive (ERA). Since 2001, NARA has been working to develop an IT system to preserve and provide access to massive volumes and all types of electronic records. NARA has repeatedly revised the program schedule and incre
Source: Sky News
February 15, 2011
Two thousand-year-old footprints left by a Roman child playing by the side of a road have been found in North Yorkshire.
Archaeologists made the remarkable discovery while excavating a muddy area of a former Roman settlement on the A1 near Leeming.
Helen Maclean of archaeology firm AECOM described the find as very rare.
Photographs show a right footprint clearly visible in soft ground followed by two left prints - suggesting that the boy or girl who made th
Source: AFP
February 14, 2011
Thailand and Cambodia both claimed vindication Tuesday after the UN appealed for a permanent ceasefire in their deadly border dispute, showing no sign of bridging differences over how to end the rift.
Thailand urged its neighbour to return to the table for bilateral talks to settle the row centred on a 900-year-old temple, which erupted into four days of clashes earlier this month, leaving at least 10 people dead.
The two sides are at odds over a border area surrounding
Source: Live Science
February 15, 2011
Little is known about the archaeology of Saudi Arabia, as the government has historically forbid aerial photographs of the landscape and religious sensitivities have made access tricky. But Google Earth is changing that. Satellite images available via the Web-based 3-D map program show that large portions of the country hold a wealth of archaeological remains that predate Islam and may be several thousand years old.
Researchers recently discovered nearly 2,000 tombs by peering throu
Source: BBC
February 14, 2011
Apprentice engineers look set to help a father and son restore an 80-year-old ice-breaker tug whose wake on Loch Ness was mistaken for Nessie.
James Clark, a former skipper of the Scot II, and his son Dan have started a project to save the rusting vessel.
The duo from Fort Augustus have been offered assistance from Babcock apprentices and staff and students at Fife's Carnegie College.
The cost of the full restoration has been estimated at £375,000.
Source: BBC
February 15, 2011
Thirty or so people move slowly across a muddy field in the pouring rain - and they think it's fun.
They've each got a metal detector, a small spade and - the most optimistic among them - a bag for treasure.
They don't like to be labelled treasure hunters though. They prefer to call their hobby - quietly searching these bleak, rain-soaked slopes - metal detecting.
There has been a recent rise in interest in the pastime - since David Booth unearthed a hoard
Source: BBC
February 15, 2011
Controlled explosions have been carried out on two unexploded World War II shells which were discovered in a quarry in the Mourne Catchment area on Tuesday.
NI Water said the devices were discovered in Percy Bysshe quarry beside the Blue Lough in the Mournes. The quarry was used during the war as an artillery firing range.
Police and Army Technical officers secured the area before two controlled explosions were carried out....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 15, 2011
A balcony in Rome from which Mussolini gave rabble-rousing speeches to his Black Shirt supporters and declared war on Britain in 1940 is to be reopened to the public after decades of neglect.
Some of the most famous images of Il Duce were taken as he harangued the crowds from the stone balustrade, which overlooks Piazza Venezia, Rome’s answer to Trafalgar Square.
It has been shuttered for decades, partly out of embarrassment for its historical connotations and because
Source: CNN
February 15, 2011
Former President George H.W. Bush, slugger Stan Musial and cellist Yo-Yo Ma are among the 15 individuals who will receive America's highest civilian honor Tuesday, the White House announced.
The 15 will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is "presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors," the
Source: CNN
February 15, 2011
Using the available scientific evidence, "it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion" about the source of the anthrax used in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks which killed five people, according to a report issued Tuesday by the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings come two and a half years after the FBI said that Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins was behind the anthrax mailings, and that the spores could be traced to a flask labeled RMR-1029 in his lab.
Source: NYT
February 14, 2011
Anthony Giacchino thumbed through a stack of letters, all of them marked with yellow stickers, red stamps or a simple, final X slashed through the addressee’s names: Clotilde Terranova. Rosie Friedman. Rosaria, Lucia and Catherine Maltese. “Return to sender,” he said. “Return. Return. Return. It’s like, ‘Who is this person?’ They’re forgotten, and unfortunately there’s a lot of truth to that.”
Dead letters? Not to Mr. Giacchino, who thinks of them more as correspondence with anothe
Source: NYT
February 14, 2011
Lucy may well be the world’s most famous fossil hominid. She is the best-known specimen of the species Australopithecus afarensis, and her partial skeleton, found in 1974, revealed that she and her kin could walk upright....
Now, a fossilized foot bone from Hadar, Ethiopia, reveals that A. afarensis had arched feet, as do modern humans, and was fully committed to walking upright. The species lived between 3.7 million and 2.9 million years ago....
Source: NYT
February 14, 2011
There was trepidation on both sides when a squadron of biologists set out to celebrate Darwin Day in rural America during the weekend.
The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, N.C., which instigated the road trip in the name of scientific outreach, first held a workshop where seven of its Ph.D.’s staged role-playing games and practiced debunking misconceptions about evolution without sounding confrontational.
The group’s small-town hosts took their own prec
Source: NYT
February 14, 2011
SANDTON, South Africa — Kenny Kunene, a former gangster turned businessman, gave what he called “the mother of all parties” for his 40th birthday. With his small paunch protruding from a white tuxedo and his eyes hidden behind Roberto Cavalli sunglasses, he ate sushi from the belly of a woman who was wearing nothing but black lingerie and high heels while hundreds of guests looked on.
Mr. Kunene, who says he supports the A.N.C.’s Youth League with his time and money, promptly retor
Source: Science Magazine
February 12, 2011
As Egypt struggles to lay the foundations of a new government in the wake of its revolution, archaeologists around the world are closely watching the fate of the nation's prized antiquities—as well as the fortunes of Zahi Hawass, long the face and voice of the country's ancient monuments. Hawass, who under Hosni Mubarak was recently named minister of antiquities, has been confronting an unusual uprising among his own staff as well as questions about his political future. And today, he reported a
Source: The Washington Post
February 14, 2011
One day more than two centuries ago, a Maryland slave of West African descent took a smooth stone he had probably found in a ploughed field and slid it between the bricks of a furnace he was building.
The slave might have believed, as West Africa's Yoruba culture held, that such stones had connections to Eshu-Elegba, the deity of fortune, and were left behind like mystical calling cards after a lightning strike.
The bond servant sealed the stone into the brickwork, wher
Source: NJ
February 12, 2011
A pair of ancient mummies one 4,000 years old will go on display next week at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology after the museum and the Chinese government on Friday resolved a dispute that led to an exhibit with recreations and life size photos replacing the promised artifacts.
The main attractions will be in place through March 15. The exhibit will continue from March 17 to 28 with some 100 artifacts from the "Silk Road" but without
