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: Voice of America
November 1, 2010
Japan reacted quickly and angrily to the Russian president's visit to a disputed island in the Kuril chain. The territorial dispute has overshadowed Russo-Japanese relations since the end of World War II.
As Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday made a brief tour of Kunashir - or Kunashiri to the Japanese - government officials in Japan wasted no time expressing strong displeasure.
Speaking at a parliamentary committee session, Prime Minister Naoto Kan reiterated
Source: WTKR
October 28, 2010
JAMES CITY — A Hampton historian and author on Thursday filed a lawsuit to halt the deletion of a controversial passage from a fourth-grade history textbook that scholars say mischaracterized the role of African-American soldiers in the South during the Civil War.
Veronica Davis, author of "Here I Lay My Burdens Down," a study of black cemeteries in and around Richmond, filed the injunction against the book's publisher, Five Ponds Press, as well as the state Board of Educa
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
October 31, 2010
HARRISBURG -- More than 1,800 historic artifacts, including a Civil War-era rifle and an eight-century-old Turkish gold ring, are missing from the state's collection, according to an audit released today.
State Auditor General Jack Wagner attributed the losses to lax oversight and an antiquated inventory system used to track the state's 4.5 million artifacts.
Other items were found to be damaged, including some that had been suspended from overhead pipes or stored in hu
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
November 1, 2010
The highest paid sportsman of all time was a slave-turned-chariot racer from Ancient Rome who earned a staggering £9.42billion, researchers have revealed.
Experts found details of Gaius Appuleius Diocles who was plucked from humble beginnings as a slave to become the a champion charioteer in second century Rome.
The immensely strong but illiterate athlete pocketed a cool 35,863,120 sesterces in prize money during his career - the same as £396million a year in today's te
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
November 1, 2010
The story of a British man who rescued hundreds of people during the Second World War using a herd of elephants in an operation dubbed a "Far Eastern Dunkirk" is to be told in full for the first time.
Gyles Mackrell, a 53-year-old tea planter, saved 200 Burmese refugees from the banks of a flooded river using the only means he could think of to get them to safety - elephants.
Mackrell's rescue mission was followed by the press at the time, who nicknamed him th
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
November 1, 2010
A scathing assessment of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson has been unearthed in a letter from a crew member on their yacht during the abdication crisis.
The King is dismissed as a student who has not grown up while his lover is described as having a big mouth and a ‘metallic American voice’.
The author of the 16-page letter, thought to be a steward called Jim Richardson, wrote to his mother after a summer cruise in the Mediterranean in 1936 on board the Nahlin. He warned
Source: BBC News
October 29, 2010
Newly released documents about World War II heroine Eileen Nearne reveal she was assessed as "scatter-brained" just two months before she was dropped behind enemy lines in Paris.
Previously classified documents say she was not ready for the dangerous spy work she was sent to do.
The story of Miss Nearne's amazing bravery only emerged following her recent death in Torquay, aged 89....
Source: Bloomberg News
October 28, 2010
Allied military intelligence indicated Adolf Hitler had built an underground Alpine fortress to house “the elite of Nazi Germany” in a desperate, final stand in World War II, according to documents released today.
Intelligence reports from 1944 and 1945, the last two years of the war, suggested that leading Nazis would seek refuge from an allied invasion of Germany in a vast underground network of tunnels and caves in a “Nazi National Redoubt” hidden within the Austrian Alps, the se
Source: Discovery News
October 14, 2010
An Italian researcher may have discovered a huge network of earthworks representing birds, snakes and other animals in Peru, according to a study published on the Cornell University physics website arXiv.
Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, assistant professor at the department of physics of Turin's Polytechnic University, used Google satellite maps and AstroFracTool, an astronomical image-processing program which she developed, to investigate over 463 square miles of land around Peru's Tit
Source: AlphaGalileo
October 17, 2010
The Falbygden area of central Västergötland in southwestern Sweden is home to one of northern Europe's greatest concentrations of megalithic graves from the New Stone Age (approx. 4000-1500 BC). A new archaeology thesis from the University of Gothenburg now shows that these “passage graves” were not designed to be visible across wide areas – instead they seem to be almost hidden within the landscape.
Tony Axelsson, doctoral student and archaeologist at the Västergötland Museum, has
Source: NYT
October 19, 2010
Starch grains found on 30,000-year-old grinding stones suggest that prehistoric humans may have dined on an early form of flatbread, contrary to their popular image as primarily meat eaters.
The findings, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal on Monday, indicate that Paleolithic Europeans ground down plant roots similar to potatoes to make flour, which was later whisked into dough.
“It’s like a flatbread, like a pancake with just water
Source: Discovery News
October 19, 2010
Neanderthal youngsters that made it to the "terrible two's" were large, sturdy and toothy, suggests a newly discovered Neanderthal infant. The child almost survived to such an age, but instead died when it was just one and a half years old.
The remains of this infant -- a lower jaw and teeth unearthed in a Belgian cave -- are the youngest Neanderthal ever found in northwest Europe, according to a study that will appear in the Journal of Human Evolution.
Since
Source: BBC News
October 19, 2010
Dozens of prehistoric sites on Dartmoor have been restored in a five-year project.
More than 30 Bronze Age cairns have now been taken off the English Heritage 'at risk' register as a result of the work.
Some 49 of the summit cairns, dating back to 2,000 BC, were surveyed and 31 needed restoration.
"These are scheduled ancient monuments so are very important," said Andy Crabb, archaeologist at Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA)....
Source: TheNews.pl
October 19, 2010
Archeologists from Poland’s southern city of Rzeszow have discovered the tomb of a young prince dating back to 6,000 BC at the A4 motorway.
The scientists who were carrying out excavations on the route of the future A4 motorway near Szczytna hoped to find traces of Neolithic settlements but the discovery exceeded their expectations....
Source: AP
October 20, 2010
GENEVA (AP) -- Archaeologists in the Swiss city of Zurich have unearthed a 5,000-year-old door that may be one of the oldest ever found in Europe.
The ancient poplar wood door is "solid and elegant" with well-preserved hinges and a "remarkable" design for holding the boards together, chief archaeologist Niels Bleicher said Wednesday.
Using tree rings to determine its age, Bleicher believes the door could have been made in the year 3,063 B.C. - aroun
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 29, 2010
Precious views of Hampton Court Palace will be destroyed forever if permission is given for a hotel on the riverbank opposite, campaigners said, in what one leading historian has described as "an international scandal".
The campaigners oppose plans passed by Elmbridge council to develop the site in west London, which is directly across the Thames from the 16th Century palace, which was built for Cardinal Wolsey and once belonged to Henry VIII.
Permission was g
Source: Fox News
October 29, 2010
For 130 years, the kilogram has weighed precisely one kilogram. Hasn't it? The U.S. government isn't so sure.
The precise weight of the kilogram is based on a platinum-iridium cylinder manufactured 130 years ago; it's kept in a vault in France at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Forty of the units were manufactured at the time, to standardize the measure of weight.
But due to material degradation and the effects of quantum physics, the weight of those
Source: WaPo
October 2, 2010
A Virginia collector has donated to the Library of Congress the largest trove of Civil War-era photographs depicting average soldiers that the institution has received in at least 50 years, officials said last week.
The stunning photographs - small, elegant ambrotypes and tintypes - show hundreds of the young men who fought and died in the war, often portrayed in the innocence and idealism before the experience of battle.
The pictures, almost 700 in all, make up the bul
Source: Reuters
October 29, 2010
GETTYSBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – Days before Halloween on a darkened street Dwight Stoutzenberger aimed his digital camera at a wall not far from where a guide was telling ghost stories to a group of tourists.
Gettysburg, a historic Civil War town, is famous for ghosts and reportedly haunted sites where uniformed soldiers mysteriously walk through closed doors, or ornaments shift positions on a mantelpiece.
As Stoutzenberger scrolled through his photos he found seve
Source: Irish Central
October 28, 2010
A report reveled in a new book "The IRA: A Documentary History 1916-2005" claims that the death of Irish freedom fighter Michael Collins involved a hail of gunfire.
Collins was killed while exchanging rifle fire with ambushers.
He was the only fatality wounded in this battle.
He had ordered his convoy to stop and return fire, instead of choosing the safer option of driving on in his touring car or transferring to the safety of the accompanying arm
