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: BBC
October 19, 2010
A life-size sculpture of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is due to be unveiled at a gallery in Tel Aviv.
The installation, by Israeli artist Noam Braslavsky, portrays Mr Sharon lying in a hospital bed in the coma he has been in since 2006.
Mr Sharon was one of Israel's most influential leaders. He has never recovered from a massive stroke.
The 82-year-old remains in hospital in Tel Aviv, having never regained consciousness after suffering the str
Source: Sofia News Agency (Bulgaria)
October 19, 2010
Leading Bulgarian archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov has presented the latest finds of his team from the Ancient Thrace and Rome fortress of Perperikon in the Rhodope Mountain.
One of the finds is a miniature model of a stone grinder dated back to 7000 years ago. Ovcharov believes the model might have been an actual children's toy.
Another unique find is a figure of a Thracian warrior from the 3rd-2nd century BC. The Thracian warrior used to hold a spear. The figure is mode
Source: BBC News
October 18, 2010
Roman, Bronze and Iron Age remains have been unearthed at the site of a new bypass in Powys.
Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) said a number of interesting finds had been made, but nothing unusual at Four Crosses, near Welshpool.
Among the earliest sites found is a ringed ditch representing an early prehistoric burial mound.
Roman metalworking and farming activity was also discovered by archaeologists in the village.
CPAT said it would an
Source: Eurekalert
October 19, 2010
The pre-Columbian Indian societies that once lived in the Amazon rainforests may have been much larger and more advanced than researchers previously realized. Together with Brazilian colleagues, archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have found the remains of approximately 90 settlements in an area South of the city of Santarém, in the Brazilian part of the Amazon.
"The most surprising thing is that many of these settlements are a long way from rivers, and are located
Source: Jalopnik.com
October 18, 2010
During World War II, Allied forces readily admitted that German tanks were superior to their own. The big question for Allied forces, then, was how many tanks Germany was producing. Here's how they reverse-engineered serial numbers to find out.
To solve the problem of determining production numbers, the Allied forces initially tried conventional intelligence gathering: spying, intercepting and decoding transmissions and interrogating captured enemies.
Via this method, t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 19, 2010
A previously unpublished short story by Anthony Burgess indicating the author’s obsession with tarot cards is to be broadcast for the first time.
The original hand-annotated draft of Chance Would Be A Fine Thing was found among the writer’s personal papers having languished unread in archives for more than a decade.
However, the work is now to be aired on BBC Radio 3 after it was discovered by Dr Andrew Biswell, director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation (
Source: National Parks Traveler
October 19, 2010
In 1838, the United States government forcibly removed more than 16,000 Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia, and sent them to Indian Territory—a place we now call Oklahoma. Both the route they followed and the experience itself are known as the Trail of Tears, and they are commemorated by The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
The Trail covers thousands of miles of land and water routes in parts of nine states (Alabama,
Source: Fox News
October 19, 2010
Glacier National Park's centennial year is winding down, so the Traveler thought it might be both fun and enlightening to take a peek at a pair of park brochures from the early years of the park. It's pretty clear from these excerpts that life in the park was just a bit different in 1912 and 1920 than it is today.
Private auto travel has long since become the norm for Americans, but back in 1912 it was still being viewed with caution. The park regulations noted,No automobiles will b
Source: NYT
October 18, 2010
JONESBORO, Ark. — The Southern white Democrat, long on the endangered list, is at risk of being pushed one step closer to extinction....
The swing has been under way since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson predicted that his fellow Democrats would face a backlash of white voters that would cost the party the South. It continued with Ronald Reagan’s election and reached a tipping point in the Republican sweep of 1994, with more than one-thi
Source: Ynet News
October 14, 2010
Sixty-five years have passed since the end of the Second World War, but even today it would seem that many Germans still cling to the prejudice and racism which the Nazi party identified with.
A new poll conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for Political Education, a foundation with close ties to the German Social Democratic party, has found that one in 10 Germans wants "a new Fuehrer to lead the country with an iron fist", and that every third German thinks all fo
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
October 19, 2010
The art collection includes work by Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali and Claude Monet.
But, for once, the names on the canvases are less remarkable than the story of the paintings’ ownership.
For they are artworks that were stolen from Jews by the Nazis, many of which were never returned to their rightful owners.
From today, Holocaust survivors and their relatives can search for the stolen artwork on a new online database cataloguing more tha
Source: AFP
October 18, 2010
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered the tomb of a priest who conducted prayer rituals before statues of a dead pharaoh more than 4,000 years ago, the antiquities council said on Monday.
The tomb, which belonged to the priest Rwd-ka and dated back to the Fifth Dynasty of 2,514 to 2,374 BC, was found near the pyramids of Giza, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told AFP.
One of the priest's roles was to lead a series or rituals and prayers before statues of a departed phar
Source: Live Science
October 18, 2010
The remains of a sunken warship recently found in the Mediterranean Sea may confirm the site of a major ancient battle in which Rome trounced Carthage.
The year was 241 B.C. and the players were the ascending Roman republic and the declining Carthaginian Empire, which was centered on the northernmost tip of Africa. The two powers were fighting for dominance in the Mediterranean in a series of conflicts called the Punic Wars.
Archaeologists think the newly discovered re
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
October 18, 2010
A perfectly preserved medieval village is set to lose its iconic cobbled paths over health and safety fears, it emerged today.
The historic settlement of Dunster, Somerset, dates back to Bronze and Iron Age Britain and is regarded as one of the most-perfectly preserved medieval villages in England.
The village attracts thousands of visitors a year because of its 1,000-year-old castle and quaint features including the medieval cobbled streets.
Now health and
Source: Yahoo News
October 15, 2010
WINDHOEK (AFP) – Church bells ring out on the dot of noon in the heart of Namibia's sleepy capital Windhoek, still precise 100 years after the church was built as an emblem of Imperial Germany's colonial reach.
"It is like being at home. It is wonderful to hear these beautiful bells here in Namibia, nearly 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) away from Germany," said tourist Annelise Schmieder from Stuttgart.
"I am thrilled that I could see the 'Christuskirche
Source: Belfast Telegraph
October 15, 2010
Archaeologists are to dig out a portal tomb in Northern Ireland for the first time in 50 years.
The collapse of Tirnony Dolmen near Maghera has produced a rare opportunity to discover what lies beneath — and exactly how old it is.
Normally portal tombs, which are among the oldest built structures still standing in Northern Ireland, are off limits to excavators and must be preserved.
But after the massive capstone of this portal tomb fell to the ground earli
Source: Global Arab Network
October 18, 2010
Head of the Archaeology Department Nicolas Kabbad said one of the two presses is dedicated for olive pressing and the second for pressing grapes, adding that both presses are made up of rock basins engraved on rock designed for pressing and refinement, gathering the juice in a circular basin 1.5 m in diameter, with a hole for olive and grapes juice to pass.
He added the recent discovery is to be added to a series of archaeological discoveries at the site. The mission has already une
Source: Art Daily
October 19, 2010
An iconographic analysis conducted regarding different Maya murals created in Prehispanic times, between 600 and 1000 of the Common Era, have allowed the hypothetical reconstruction of the way the milita was integrated in this culture; scenes studied refer to aspects like the command and armaments systems, as well as communications and tactics used at the height of this ancient civilization.
Until now, Bonampak frescoes, in Chiapas, and San Bartolo, in El Peten, Guatemala, were the
Source: CNN.com
October 18, 2010
Before it could open its doors in Philadelphia next month, the new National Museum of American Jewish History had to resolve a classic Jewish American predicament: how to treat Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath.
If the museum remained open for the Sabbath - called Shabbat - the institution would be violating Jewish law, which forbids work and financial transactions on that day.
But if the museum closed for Shabbat, it would prevent the institution from carrying out its miss
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
October 18, 2010
A former Japanese Tourist Bureau helper's 70-year-old diary has sparked an international search after it was discovered to contain photographs of supposedly Jewish men and women he helped escape the Nazis.
The yellowing images appear to show Jews who were led from the clutches of the anti-Semitic Nazis by Germany's close allies, Japan.
One of the photos shows a young man's monochrome portrait and although faded, it is still clear he had style. His hair is slicked down,
