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: AP
December 31, 2010
– Archeologists at Jamestown have unearthed a trove of tobacco pipes personalized for a who's who of early 17th century colonial and British elites, underscoring the importance of tobacco to North America's first permanent English settlement.
The white clay pipes — actually, castoffs likely rejected during manufacturing — were crafted between 1608 and 1610 and bear the names of English politicians, social leaders, explorers, officers of the Virginia Company that financed the settlem
Source: Der Spiegel
December 29, 2010
Archeologists in Germany have discovered a 2,600-year-old Celtic tomb containing ornate jewellery of gold and amber. They say the grave is unusually well preserved and should provide important insights into early Celtic culture.
German archeologists have unearthed a 2,600-year-old Celtic tomb containing a treasure of jewellery made of gold, amber and bronze.
The subterranean chamber measuring four by five meters was uncovered near the prehistoric Heuneburg hill fort nea
Source: Washington Post
December 29, 2010
Geraldine Doyle, 86, who as a 17-year-old factory worker became the inspiration for a popular World War II recruitment poster that evoked female power and independence under the slogan "We Can Do It!," died Dec. 26 at a hospice in Lansing, Mich.
Her daughter, Stephanie Gregg, said the cause of death was complications from severe arthritis.
For millions of Americans throughout the decades since World War II, the stunning brunette in the red and white polka-dot
Source: CNN
December 29, 2010
The family of Frank Buckles, the nation's lone living veteran of World War I, hopes he makes it to his 110th birthday about a month from now, despite troubling signs he is on the decline.
Buckles, who was born February 1, 1901, is thought to be the world's oldest living war veteran. Buckles has slowed down considerably in just the past two months, according to his daughter Susannah Buckles Flanagan, who lives with him at the family home near Charles Town, in the eastern panhandle of
Source: BBC News
December 30, 2010
Margaret Thatcher was advised by Harold Macmillan to drop her controversial economic policies a year after she became prime minister.
Her predecessor's warning was revealed in files released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule.
The former Conservative prime minister warned that the austerity measures could lead to high unemployment, social conflict and industrial collapse.
Cuts were leading the nation towards dangerous unemployment levels, he sa
Source: BBC News
December 29, 2010
The Foreign Office expected countries to ask for the loan of the SAS in a siege or hijack after the London Iranian Embassy rescue, documents show.
Documents from 1980 released by the National Archives reveal a discussion about a legal agreement to cover the use of the SAS by another country.
A memo says those countries would have to accept "prior responsibility for any claims for damage or injury".
The documents also reveal the government's pride
Source: Live Science
December 28, 2010
Decades after it was excavated, an ancient fortress in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel, is offering new hints about its past, archaeologists at Tel Aviv University say.
New findings suggest the fortress, Tel Qudadi, was established centuries later than believed, and may have served as an intermediate station for trade ships traveling between Egypt and Phoenicia.
The researchers unearthed an amphora (a large jar used to transport oil or wine) from the Greek isle of Lesbos
Source: Live Science
December 28, 2010
Fish may have once swum across the Sahara, a finding that could shed light on how humanity made its way out of Africa, researchers said.
The cradle of humanity lies south of the Sahara, which begs the question as to how our species made its way past it. The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, and would seem a major barrier for any humans striving to migrate off the continent.
Scientists have often focused on the Nile Valley as the corridor by which humans lef
Source: USA Today
December 29, 2010
The discovery of a single amphora, or clay jar, found in the ancient fortress of Tel Qudadi in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv could indicate both that the fortress itself is much younger than previously thought, and that trade between the area and Greek city states were much more common.
Writing in the journals Palestine Exploration Quarterly and BABESH: Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology, archaeologists from Tel Aviv University say their work shows the fortress was not from t
Source: BBC
December 29, 2010
A team of experts hope to shed new light on one of Nottinghamshire's most mysterious ancient monuments.
A 'Thing', or open-air meeting place where Vikings gathered to discuss the law, was discovered in the Birklands, Sherwood Forest, five years ago.
In January 2011 experts plan to survey the hill and see if they can detect signs of buried archaeology and the extent of the site.
The site was found by three local historians after a treasure hunt....
Source: AOL News
December 29, 2010
The Virginia history textbook that raised eyebrows when it claimed that large numbers of black soldiers fought for the South during the Civil War is under scrutiny again, after a review of the book found dozens of errors that historians call disturbing.
Among the mistakes: the claim that 12 states joined the Confederacy, not 11, and that 6,000 soldiers died during the Battle of Bull Run during the Civil War, instead of 22,000. Three of the five historians who reviewed "Our Virg
Source: BBC
December 29, 2010
Memorials to one of Russia's greatest writers, Anton Chekhov, have been unveiled this year in Sri Lanka, marking the 120th anniversary of his brief visit to the island and the 150th anniversary of his birth.
On the initiative of the Russian ambassador, the Galle Face - one of the two famous colonial-era hotels in the capital, Colombo - inaugurated a plaque commemorating the writer. A sculpture of Chekhov was installed in the other hotel, the Grand Oriental.
Documentat
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 29, 2010
A former Cuban exile convicted of killing a man when he returned to the island to try to start a rebellion had his death sentence commuted on Tuesday in the third such decision this month by Cuba's Supreme Court.
The court reduced the sentence of Humberto Eladio Real Suarez to 30 years, said Elizardo Sanchez of the independent Cuban Commission of Human Rights.
Real has been imprisoned since 1994 when he and six other exiles came to Cuba from Florida to organise an arm
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 29, 2010
Mead, the medieval warrior's choice of alcoholic drink, is making a quiet comeback across the US.
The number of American "meaderies" producing the drink has tripled to about 150 in the past decade.
Vicky Rowe, the owner of Gotmead.com, a website for enthusiasts, said: "They're just popping up all over. And a lot of those are wineries that have decided to add mead to their mainstream product lines." A form of the drink – made by fermenting honey and
Source: CNN
December 29, 2010
The governor of New Mexico has until Friday to decide whether to pardon outlaw Billy the Kid in the killing of a sheriff.
As of last week, Gov. Bill Richardson had received about 400 responses on a special website dedicated to answering a generations-old question: Should outlaw Billy the Kid get a pardon in the killing of a sheriff?
Richardson, a Billy the Kid buff, is looking at an old promise by another governor, and not the Kid's cold-blooded reputation, in deciding
Source: CNN
December 29, 2010
Former President Ronald Reagan will be honored in the 2011 Rose Parade with a specially designed float - the first time that the Rose Parade has ever included a presidential-themed float.
The Rose Parade feature is designed to kick off a celebration events to commemorate the centennial of Reagan's birth. He would have been 100 years old on February 6, 2011.
President Reagan's unique honor is 55 feet long and 26 feet high. It features 11 black and white photos of "i
Source: AFP
December 27, 2010
A US study on Monday found that Neanderthals, prehistoric cousins of humans, ate grains and vegetables as well as meat, cooking them over fire in the same way homo sapiens did.
The new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) challenges a prevailing theory that Neanderthals' over reliance on meat contributed to their extinction around 30,000 years ago.
Researchers found grains from numerous plants, including a type of wild grass,
Source: NYT
December 27, 2010
When they excavated a Scythian burial mound in the Russian region of Tuva about 10 years ago, archaeologists literally struck gold. Crouched on the floor of a dark inner chamber were two skeletons, a man and a woman, surrounded by royal garb from 27 centuries ago: headdresses and capes adorned with gold horses, panthers and other sacred beasts.
But for paleopathologists — scholars of ancient disease — the richest treasure was the abundance of tumors that had riddled almost every bo
Source: Discovery News
December 22, 2010
Hidden behind a fabulous sunken treasure recovered from a wreck in the Atlantic Ocean lays a story of secret diplomatic cables and Nazi art thieves, according to a revelation from WikiLeaks documents.
Consisting of 500,000 silver coins weighing more than 17 tons, hundreds of gold coins, worked gold, and other artifacts, the so-called Black Swan treasure has been at the center of an acrimonious international legal battle ever since it was discovered in 2007 by underwater robots from
Source: Discovery News
December 28, 2010
Broken pieces of clay pottery have revealed the names of dozens of Egyptian priests who served at the temple of a crocodile god, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) announced.
Engraved with text dating back to the Roman period, the small potsherds have been found by Italian archaeologists on the west side of the temple dedicated to the crocodile god Soknopaios in Soknopaiou Nesos, an Egyptian village in the Fayoum oasis.
Called ostraca from the Greek word ostra
