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
Apr 30, 2010
A Russian businessman who set up a Josef Stalin museum in the city once named after the Soviet dictator has been beaten to death by attackers.
Vasily Bukhtienko was attacked by three men on a tennis court in Volgograd (formerly known as Stalingrad), in southern Russia, officials said
In 2005, Mr Bukhtienko founded a Stalin museum near an imposing monument commemorating the 1942-43 Battle of Stalingrad, which is considered by many historians as a turning point in World
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 30, 2010
Vietnam marked the 35th anniversary of the end of its war Friday with a dramatic re-enactment of the day tanks smashed through the gates of the former Presidential Palace and ousted the US-backed government.
A crowd of 50,000, many waving red and gold communist flags, lined the parade route, which was adorned with a massive poster of Ho Chi Minh, the father of Vietnam's revolution.
Friday's celebration featured patriotic songs, some of them put to a pulsing disco beat.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 30, 2010
On a remote island in the Pacific, a group of villagers are counting down the days until they welcome their “god” the Duke of Edinburgh back to his rightful home.
The people of Yaohnanen on the island of Tanna believe a man descended from one of their spirit ancestors will return next month to live among them. While he was away he lived in a vast palace, but when he comes home he will sleep in a hut and hunt wild pigs with his tribe.
The villagers’ belief seems to cen
Source: AP
Apr 30, 2010
German police said a couple of hungry pigs digging for food came nose-to-nose with a long-buried World War II anti-tank weapon. Police said Friday the two pigs found the single-shot "panzerfaust" on private land southwest of Dresden. The pigs' owner secured the animals in their stall then called police who were able to remove the weapon and destroy it.
Source: CNN
Apr 30, 2010
After 161 years of treating survivors of major catastrophes, from the sinking of the Titanic to the attacks of September 11, and leading early HIV treatments, New York's St. Vincent's Hospital closed Friday.
Faced with financial troubles and mounting debts, the historic hospital was forced to shutter its operations. By Friday, no patients were left, and about 3,500 employees were laid off.
There were a few community rallies to keep the private nonprofit hospital open, b
Source: CNN
Apr 30, 2010
This is a story about a girl and her tree -- a tree that helped keep hope alive, even as the world closed in on her.
Three times in Anne Frank's widely read diary, the young Holocaust victim wrote about a tree. She could see it from the attic window of the secret annex where her family hid for two years, before being betrayed.
The tree that reminded Frank of the promise of life still looms high above the courtyard behind the Anne Frank House, now a museum in Amsterdam,
Source: Guardian (UK)
Apr 30, 2010
In February 2008, Nasa sent the Beatles song, Across the Universe, across the universe. Pointing the telescopes in its Deep Space Network towards the north star, Polaris, astronomers played out their short cosmic DJ set, hoping that it might be heard by intelligent aliens during its 430-year journey to the star.
The hunt for intelligent species outside Earth may be a staple of literature and film – but it is happening in real life, too. Nasa probes are on the lookout for planets out
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 29, 2010
A Jewish grandmother has been banned from telling schoolchildren it was French gendarmes who handed her over to the Nazis during the Second World War for deportation to Auschwitz.
During the war, Ida Grinspan, now 79, was deported to the Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland in 1944 but was one of the few survivors to make it back to France.
She wrote a letter about her wartime experiences to children at a school in Parthenay, western France.
But when
Source: Baltimore Examiner
Apr 29, 2010
In conjunction with the beginning of the 2010 National Genealogical Society Conference, the Federation of Genealogical Societies has announced a new fund-raising effort, with the goal of digitizing and making available the pension files for War of 1812 veterans. This effort will help to commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812.
The state of Maryland played a significant role in the War of 1812. The battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore inspired Francis Scott Key to write what w
Source: The Gettysburg Times
Apr 29, 2010
With millions of new visitors expected to visit the area for the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, the National Park Service in Gettysburg is prepping for the celebration.
The park is planning renovations to the historic Patterson, Klingel, Cobean, Sndyer, and Warfield properties, as well as the Eisenhower Farm, in anticipation of the 2011-2015 event. Overall, the multi-million dollar effort is being funded with federal stimulus dollars, as well as NPS money.
Source: BBC
Apr 29, 2010
A wine fountain similar to those used by Henry VIII has been unveiled at Hampton Court Palace.
The working replica was created after the remains of a 16th Century fountain were found during an archaeological dig at the London palace in 2008.
The 13ft (4m) fountain, made of timber, lead, bronze and gold leaf, stands on the site of the excavated fountain.
It will run with red and white wine at weekends and on bank holidays, carrying on the tradition started
Source: Live Science
Apr 29, 2010
Humans today could be part Neanderthal, according to a new study that found our ancestors interbred with an extinct hominid species some millennia ago.
Neanderthals walked the Earth between about 130,000 and 30,000 years ago. While they co-existed with modern humans for a while, eventually they went extinct and we didn't. There has been intense scientific debate over how similar the two species were, and whether they might have mated with each other.
Last week at the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 29, 2010
Thomas Swan apparently hurled his British War Medal out of a train window soon after being presented with it in 1921 as he wanted to forget the horror of the trenches.
Mr Swan, a father-of-four, worked as a milkman in north London after the war and rarely talked about his experiences in northern France before he died aged 55 in 1935
The medal lay undisturbed until it was found in November 1999 by Bob Sheppard, who was out with his metal detector in a field close to th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 29, 2010
A new television mini-series on the Kennedys masterminded by the rightwing creator of '24' has outraged American liberals and historians who have branded it a "political character assassination" concentrating on sex and scandal.
The series will be broadcast on the History Channel and is being created by Joel Surnow, a political conservative who was behind the globally successful drama in which Kiefer Sutherland plays Jack Bauer, a special agent hunting down terrorists.
Source: CNN
Apr 29, 2010
A blue-eyed Eagle Scout from Iowa and an athletic daredevil from Massachusetts hold a place in history that no one wanted for them.
On April 29, 1975, Lance Cpl. Darwin L. Judge, 19, and Cpl. Charles McMahon, 21, became the last Americans killed in action in the Vietnam War.
After the U.S. withdrawal in 1973, about the only Americans left in South Vietnam were a few dozen Marines assigned to guard the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and four consulate offices in other cities.
Source: NYT
Apr 29, 2010
The World’s Fair may have lost the luster it brought decades ago to world capitals like Paris. But China has dusted off the concept in an attempt to give its second city, Shanghai, the same coming-out party that the 2008 Summer Olympic Games were for Beijing.
China has spent $45 billion — even more than it devoted to remake Beijing for the Olympics — to mount an elaborate World Expo, inviting 189 countries to showcase a polished, vibrant Shanghai that it envisions as a financial cap
Source: NYT
Apr 29, 2010
VATICAN CITY — As the sexual abuse crisis continues to unfold in the Roman Catholic Church, with more victims coming forward worldwide and three bishops resigning last week alone, it is clear the issue is more than a passing storm or a problem of papal communications.
Instead, the church is undergoing nothing less than an epochal shift: It pits those who hold fast to a more traditional idea of protecting bishops and priests above all against those who call for more openness and acco
Source: LiveScience
Apr 29, 2010
Humans today could be part Neanderthal, according to a new study that found our ancestors interbred with an extinct hominid species some millennia ago.
Neanderthals walked the Earth between about 130,000 and 30,000 years ago. While they co-existed with modern humans for a while, eventually they went extinct and we didn't. There has been intense scientific debate over how similar the two species were, and whether they might have mated with each other.
"The issue has
Source: Medieval News
Apr 29, 2010
An 1150-year-old Viking necklace has been discovered in a cave in Burren National Park, which is located in western Ireland. The discovery has surprised archaeologists, as their has been little evidence of Norse settlements in this region.
The find was announced this week by Dr. Marion Dowd, an archaeologist from the Institute of Technology Sligo, who is leading the excavation of Glencurran cave in the Burren National Park. She said to reporters, "The necklace is the largest Vi
Source: Jewish Chronicle
Apr 29, 2010
A controversial book which argues that the idea of a Jewish people descended from the ancient Israelites is a Zionist myth, has been shortlisted for British Jewry's main literary award.
The Invention of the Jewish People by Tel Aviv University Professor Shlomo Sand is one of four books up for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize.
But the choice has already come under fire. Mark Gardner, the communications director for the Community Security Trust, who has previou
