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 18, 2010
The state funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria has been held in Krakow, with thousands gathering in the city to pay respects.
A funeral Mass was held in St Mary's Basilica and a procession later took the coffins to be buried in a crypt of the historic Wawel Cathedral.
Many world leaders could not attend due to volcanic ash grounding flights. The coffins were then taken in a gun-carriage procession through Krakow and o
Source: BBC
Apr 18, 2010
A fleet of traditionally-designed Polynesian canoes has left New Zealand for a journey through the Pacific, re-living the epic migrations of the past.
Four double-hulled canoes set off from Auckland aiming to sail 4,000km (2,485 miles) to French Polynesia. The voyage is expected to take three months.
The route retraces the great Polynesian migration journeys of 1,000 years ago - albeit in the opposite direction.
It is part of an attempt to revive traditio
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 18, 2010
Zimbabwe's child cadets paraded with guns in Harare on Sunday as the country celebrated the 30th anniversary of its independence from Britain.
President Robert Mugabe joined thousands at the National Sports Stadium, where he inspected a guard of honour before giving a keynote speech.
Many people arrived in buses hired by government to ferry residents of poor suburbs to the festivities, while others walked to the Chinese-built stadium.
For the second year r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 18, 2010
A letter from a first-class passenger on the Titanic has fetched £55,000 at auction – a record price for a piece of written correspondence from the ship.
The letter was written by Adolphe Saafeld, on three sides of stationary from the doomed vessel, to his "wifey".
His words give a rare glimpse into day to day life on the maiden voyage of the Titanic which sank on April 15 1912 taking 1,517 people with it. The letter was one of 350
Source: CNN
Apr 18, 2010
Seven senior Pakistani officials have been suspended from their positions and prohibited from leaving the country as a result of a United Nations commission report on the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's information minister told CNN Sunday.
The officials were senior police officers and senior administration officials who held different positions at the time of Bhutto's death, said Qamar Uz Zaman Kaira, federal information minister.
Source: BBC
Apr 18, 2010
Librarians in New York's oldest library have uncovered a surprising book thief: George Washington.
The first president of the United States of America borrowed two books from the New York Society Library in 1789 but failed to return them.
Adjusted for inflation, he has since racked up $300,000 (£195,000) in fines for being some 220 years late.
The New York Society Library says it will not pursue the fine. It would simply like the books back.
Source: Gazette (Colorado Springs)
Apr 17, 2010
Gold miner James Roberts was pistol-whipped to death a century ago, but he can’t rest in peace.
He’s resting in pieces.
His body is buried in an unmarked grave, and his cranium is in a box formerly used to hold raffle tickets in a saloon. Such has been the long, crazy odyssey for the top of Mr. Roberts’ head. It started in 1901 when a coroner cut off the cranium for a slick lawyer to use in the alleged killer’s defense. In the decades since, the bone has gathered dust i
Source: BBC
Apr 17, 2010
The jailed leader of Peru's Shining Path rebel group and his girlfriend say they will go on hunger strike unless they are allowed to wed.
Abimael Guzman and Elena Yparraguirre are both serving life sentences.
Their lawyer said they had been asking for permission to marry for several years and were tired of waiting.
The Mao-inspired Shining Path unleashed a brutal civil conflict in the 1980s and 1990s in Peru, in which nearly 70,000 people were killed.
Source: BBC
Apr 17, 2010
US President Barack Obama will not attend Lech Kacyznski's state funeral on Sunday because of the travel chaos across Europe, the White House says.
Other figures unable to attend include the UK's Prince of Wales, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Most of Europe's major airports remain closed because of a volcanic ash cloud.
Thousands of mourners in Warsaw were at an evening Mass for Mr Kacyznski who died with 95 others
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 17, 2010
The opening sequence of James Bond film Goldfinger was inspired by a real mission carried out by MI6 during the Second World War and written into the script by an expert on secret wartime operations.
It is one of James Bond's most famous scenes, showing the agent at his deadliest – and most dapper.
Emerging from the water in a wetsuit, he knocks out a sentry and plants explosives before unzipping his suit to reveal a pristine dinner jacket underneath. He then walks in
Source: AP
Apr 17, 2010
Cuban writer and political activist Carlos Franqui, an important figure in the Cuban revolution who later became one of the most outspoken critics of Fidel Castro, has died. He was 89.
Franqui died late Thursday in Puerto Rico after a brief hospitalization for bronchial and heart problems, according to family friend Andres Candelario.
The son of a poor farmer, Franqui entered leftist political movements as a youth, joined and left the Communist Party and became a journa
Source: CNN
Apr 17, 2010
The Pakistan Peoples Party, led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto before she was slain in 2007, said Saturday it accepts a United Nations commission report into her death and placed blame on former Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for failing to prevent it.
A core group of PPP members met Saturday to discuss the report, the party said in a statement. Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's current president and Bhutto's widower, presided over the meeting. Those present "con
Source: CNN
Apr 17, 2010
Luci Baines Johnson, the younger of the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson's daughters, has been hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, according to a former member of Johnson's staff.
Luci Johnson, 62, was first taken to the Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday after complaining of extreme weakness in all her extremities, said Tom Johnson, who worked for the Johnson administration and later served as president of CNN in the 1990s.
Doctors there
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Apr 16, 2010
On April 7, federal agencies released “Open Government Plans” detailing how they will make their operations and data more transparent and expand opportunities for citizen participation, collaboration and oversight. In addition, each agency identified at least one “flagship initiative” – a signature open government innovation in the agency. The plans were mandated by
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Apr 16, 2010
On April 14, Twitter announced it is donating its digital archive of public tweets to the Library of Congress. Twitter is a social networking service that enables users to send and receive tweets, which consist of web messages of up to 140 characters. Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets per day from people around the world. The Library will receive all public tweets-which number in the billions-from the 2006
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Apr 16, 2010
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) has issued a proposed rule that would remove individuals from eligibility for NHPRC grants, and change the time for posting of grant opportunity announcements from four to three months before the application deadline.The NHPRC’s rationale is that it is more effective for el
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Apr 16, 2010
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has launched a new initiative called Bridging Cultures, which encourages projects that explore the ways in which cultures from around the globe, as well as the subcultures within America’s borders, have influenced American society. NEH is seeking proposals to plan and implement a program consisting of a forum and a workshop on one of two humanities theme
Source: Lee White at the National Coaliton for History
Apr 16, 2010
The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) will meet on April 22 in room 1310 of the Longworth House Office Building from 10 am to 12:30 pm, here in Washington. Presentations will be made by Acting National Declassification Center Director Michael Kurtz and by Wayne Leathers of the Defense Change Management Organization.
The PIDB advises the President and other executive branch officials on the declassification of historical federal records related to national security.
Source: NYT
Apr 16, 2010
They are two of the smartest men of their generation, both magna cum laude products of Harvard Law School, both cerebral and charming and ambitious. They vaulted to the highest offices in the land after just short stints at the next level down, and each was seen initially as a conciliator only to lead on the strength of his own majority.
Many years after their campus days in Cambridge, Mass., President Obama and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. have emerged as the intellectual glad
Source: Appalachian State University
Apr 16, 2010
Ground-penetrating radar and an electrical resistivity system are being used to confirm the location of African-American graves in the Boone Cemetery.
The cemetery, located just south of Hardin Street and adjacent to the Appalachian State University campus, is divided into two sections, locally referred to as the “white” (east) and “black” (west) sections. The west section is the larger and contains hundreds of well-marked graves within a fenced perimeter. The east section contain
