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: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 19, 2010
A full-sized replica of Stonehenge will be built on a beach in western Australia after a small town gave the green light for construction in a bid to draw tourists.
The shire council in Esperance, 460 miles south-west of Perth, has approved plans for the A$1.2m (£722,749) project, which it hopes will generate much-needed tourist revenue for the small coastal community – its only attraction at the moment is small piece of the US Skylab which fell onto a nearby farm in 1979.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 19, 2010
England is the least patriotic country in Europe, with just one in three British people aware of the date of St George's Day a survey has shown.
Only a third of people were aware that the celebration of St George was this Friday, while forty per cent did not know why he is the patron saint, a study revealed yesterday. (MON)
Political correctness and a fear of appearing racist were said to be the main factors in the apparent lack of patriotism in England, along with th
Source: Science Daily
Apr 19, 2010
Paleontologists have discovered a new species of dinosaur with a softball-sized lump of solid bone on top of its skull, according to a paper published in the April issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.
The species was a plant-eating dinosaur about as big as a medium-sized dog that lived 70 to 80 million years ago, said Nicholas Longrich of Yale University, lead author of the paper. The team discovered two skull fragments in Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas in 2008. They
Source: Reuters
Apr 19, 2010
Iran wants $300,000 in compensation from the British Museum over its failure to lend the Islamic Republic an ancient Persian treasure, state television reported.
The dispute over the so-called Cyrus Cylinder, named after the Persian ruler's 6th century BC conquest of Babylon, is a further sign of deteriorating relations between Tehran and London.
Britain is among Western powers pushing for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt sensitive
Source: AP
Apr 19, 2010
You have to wonder what Fountain J. Busey would think if he knew that people were scavenging around his property.
Busey was a real Champaign County pioneer, arriving here in 1829 (four years before the county was established) from Shelby County, Ky., with his parents, Matthew and Sallie Busey. In 1836, he purchased a 40-acre parcel of prairie about 2 miles southeast of downtown Urbana along what is now High Cross Road, or Illinois 130.
Now, around 150 years later, the c
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 19, 2010
Ancient stones which are thought to be 1,000 years older than Stonehenge have been discovered in Dartmoor.
The nine stones at Cut Hill, one of the highest points on Dartmoor in Devon, have been carbon-dated to around 3,500BC.
The discovery of the megaliths has delighted archaeologists and will reignite the debtae about the purpose of Stonehenge, which is 120 miles away in Wiltshire.
Standing in a line they are 1,000 years older than Britain's most famous
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 19, 2010
A team of 20 Sherpa mountaineers plans to remove bodies of climbers who died in Mount Everest's "death zone," a treacherous stretch that has claimed some 300 lives since 1953.
The team also aims to remove tons of garbage left behind on the slopes under a Nepalese government program to clean up the popular tourist destination.
The 20 Sherpas plan to begin the expedition May 1 and set up camp at the South Col, 26,240ft (8,000m) above sea level, team leader Namgy
Source: CNN
Apr 19, 2010
Fifteen years ago, a bomb ripped through a federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the worst homegrown terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
The April 19, 1995, attack killed 168 people, shattering the notion of many that America was largely immune to domestic terrorism.
Fifteen years later, its impact still reverberates with those who lived through it.
Don Gordon, 37, who was about seven miles away from the Alfred P. Murrah federal building at the time of
Source: Medieval News
Apr 18, 2010
The Great Northern Medieval Fayre will be hosting its first annual Trebuchet Competition on Saturday, June 5th and is inviting people and groups to take part. Contestants will get to fling three pound cabbages at distances over 150 feet with the winners receiving trophies and prizes.
Members of the Ontario Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers will be overseeing the competition as its judges. The competition is open to children of all ages, as well as adults and gr
Source: Medieval News
Apr 18, 2010
Chicago's Newberry Library and the University of Notre Dame recently jointly acquired an unusual early fourteenth-century codex originating in southern France that contains a collection of 38 scholastic texts, only two of which have been edited in modern critical editions and the rest of which have never been printed. All those that have been identified to date are Franciscan. The most noteworthy author included is Peter John Olivi, represented by two elements of his Principia in sacram scriptur
Source: Medieval News
Apr 18, 2010
A team of top archaeologists have been drafted in to explore a number of secret tunnels that have been found underneath a medieval building in the West Midlands borough of Sandwell in England.
The tunnels have been found at the 13th century West Bromwich Manor House.
As part of Sandwell Council's on going programme of restoration of this important historic building, an entrance and exit to a series of tunnels were found when the moat was drained earlier this year.
Source: AFP
Apr 18, 2010
Foreign tourists will soon be tramping around Mesopotamia again after a French company on Sunday opened an office offering visits to ancient sites in war-ravaged southern Iraq.
"We have organised our inaugural journey between 6-14 June to the region of Nasiriyah and we will do it regularly, every three weeks from September," said Hubert Debbash, boss of Terre Entiere, a cultural and religious tours operator.
With the road from Baghdad not yet secure, the visit
Source: BBC News
Apr 18, 2010
Remains unearthed in Nottinghamshire could be an unknown Roman temple, archaeologists have claimed.
Excavations on the Minster C of E School site in Southwell between September 2008 and May 2009 revealed walls, ditches and ornate stones.
The team analysing the finds said the shape and quality of the remains suggest it could have been an important place of worship.
This could mean Southwell enjoyed a high status Roman Britain, they added.
A wa
Source: AFP
Apr 18, 2010
Foreign tourists will soon be tramping around Mesopotamia again after a French company on Sunday opened an office offering visits to ancient sites in war-ravaged southern Iraq.
With the road from Baghdad not yet secure, the visitors will arrive in Kuwait and cross the border to reach Nasiriyah about 370 kilometres (230 miles) away. The nine-day tour will cost 2,500 euros (3,375 dollars).
The company hopes to secure 100 clients this year, rising to 500 in 2011, Debbash s
Source: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Apr 18, 2010
By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days. A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government -- a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.
Rather than an activist government to deal with the nation's top problems, the public now wants government reformed and growing numbers want i
Source: BBC News
Apr 18, 2010
The mad heroines of classic Victorian fiction have long been objects of fascination.
The violent and feral Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre, the mysterious Woman in White whose escape from an asylum begins Wilkie Collins's gripping thriller, and the terminally delusional Emma in Madame Bovary.
But were they really mad? Would we today recognise them as mentally ill or were our heroines merely misunderstood, not to mention a tad inconvenient?
For Radio 4 documen
Source: NYT
Apr 18, 2010
Few moments in modern British history are more iconic than the evacuation of the British expeditionary force of nearly 340,000 troops in the spring of 1940 from the beaches of Dunkirk, 22 miles across the Channel from the white chalk cliffs that overlook this ancient port town. At the time, Winston Churchill called it “a miracle of deliverance.”
Beneath azure blue skies on Sunday, an intrepid band of Englishmen tried to stage a scaled-down rerun of the “little ships,” hundreds of p
Source: The Olympian (seattle)
Apr 18, 2010
The Thurston County coroner's investigation of a death at a private home in Olympia on Feb. 5 turned up more than a few skeletons.
Not the metaphoric skeletons concealed in a closet, but literal collections of bones - human bones - that once supported flesh and blood.
The coroner is now storing three complete skeletons that were taken from the deceased 55-year-old man's home, including one inscribed with writing indicating that it belonged to a 6-year-old boy. Another h
Source: The Guardian
Apr 18, 2010
MI5 secretly planted bugs in 10 Downing Street despite repeated official denials and they remained in place for more than 10 years during the tenure of five prime ministers.
The disclosure was to have been included in the official history of MI5 by the Cambridge historian, Christopher Andrew, published last year to mark the agency's 100th anniversary. It is believed to have been suppressed by senior Whitehall officials to protect the "public interest".
Bugs ar
Source: BBC
Apr 18, 2010
Remains unearthed in Nottinghamshire could be an unknown Roman temple, archaeologists have claimed.
Excavations on the Minster C of E School site in Southwell between September 2008 and May 2009 revealed walls, ditches and ornate stones.
The team analysing the finds said the shape and quality of the remains suggest it could have been an important place of worship.
This could mean Southwell enjoyed a high status Roman Britain, they added.
A w
