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: The Age (Australia)
January 9, 2011
WHEN an old sewerage pipe near the centre of Ballarat needed replacing last year, archaeologists were called in for what was expected to be a routine dig of the surrounds.
But what they uncovered surprised and delighted heritage experts - a trove of more than a thousand gold rush artefacts, many once belonging to members of Ballarat's mid-19th century Chinese community. As well as European pottery and bottles, they found medicine vials stamped with Chinese characters, intact fig jar
Source: Anchorage Daily News (Alaska)
January 9, 2011
A series of free public lectures spotlighting different aspects of the Aleutian campaign in World War II will unfold on Thursday nights for the next month at the Anchorage Museum.
Most Alaskans are aware, to some degree, of the history. In 1942, the Japanese military invaded and occupied two islands at the western end of the Aleutian Chain. American and Canadian forces mounted massive counter-attacks. Thousands died.
By the time the shooting stopped, a civilian populati
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 11, 2011
The ace in Christie’s pack next month is an elusive Warhol self-portrait which has never been reproduced before.
Little-known masterpieces, unseen for generations, are stealing the headlines as the contents of next month’s contemporary art sales in London begin to unfold. Last week, the Telegraph announced that a Francis Bacon portrait triptych of Lucian Freud, hidden in a private collection for 45 years, was to lead the Sotheby’s sale. Today we can reveal that Christie’s ace in the
Source: AP
January 10, 2011
A judge ordered former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to serve three years in prison Monday for his role in a scheme to illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002.
The sentence comes after a jury in November convicted DeLay on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The Republican who represented the Houston area was once one of the most powerful people in U.S. politics, ascending to the No. 2 job in the House of Re
Source: AOL News
January 10, 2011
The 2009 film "2012" depicted an ultimate end-of-the-world scenario based on an ancient Mayan calendar that ends on Dec. 21, 2012. But does NASA believe the film accurately portrays something that will really happen? Absolutely not.
In fact, NASA scientists say the doomsday "2012" is the most ridiculous sci-fi film ever.
"The filmmakers took advantage of public worries about the so-called end of the world as apparently predicted by the Mayans of
Source: ALPLM Blog
January 10, 2011
SPRINGFIELD - The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Blog “>From out of the Top Hat” has an entry today about Abraham Lincoln’s dreams, and what if anything they predicted about his and the nation’s future. The blog is at www.alplm.org/blog, is updated every Monday, and additional topic suggestions are always welcome....
Source: Discovery News
January 10, 2011
Sophisticated farming methods traveled quickly from the Middle East into Europe around 8,000 years ago.
Croatia does not have a reputation as a hotbed of ancient agriculture. But new excavations, described January 7 in San Antonio at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, unveil a Mediterranean Sea -- hugging strip of southern Croatia as a hub for early farmers who spread their sedentary lifestyle from the Middle East into Europe.
Farming village
Source: Discovery News
January 10, 2011
Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed six missing pieces from a 3,400-year-old colossal double statue of King Tut's grandparents, the Supreme Council of Antiquities announced Sunday.
Belonging to the statues of King Amenhotep III and his wife Queen Tiye, the fragments were found at the pharaoh’s mortuary temple in Luxor during work to lower the ground water on the west bank of the Nile.
Currently a centerpiece of the main hall at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the doubl
Source: Florida Today
January 10, 2011
When Florida seceded from the Union 150 years ago on Jan. 10, 1861, three months before the first shot in the War Between the States was fired, what was Brevard County stretched from Melbourne almost to Miami.
Sparsely populated, residents of what's now the Space Coast had little connection to the Civil War that raged three days shy of four years and claimed more than 600,000 lives.
But after the battles ended, freed slaves and soldiers who made their way to Brevard pla
Source: BBC
January 10, 2011
It may be 700 years since the last major recruitment drive but custodians of a castle near Wrexham are looking for medieval soldiers.
Chirk Castle keepers have appealed for more volunteers to swell the ranks of guards who dress up to greet visitors.
Chirk Castle, which is now managed by the National Trust, was built between 1295 and 1310 and the volunteers would represent the early part of its history and be dressed in 14th Century costume....
Source: BBC
January 10, 2011
A memorial service honouring more than 1,000 people killed in Portsmouth during the Blitz has been held on the 70th anniversary of the attacks.
Records show 1,013 people died during the World War II German raids which destroyed large sections of the naval city, including the Guildhall.
The names of those who were killed were read out during the service in the rebuilt Guildhall Square.
A plaque was also unveiled as part of the service....
Source: BBC
January 10, 2011
Veteran Cuban anti-communist militant and former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles has gone on trial in the US on immigration charges.
Mr Posada Carriles, 82, is wanted in Venezuela and Cuba over two deadly bomb attacks and plots to kill the former Cuban president, Fidel Castro
The Cuban-born Venezuelan citizen spent decades trying to overthrow the communist government in Cuba, and is seen as a hero by some anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US.
He is accused o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 10, 2011
A £20 million mini series about slain John F Kennedy is unlikely to ever be shown in the US after pressure from his surviving family members.
Maria Shriver and Caroline Kennedy are reported to have lobbied hard for the History Channel to pull the plug on the series.
The eight part film, which stars Katie Holmes as First Lady Jackie Kennedy and Greg Kinnear as JFK, was due to air in the US later this year.
But TV insiders said it was unlikely the series wil
Source: BBC News
January 7, 2011
A team of divers have said they have discovered the remains of the USS Revenge, a ship commanded by the US Navy's famed Oliver Hazard Perry that wrecked near Rhode Island in 1811.
Mr Perry is known for having later defeated the British in a battle near Ohio during a conflict in 1813.
The ship helped shape the war because Mr Perry would not have gone to Ohio if it had not wrecked, the divers said.
Sunday marks the 200th anniversary of the Revenge running agr
Source: Christian Science Monitor
January 6, 2011
To residents of Hobart, the capital of Australia’s island state of Tasmania, a grassy flood plain bordering the Jordan River, was nothing special until archaeologists uncovered a treasure-trove: an estimated 3 million artifacts dating back 40,000 years.
The spot had been an important meeting place for Aboriginal tribes, and the tools, stones, and spear tips found there represent the oldest evidence of human habitation in the Southern Hemisphere.
But the Tasmanian govern
Source: UPI
January 3, 2011
Six archaeological tombs and antique finds dating back to the Byzantine and Roman eras were unearthed by scientific excavations in Syria, scientists said.
Hussein Zen-Eddein, head of the excavations in the city of Sweida, said the tombs and finds, including clay lanterns and bronze bracelets and earrings, belonged to a family cemetery, SANA news agency reported Sunday.
Earlier excavations at the site had uncovered a basalt pillar on which Nabatean words dedicated to a N
Source: The First Post (UK)
January 9, 2011
Historians are divided over plans for a luxury, eight-day package tour of sites relating to Adolf Hitler, with some saying it will turn into a "perverse pilgrimage".
The trip, scheduled for June, will visit the Munich beer cellar where the future Fuhrer launched his ill-fated 1923 putsch, Berchtesgaden where Hitler had his 'Eagle's Nest' castle and Berlin where he committed suicide.
The tour's British organisers - historians and writers - are at pains to point out t
Source: Irish Times
January 10, 2011
EARLY IRISH emigrants to the US put extraordinary portions of their incomes into savings banks, according to a leading Irish historian.
The phenomenon was born out of insecurity, Prof Joe Lee told a conference on the history of Irish foreign affairs at University College Cork.
Records from the Emigrant Savings Bank in New York, an Irish institution founded in the 1850s, provide an insight into the saving habits of the Irish diaspora, with valuable details such as dates
Source: BBC
January 9, 2011
England's first purpose-built public art gallery has been celebrating its 200th anniversary.
The Dulwich Picture Gallery opened its doors in 1811 when Sir Francis Bourgeois bequeathed his collection "for the inspection of the public".
On Sunday, the south London gallery was putting on live musical performances, a falconry show and a fireworks display.
Twelve paintings from some of the world's most famous galleries will go on show at the gallery th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 8, 2011
A new biography of Joseph Goebbels, the limping Nazi propaganda chief, shows him to be a serial seducer who kept detailed notes of his affairs.
On the streets of Nazi Germany his club foot and feeble, polio-weakened frame earned him the scathing nickname, the "poison dwarf".
But now a new academic biography has shown how Joseph Goebbels, despite his physical shortcomings, was an unlikely Casanova - recording his sexual conquests on 30,000 sheets of paper tha
