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: Daily Mail (UK)
September 23, 2010
At the new seafront restaurant overlooking the bay in the tiny resort of Luderitz on the coast of Namibia, tourists are invited to sit out on the balcony, where they can dine on the finest South Atlantic seafood accompanied by vintage South African wines as they take in the views over neighbouring Shark Island.
But little do they know the horrific truth about that view, which the tourist guidebooks describe as 'stunning'. Shark Island, with its picturesque setting, was the site of t
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
September 23, 2010
For more than four decades, airman Richard Etchberger’s heroic efforts to save three of his men were cloaked in secrecy.
His own three sons were even kept in the dark for much of that time over how their father died during the Vietnam War.
Finally this week, the Air Force NCO’s bravery was recognised at the White House, where he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honour by President Obama.
‘This medal reflects the gratitude of an entire nation,’ Mr Obam
Source: C-DH Net
September 21, 2010
Having agreed to a deal to buy a portion of the Spring Hill Battlefield from General Motors Corp., the Civil War Preservation Trust will kick off a fundraising campaign on Friday to help pay part of the $2 million purchase price.
Jim Campi, policy and communications director for the Preservation Trust, said the group entered into an agreement with GM to acquire an 84-acre section of the battlefield sometime around the beginning of August.
“It’s going to be a public-priv
Source: Civil War News
September 1, 2010
CHARLESTON, S.C. – The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley will be rotated early in 2011 to an upright position for the first time since it sank on Feb. 17, 1864.
That night the Hunley became the world’s first successful combat submarine by sinking an enemy vessel, the USS Housatonic, on blockade duty off Charleston.
The Hunley has been kept at the same 45-degree angle to starboard (right side) she had when first discovered in 1995 and recovered from the ocean in 2000....
Source: Daily Press (VA)
September 21, 2010
NORFOLK — Just months after he triggered a national racial brouhaha for neglecting to mention slavery in a proclamation of Confederate History Month, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell travels to Historically Black College Norfolk State University on Friday to talk about slavery and the Civil War.
McDonnell issued the state proclamation quietly in April, but the document quickly sparked a firestorm nationwide because "slavery" went completely unmentioned. President Barack Obama c
Source: The Tennessean
September 22, 2010
The nation’s leading Civil War land preservation group will formally announce plans Friday morning to buy 84 acres of land now owned by General Motors.
There’s one catch: The deal is contingent upon members helping raise part of the $2 million needed by Nov. 29, the 146th anniversary of the Battle of Spring Hill.
Jim Campi, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Civil War Preservation Trust, said the group signed a contract in June to buy GM’s acreage just north of Ri
Source: Ottawa Citizen
September 13, 2010
The legal battle over a recently discovered Lake Erie shipwreck -- believed to be the storied, Canadian-built brig Caledonia from the War of 1812 -- took another twist last week in a New York court as the U.S. salvage company that found the sunken vessel rejected accusations by state lawyers it has "plundered" the wreck site and disturbed human remains.
The struggle over the fate of the well-preserved wreck -- purported to be a 203-year-old troop transport involved
Source: Dallas Morning News
September 15, 2010
AUSTIN – Just when it appeared the State Board of Education was done with the culture wars, the panel is about to wade into the issue of what students should learn about Islam.
The board will consider a resolution next week that would warn publishers not to push a pro-Islamic, anti-Christian viewpoint in world history textbooks.
Members of the board's social conservative bloc asked for the resolution after an unsuccessful candidate for a board seat called on the pane
Source: Houston Chronicle
September 21, 2010
AUSTIN — As a Muslim who grew up going to Texas public schools — and sees challenges facing today's Muslim students — Imam Islam Mossaad said he was taken aback by a resolution to be considered Friday by the State Board of Education asserting the need to fend off a pro-Islamic, anti-Christian bias in textbooks.
"There are Muslim students who even feel they have to change their name. They have to create some other ethnicity, so that their classmates don't say, 'Oh, here comes Os
Source: BBC News
September 23, 2010
A man wanted in connection with a stolen drawing believed to be by Vincent van Gogh has been arrested in Vermont in the US.
Authorities say the Texan man is wanted for selling a $1 million (£640,000) sketch of van Gogh's The Night Cafe.
He was arrested on charges of occupying an abandoned camp, burglary and possession of stolen property.
The sketch turned up at a New Mexico antiques shop after being stolen from a home in 2009.
Police say they b
Source: BBC News
September 22, 2010
Scientists have unearthed two new species of giant plant-eating horned dinosaurs in southern Utah, US.
The creatures lived on the "lost continent" of Laramidia in the Late Cretaceous period, some 68 to 99 million years ago.
Laramidia was formed when a shallow sea flooded part of what is now North America and divided the continent in two.
The findings were published in the journal Plos One.
The scientists say the newly found dinos live
Source: NYT
September 22, 2010
During his lifetime, Franz Kafka burned an estimated 90 percent of his work. After his death at age 41, in 1924, a letter was discovered in his desk in Prague, addressed to his friend Max Brod. “Dearest Max,” it began. “My last request: Everything I leave behind me . . . in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others’), sketches and so on, to be burned unread.” Less than two months later, Brod, disregarding Kafka’s request, signed an agreement to prepare a posthumous edition of K
Source: Reuters
September 22, 2010
LIMA (Reuters) – Archaeologists say scrawl on the back of a letter recovered from a 17th century dig site reveals a previously unknown language spoken by indigenous peoples in northern Peru.
A team of international archaeologists found the letter under a pile of adobe bricks in a collapsed church complex near Trujillo, 347 miles (560 km) north of Lima. The complex had been inhabited by Dominican friars for two centuries.
"Our investigations determined that this pie
Source: BBC
September 22, 2010
Crew diaries which had been locked away for 150 years are being reunited with Britain's oldest surviving warship at a special ceremony on Teesside.
The journals were written by sailors on board HMS Trincomalee, which is berthed in Hartlepool.
The vessel, built in 1817, is being incorporated into the new National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN).
The journals have been sitting in Royal Navy archives in Portsmouth for the past 150 years.
Built in
Source: BBC
September 22, 2010
Young people in Wales face losing out on educational trips to historic sites if the heritage sector is hit by cuts, warns a senior National Trust official.
A report by the trust and other bodies says Wales' "historic environment" supports 30,000 jobs.
Heritage sites are worth £1.8bn a year to the economy.
The heritage sector in Wales includes nearly 30,000 listed buildings, more than 4,100 scheduled ancient monuments, 428 registered landscaped, pa
Source: BBC
September 21, 2010
Germany's wartime past played a part in encouraging young Germans to take an interest in Scottish culture, according to a Scots academic.
Germans account for the biggest overseas uptake at Skye's Gaelic college and large numbers also attend summer schools on the Western Isles.
Dr Donald William Stewart, of the University of Edinburgh, has been studying Germany's Celtic connections....
Source: BBC
September 22, 2010
A World War II hero who suffered serious facial burns while flying for the RAF has left £50,000 in his will to a medical research centre in Sussex.
Flt Lt Charles Davidson, 87, died at his home in Eastbourne in February.
He became a member of The Guinea Pig Club after his injuries were treated by a pioneering surgeon at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.
The money was left to the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation, based at the hospital....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 22, 2010
A bizarre dinosaur with a ''crown of horns'' has been discovered by scientists.
Kosmoceratops richardsoni was a cousin of the famous Triceratops, but instead of just three horns it had 15.
Horns sprouted from its nose, above each eye, and out of its cheeks. In addition, the creature had a bony frill adorned with an extraordinary array of 10 horns.
The Kosmoceratops fossils were found together with those of another horned dinosaur in the desert terrain of
Source: AP
September 21, 2010
A Montana resident believed to be the world's oldest man celebrated his 114th birthday Tuesday at a retirement home in Great Falls.
Walter Breuning was born on Sept. 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minnesota, and moved to Montana in 1918, where he worked as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway for 50 years.
His wife, Agnes, a railroad telegraph operator from Butte, died in 1957. The couple had no children....
Source: AP
September 22, 2010
...Boxes containing 15 British tons (16.8 U.S. tons) worth of the journalist's history volume "The Making of Modern Britain" have been strewn across a busy English road after an accident.
Thames Valley Police said Wednesday that a truck carrying books overturned about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London just before midnight on Tuesday. The driver suffered cuts to his arms, and the road was closed throughout the night as the books were cleared away.
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