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: AFP
September 13, 2010
Russian explorers Monday said they had found a sailor's log from aboard a legendary Arctic expedition that vanished as it sought to forge through the ice-choked Northeast Passage in 1912.
For decades mystery clouded the fate of the adventurer Georgy Brusilov -- captain of the first Russian crew to seek the elusive Arctic trade route from Asia to the West -- inspiring a generation of books and films.
But the famed voyagers' remains and a journal -- dated to May 1913 from
Source: BBC
September 15, 2010
A Bronze Age burial site has been uncovered at the planned location of the Highlands' first Asda supermarket.
Archaeologists found an area of cremation pits surrounded by a ring ditch at Slackbuie, in Inverness.
Almost 2,000 flints were also recovered from the field on the city's distributor road.
Pieces of Neolthic pottery known as Unstan Ware were also discovered during digs led by Edinburgh-based NG Archaeology Services.
The details are cont
Source: Discovery News
September 14, 2010
A Roman ship that wrecked nearly 2,000 years ago contained a chest stocked with surgical tools and green pills.
Advanced DNA analysis of 2,000-year-old tablets has revealed that vegetable pills may have been part of an ancient travel medical kit, according to a new study.
The kit was recovered from a shipwreck found some 200 meters (656 feet) from one of the most beautiful beaches in Tuscany. The wreck is estimated to date back to 140-120 B.C. and was partly excavated i
Source: Live Science
September 15, 2010
A cremated male skeleton in a lavish ancient Greek tomb is not Alexander the Great's half-witted half-brother, according to a new study.
The research reignites a 33-year-long debate over whether the burned bones found in the tomb belong to Alexander the Great's father, Philip II, a powerful figure whose years of conquest set the stage for his son's exploits, or Alexander the Great's half-brother, Philip III, a figurehead king with a less successful reign.
The research
Source: AP
September 15, 2010
Egypt's antiquities chief says archaeologists have unearthed a 2,800-year-old burial chamber that boasts brightly painted astrological scenes at a site believed to house the tombs of ancient Egyptian nobles.
Zahi Hawass says in a Wednesday statement the chamber belonged to a priest named Karakhamun, whose tomb was first discovered in the 19th century but soon after disappeared under the desert sands. He says an Egyptian-American team stumbled on the burial chamber while doing restor
Source: New York Post
September 15, 2010
Defenders of an alleged cyber bully went on the attack today, accusing a noted Hebrew historian of plagiarism and claiming their client had every right to fight dirty in this no-holds-barred academic brawl.
Raphael Golb, 49, went on trial for allegedly engineering a wacky 2008 identity theft and "sock-puppeting" campaign against his dad’s intellectual rivals over ancient origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
During opening statements to jurors, defense lawyers didn
Source: BBC
September 15, 2010
The Epic of the Persian Kings exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge features illustrations inspired by the Shahnameh - poet Ferdowsi's Book of Kings - on its 1,000th anniversary.
In Persian literature it's a given that the Shahnameh - Book of Kings - is a timeless classic; In the West however the work is probably less well-known now than in Victorian times.
A new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge focuses on the gorgeous artwork the Shahnameh
Source: BBC
September 15, 2010
A French court has blocked the extradition to Rwanda of Eugene Rwamucyo, a doctor suspected of involvement in the 1994 genocide.
Dr Rwamucyo is wanted over atrocities carried out in the country's southern Butare region.
The court in Versailles, just outside Paris, also freed Dr Rwamucyo, who had been arrested at a funeral in May.
French judges have ruled that suspects extradited to Rwanda cannot expect a fair trial.....
Source: BBC
September 15, 2010
A bronze statue of the Battle of Britain's "unsung hero" Sir Keith Park has been unveiled in central London.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park commanded RAF squadrons that defended London and the South East from Luftwaffe attacks in 1940.
The 2.78m (9ft) statue by sculptor Les Johnson was unveiled in Waterloo Place in Haymarket on the 70th anniversary of Battle of Britain Day.
Sir Keith's family and 14 veterans of the battle were at the event....
Source: BBC
September 15, 2010
Pieces of an ancient Egyptian necropolis which were pillaged from Egypt in 1999 have been discovered in an antiques shop in Spain.
A Middle Eastern expert spotted the eight fragments of limestone after recognising the inscriptions, Barcelona police said.
The pieces are inscribed with hieroglyphics dating from the 3rd Century BC.
They will now be returned to the Egyptian government.
The artefacts were looted from the Saqqara burial ground in th
Source: BBC
September 14, 2010
A picture of life on board Britain's 19th Century prison ships has emerged with the publication online of details of some of the 200,000 inmates.
The records outline the disease-ridden conditions on the "prison hulks", created to ease overcrowding elsewhere.
The prisoners included eight-year-old Francis Creed, who was jailed for seven years on HMS Bellerophon for stealing three shillings worth of copper.
The records, held by National Archives, are
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 15, 2010
More than 10,000 confused birds were trapped by the beams of memorial lights switched on to mark the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.
Two beams emanating from Manhattan, known as the Tribute of Light, had to be turned off five times to allow the migrating birds to continue on their journey last week.
The birds were on their way from Canada to the warmer climate of the Caribbean and South America....
Source: AP
September 15, 2010
Backers of a bill to provide up to $7.4 billion in aid to people sickened by World Trade Center dust renewed their push for the measure Wednesday as a second House vote nears.
First responders, survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks and New York lawmakers gathered on Capitol Hill to press their case. They are urging passage of the bill to provide free health care and compensation to 9/11 rescue and recovery workers who fell ill after working in the trade center ruins. A vote is expected
Source: Star Tribune
September 15, 2010
Minnesota is home to an impressive collection of iconic consumer brands, from Betty Crocker to Post-It notes, and a number of companies have set up museums or exhibits as a way to tell the state's unique business story. At the same time, they use their heritage to call attention to their products.
Akshay Rao, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, says history can be a powerful tool for building a brand.
"Brands are the
Source: Jacksonville News (WY)
September 15, 2010
Underneath a white tent near Game Creek along Highway 89/191, University of Wyoming archeology student Bryon Schroeder sits in a 6- foot-deep hole troweling out the winding path of a rodent burrow through a square of gray earth.
Schroeder excavates the burrows first so the rodent-churned dirt doesn’t contaminate the cake layers of history that jut out at perfect right angles from the walls and floor like an M.C. Escher drawing.
On one wall, the charred, fractured stone
Source: National Parks Traveler
September 15, 2010
On September 17, 1862, "the bloodiest day in American History," savage combat at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, left 23,000 soldiers dead, wounded, or missing. This Friday, on the 148th anniversary of the epic battle that blunted the first Confederate invasion of the North and opened the way to the Emancipation Proclamation, an all-day guided hike at Antietam National Battlefield will give visitors a close encounter with the action scenes.
Consult the pa
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
September 15, 2010
They are quintessentially English seaside scenes which could easily be accompanied by the phrase: ‘Wish you were here’.
But in fact, these snapshots of the English coastline served a far more sinister purpose.
They appear in a top-secret dossier Adolf Hitler issued to senior officers in advance of his planned invasion-of Britain in 1940.
Featuring landmarks such as Brighton Pier and Land’s End, they were intended to help Nazi troops identify targets in Operatio
Source: CNN
September 15, 2010
At the age of 19, Christopher Kagwa was taken from his home in Uganda, East Africa, to fight in a distant war he knew nothing about.
More than 70 years later, the memories of fighting for the British Colonial Government in World War II are still fresh.
Sgt. Kagwa, formerly of the King's African Rifles, is one of Uganda's few living veterans of the world's bloodiest conflict.
He told CNN: "We were very scared of the white men. We didn't know anything ab
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 15, 2010
Agatha Christie, the British mystery writer, has had the anniversary of her 120th birthday celebrated with an elaborate new Google Doodle.
The search engine's multicoloured logo has been replaced with an elaborate scene adapted from one of the crime author's many detective novels.
Each of the logo's letters has been replaced with a character taken from her novels. For example the letter "G" has been designed in the form of her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 15, 2010
A collection of affectionate letters written by Oscar Wilde to a young male magazine editor have been revealed for the first time.
Penned in his own hand, the revealing letters appear to show the poet struggling with his homosexuality at a time when it was punishable by prison.
In one he muses: "This is all wrong isn't it."
In fact eight years after he wrote these letters Wilde began his famous two years in HMP Reading for "gross indecency" wi
