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: Cliopatria (blog)
November 20, 2010
The Cliopatria Awards recognize the best history writing in the blogosphere. There will be awards in six categories: Best Group BlogBest Individual BlogBest New BlogBest Po
Source: TIME.com
November 19, 2010
Every year around this time, a tempest brews in the mountains just north of Madrid. On the weekend closest to Nov. 20, devotees of Francisco Franco, who died on that day in 1975, travel to the elaborate basilica-turned-mausoleum called Valley of the Fallen, where he is buried. There, they pay homage to the general who ruled Spain as dictator for nearly 40 years. Because the site is owned by the state, the event produces heated complaints over the Spanish government's continued financial support
Source: NYT
November 19, 2010
INDIANAPOLIS — In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Cat’s Cradle,” the narrator meets a woman on a plane who is delighted to discover that he is from Indiana. Holding his arm tightly, she tells him, “We Hoosiers got to stick together.”
Mr. Vonnegut’s writing was filled with references to his Midwestern roots and to the tight-knit families he met growing up here. Still, some readers may be surprised that his memorial library is opening in his hometown, Indianapolis, and not on the East Coast, w
Source: NYT
November 19, 2010
Nearing 40 and nearly broke, ousted from his last job as an English professor, a folklore buff named Robert Winslow Gordon set out in the spring of 1926 from his temporary home on the Georgia seacoast, lugging a hand-cranked cylinder recorder and searching for songs in the nearby black hamlets.
One particular day, Mr. Gordon captured the sound of someone identified only as H. Wylie, singing a lilting, swaying spiritual in the key of A. The lyrics told of people in despair and in tro
Source: NYT
November 19, 2010
ANDREW RAMOS always believed it made him more charming, an endearing characteristic integral to his identity. But, finally, after too many people mocked him, he began seeing a therapist....
“I was diagnosed with a New York accent,” Mr. Ramos said....
The New York accent is a distinctive amalgam of Irish, German, Yiddish and Italian — now infused with black and Hispanic dialects and a Caribbean lilt — that was identified at least as far back as the early 19th century. In
Source: NYT
November 20, 2010
When editors at the University of California Press pondered the possible demand for “Autobiography of Mark Twain,” a $35, four-pound, 500,000-word doorstopper of a memoir, they kept their expectations modest with a planned print run of 7,500 copies.
Now it is a smash hit across the country, landing on best-seller lists and going back to press six times, for a total print run — so far — of 275,000. The publisher cannot print copies quickly enough, leaving some bookstores and online r
Source: Discovery News
November 19, 2010
Noodles, moon cakes and other foods dating to 2,500 years ago were recently unearthed in a Chinese cemetery.
Noodles, cakes, porridge, and meat bones dating to around 2,500 years ago were recently unearthed at a Chinese cemetery, according to a paper that will appear in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Since the cakes were cooked in an oven-like hearth, the findings suggest that the Chinese may have been among the world's first bakers. Prior research determined
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 19, 2010
A first glimpse of a controversial biopic about South Africa's Winnie Mandela which promises to restore her reputation as Mother of the Nation has been provided by the leaking of the official trailer on the Internet.
"Winnie" is due for release next year and stars American actress Jennifer Hudson in the lead role. It tells the story of struggle veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's journey from rural childhood to Johannesburg social worker to wife of one of the world's most
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 19, 2010
Two ancient statues stolen in the 1980s from Italian museums, including a bronze statue of the Greek god Zeus, have ben returned home.
The Zeus statue and a marble female torso, both dating from the 1st century, had ended up in the hands of a dealer and a collector in New York, officials told a news conference Friday in Rome.
The torso, from a small museum in Terracina, south of Rome, was on display in a Madison Ave. art gallery when Michele Speranza, a member of the I
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 19, 2010
Protesters will demand the removal of the cross that towers above the tomb of Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco when they take to the streets on Saturday on the 35 anniversary of his death.
A demonstration has been called at the gates of Valle de los Caidos – The Valley of the Fallen – a vast basilica carved out of living rock in the hills 30 miles northwest of Madrid to call for the monument to be destroyed.
The Federation for Historical Memory said that it c
Source: AP
November 19, 2010
As Mexico prepares to mark 100 years since a revolution fought to install democracy and improve the lot of the country's landless peasants, many are focusing on how short it fell from its mark.
Mexico's democracy is anemic and the plight of the poor remains largely unchanged, critics say.
Two protest marches were planned in Mexico City on Friday to denounce what organizers called the failures of the bloody, seven-year conflict that began Nov. 20, 1910, and saw peasant a
Source: CNN
November 19, 2010
A settlement in New York City will pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to ground zero workers exposed to toxic debris after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, lawyers said Friday.
Plaintiffs narrowly approved the deal after facing a Tuesday night deadline that required 95 percent of some 10,000 people who worked at ground zero to approve the measure, according to Marc Berns, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
In March, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstei
Source: Art Daily
November 19, 2010
A Prehispanic sculpture that represents a beheaded ballgame player was discovered by archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) at El Teul Archaeological Zone, in Zacatecas, one of the few Mesoamerican sites continuously occupied for 18 centuries.
The life-size finding took place during research work conducted for the opening to public visit of the ceremonial site in 2012. The quarry dates from 900-1100 of the Common Era and evidence determines th
Source: BBC News
November 17, 2010
A previously unseen archive featuring the testimonies of Guernsey people who were deported to German prison camps during World War II has been uncovered.
The file of about 200 pages had been in a wardrobe since the 1960s before being given to a Cambridge University team.
They were in Guernsey researching the story of the 2,000 people deported from the Channel Islands in 1942-43.
Dr Gilly Carr said it was "the single most important resistance archive ev
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 19, 2010
Next week it will be 20 years since Margaret Thatcher fell. Pressure had been building on a number of fronts, but the issue which finally destroyed her was the yet-to-be-born euro. In the last weekend of October 1990, she travelled to a European summit in Rome, where Jacques Delors’ dream of European Monetary Union was high on the agenda. But while Mrs Thatcher was fighting her lone battle against the prospective single currency abroad, she was being fatally undermined at home. Geoffrey Howe, he
Source: BBC News
November 18, 2010
Two previously unknown violin sonatas by Antonio Vivaldi have been uncovered after lying hidden in a collection of manuscripts for 270 years.
The works, thought to have been written for amateur musicians, were found in a 180-page portfolio after it was donated to the Foundling Museum in London.
One of the rediscovered compositions will be performed at Liverpool Hope University on Sunday.
It is likely to be its first airing in the modern era, the university
Source: BBC
November 18, 2010
Two previously unknown violin sonatas by Antonio Vivaldi have been uncovered after lying hidden in a collection of manuscripts for 270 years.
The works, thought to have been written for amateur musicians, were found in a 180-page portfolio after it was donated to the Foundling Museum in London.
One of the rediscovered compositions will be performed at Liverpool Hope University on Sunday.
It is likely to be its first airing in the modern era, the university
Source: London Evening Standard
November 16, 2010
Remains of a Roman village have been discovered only half a metre below the ground in west London.
The site has remained undisturbed partly because it lies in the Grade I listed Syon Park and has been protected against ploughing in recent centuries. But it might never have come to light without plans to build a new Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
The hotel now plans to incorporate some of its Roman heritage into the finished building.
Archaeologists from the Museum
Source: CNN.com
November 17, 2010
London, England (CNN) -- News of Britain's next royal wedding was on the front page of every British paper Wednesday, but so were mentions of the late Princess Diana.
The day after Prince William announced he had proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Kate Middleton, tabloids carried full-page pictures of the couple and broadsheets ran large, above-the-fold headlines.
"We got there in the end, darling!" was the headline on the Daily Mail. "(And it's sealed
Source: BBC
November 18, 2010
Italy's prime minister is under attack for authorising what amounts to plastic surgery on two Roman marble statues.
The statues, which depict the naked gods Venus and Mars, are on show in Silvio Berlusconi's Rome residence.
Mr Berlusconi ordered a replacement for the missing penis on the statue of the ancient god of war, and a missing hand for Venus.
Art experts say it is tasteless and aesthetically wrong to replace the missing body parts.
The
