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: Fox News
October 24, 2010
A handshake and the words "The boy with the fast finish": That's how Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler, presiding over the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, congratulated Louie Zamperini of Torrance, Calif., when the 19-year-old track star from USC stunned the Fuhrer by making up 50 yards in the final lap of the Games' 5,000-meter event.
For most Americans, competing in the Olympics and shaking Adolf Hitler's hand might mark the most historic events of their lives. But for Zamperini --
Source: AP
December 24, 2010
The Muslim cleric who hopes to build an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site said Friday that he'll tour the country in an effort "to inspire interfaith understanding" for a project that has ignited explosive faceoffs between supporters and opponents.
Rauf's first appearance is scheduled for Detroit on Jan. 15. The city has North America's largest Muslim population.
The imam said he'll continue on to Chicago, Washington, San Antonio and college camp
Source: CNN
December 24, 2010
Detectives have arrested three suspects, but were still searching Friday for a stolen 300-year-old violin worth more than a million dollars.
John Michael Maughan, 26, and two teens from North London were arrested in connection with the theft of the 1696 Stradivarius, British Transport Police said.
The three were in West London Magistrates Court on Thursday, police said.
The teens were released but Maughan was detained
Police said the violin, va
Source: CNN
December 23, 2010
Photography is flourishing as an art form in China but a collection of rare early photographs reveal the country's long history with the medium.
Daguerreotypes and photographs from the period between 1840 and 1911, which up till recently have not been widely collected or displayed, show a country undergoing vast change, caught between its ancient traditions and modernization.
But they are not only historical documents of a changing land: the delicate, sepia-toned images
Source: BBC News
December 23, 2010
US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have hailed the New Start nuclear arms treaty as a "historic event", the White House says.
In a telephone call on Thursday, Mr Medvedev congratulated Mr Obama on achieving Senate approval of the pact.
Mr Obama in turn said that the two had a "very productive year".
The US Senate approved the pact, which would reduce nuclear arsenals and allow their inspection, on Wednesday a
Source: The Daily Telegraph (UK)
December 23, 2010
TODAY is a double anniversary for Egyptology. On this day 220 years ago, French scholar Jean Francois Champollion, who played a major part in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, was born. It is also the bicentenary of the birth of Karl Richard Lepsius, a Prussian archeologist who built on Champollion's research into the ancient writing system, making his own discoveries.
Champollion was born on December 23, 1790, at Figeac in France. His parents lacked money to send their youngest
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 23, 2010
Fred Hargesheimer, a World War II Army pilot whose rescue by Pacific islanders led to a life of giving back as a builder of schools and teacher of children, died on Thursday morning. He was 94.
Richard Hargesheimer said his father had been in poor health and passed away in Lincoln, Nebraska.
On June 5, 1943, Hargesheimer, a P-38 pilot with the 8th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, was shot down by a Japanese fighter while on a mission over the Japanese-held island
Source: AP
December 23, 2010
A U.N.-backed tribunal says the appeals over the convictions and 19-year sentence for the Khmer Rouge's chief jailer will be heard in March.
Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was convicted in July of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was the first major Khmer Rouge figure to face trial more than three decades after the genocide of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.
Duch's lawyers say he merely followed orders and was wrongfully convicted. Prosecutors say his sen
Source: AOL News
December 23, 2010
Descendants of John Wilkes Booth have agreed to exhume his brother's body for DNA testing in an attempt to determine whether the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln escaped capture and eluded justice, as the family has been told.
Booth, an actor from Maryland, shot and killed Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Most believe he was tracked down 10 days later and shot inside a tobacco barn in rural Virginia by Union soldiers and buried in an unmarked gr
Source: CNN
December 23, 2010
The governor of New Mexico has 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?
Gov. Bill Richardson, called a Billy the Kid buff, is looking at an old promise by another governor, and not the Kid's cold-blooded reputation, in deciding whether to issue a posthumous pardon, officials said.
So far, about 220 people are in favor of the pardon, while 180
Source: CNN
December 23, 2010
An overlooked female pinkie bone put in storage after it was discovered in a Siberian cave two years ago points to the existence of a previously unknown prehistoric human species, anthropologists say.
And the lineage of that species may survive today in some people in Papua New Guinea and nearby islands, scientists say.
A report on the discovery of the finger was published in the December 23 edition of the scientific journal Nature.
Anthropologists say the
Source: Bloomberg
December 21, 2010
However history judges the 535 men and women in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate the past two years, one thing is certain: The 111th Congress made more law affecting more Americans since the “Great Society” legislation of the 1960s.
For the first time since President Theodore Roosevelt began the quest for a national health-care system more than 100 years ago, the Democrat-led House and Senate took the biggest step toward achieving that goal by giving 32 million Americans
Source: Stars and Stripes
December 21, 2010
Germany lay defeated and in ruins, responsible for the recent murder of millions and a world war. Yet it also became an unlikely haven for some soldiers.
“For black GIs, especially those out of the South, Germany was a breath of freedom,” Colin Powell, a former secretary of state, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and America’s most famous African-American soldier, noted in his memoir.
“They could go where they wanted, eat what they wanted and date whom they wanted
Source: BBC News
December 22, 2010
The innermost secrets of a colossal "sea monster" skull are being revealed by one of the UK's most powerful CT scanners.
The X-rays are helping to build up a 3D picture of this ferocious predator, called a pliosaur, which terrorized the oceans 150m years ago.
The 2.4m-long (7.9ft) fossil skull was recently unearthed along the UK's Jurassic coast, and is thought to belong to one of the biggest pliosaurs ever found.
The scans could establish if the
Source: Narinjara (Burma)
December 23, 2010
The most ancient city of Arakan, known historically as Danyawaddy, which existed in the 6 century BCE, was destroyed by bulldozers for construction of a railroad that passed over the walled palace grounds, said a historian in the region on the condition of anonymity.
He said, "We submitted an appeal letter to the minister of railway three months ago, asking them not to construct the railroad over the ancient palace of Danyawaddy because it is a precious historic site for Arakan
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 22, 2010
The disgraced commander of US air operations during the Vietnam War has been posthumously exonerated after secret files reveal the Nixon administration ordered him to carry out "rogue" air strikes.
John D Lavelle was demoted and forced to retire in April 1972 after being relieved of duty for violating presidential restrictions on aerial bombing during the Vietnam War.
He maintained his innocence during congressional hearings held after his dismissal and died
Source: BBC News
December 23, 2010
Did you know that Christmas carols were not sung in churches until the 19th Century?
That is one of the many interesting facts about Christmas carols shared by expert Professor Jeremy Dibble from Durham University.
He recently appeared as an expert on the Songs of Praise 'Edwardian Christmas' programme on BBC One in December.
Jeremy believes that the carol-singing tradition is getting stronger....
Source: Life Magazine
December 9, 2010
Swastikas and Tannenbaum
The image is chilling, bordering on surreal: On December 18, 1941, as World War II rages and countless innocents endure the horrors of the Third Reich's "final solution" -- killing operations at the Chełmno death camp, for instance, began less than two weeks before -- Adolf Hitler presides over a Christmas party in Munich. Stark, jarring swastika armbands offset the glint of ornaments and tinsel dangling from a giant Tannenbaum; festive ca
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 23, 2010
An 15th century Ethiopian icon of the infant Christ child sitting on his mother's knee was discovered after it was cleaned by a British charity.
The central panel of the triptych had over the centuries become blackened with the sprinkling of perfume that the monks use as they worship.
The hugely important and stunning painted wood panel is now visible in its original coloured glory, showing a pale-faced Jesus with black curly hair and rosy cheeks.
His hand has th
Source: BBC News
December 22, 2010
US President Barack Obama has signed a landmark law allowing gay people serving in the military to be open about their sexuality.
Mr Obama said the law meant that tens of thousands of Americans would no longer be asked to live a lie.
He had campaigned to change the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" law, overturned by Congress last week.
More than 13,000 service members have been dismissed under the policy, enacted in 1993 as a compromise.
