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)
Feb 14, 2010
The admission ends more than 30 years of silence over one of the most elaborate and expensive projects of the Cold War.
The CIA has always refused to confirm even the barest details of Project Azorian, a daring 1974 exercise that was backed by the industrialist Howard Hughes and estimated to have cost £1 billion in today's money.
However, following an application to declassify the information under the US Freedom of Information Act, the CIA has released an internal acco
Source: BBC
Feb 14, 2010
Thousands of people have gathered in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, to mark the fifth anniversary of the killing of its former prime minister, Rafik Hariri.
He had been campaigning against Syrian involvement in Lebanon when he was killed with 21 others in a bombing.
Public protests led Syria to withdraw its troops after a 29-year deployment.
Source: Observer (UK)
Feb 14, 2010
For decades she has been seen as a decorative companion to Adolf Hitler, an apolitical "dumb blonde" whose attentions served as an occasional diversion for the Führer. But the first academic biography of Eva Braun draws a different picture of the dictator's long-standing girlfriend, claiming historians have hugely underestimated the role she played in his life.
Berlin historian Heike Görtemaker reveals her as a politically committed woman who won Hitler's affections, enjo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 14, 2010
In a Channel 4 documentary exploring his faith, the Sinn Fein president praised the moral example shown by Christ and the families of IRA victims who have forgiven their killers.
But he said his own actions were sometimes not “in tune” with Jesus as he was “leader of a struggle that has caused both hurt and damage to other human beings.”
The 61-year-old Belfast-born Catholic has always denied having been a member of the Provisional IRA.
But the documentary
Source: BBC
Feb 13, 2010
France's state rail company has for the first time publicly expressed regret for its role in transporting Jews to Nazi death camps in World War II.
Until now, SNCF has said its workers were forced to assist in deportations by the occupying German army.
The change of language is clearly linked to the lucrative market for high-speed rail contracts in the US.
The company has been criticised in the US for failing to apologise for its involvement....
Source: Der Spiegel International
Feb 13, 2010
Exactly 65 years ago, on Feb. 13, 1945, Allied bombers decimated the city of Dresden with a deadly combination of explosive and incendiary bombs. The resulting firestorm killed some 25,000 people and left the city in ruins.
It was not the most deadly of the many firestorms Allied planes visited upon Nazi Germany during World War II. But for many, it has become a symbol of excessive violence. Many in Germany's far right, in fact, refer to the event as the "bombing Holocaust,&quo
Source: NYT
Feb 13, 2010
They say economic collapse is what froze this place in time, a gold rush relic all but abandoned when the railroad passed it by. Decades later, that chance preservation positioned Jacksonville to benefit from new interest in the past. Boutiques moved to quaint California Street. Californians soon moved to town.
History sells, but now Jacksonville may learn that, the hard way.
The Southern Oregon Historical Society, which controls five of the most prominent historic prop
Source: BBC
Feb 13, 2010
An archaeologist is being sought for a post on the remote archipelago of St Kilda.
The National Trust for Scotland, which owns the islands, said it was a rare opportunity to work at a Unesco World Heritage site.
The post-holder will be based in Inverness and on St Kilda.
St Kilda was dubbed Britain's Lost World by a BBC One TV special in 2008. The islands lie about 41 miles (66km) off the Western Isles.
Source: FOX News
Feb 13, 2010
Thousands of protesters formed a human chain in Dresden on Saturday, determined to stop neo-Nazis from exploiting the German city's painful history on the 65th anniversary of its deadly Allied bombing in World War II.
Heavy security including riot police was in place to prevent clashes between the two groups, and five police helicopters flew overhead to monitor the crowds.
Neo-Nazis have caused outrage in the past by comparing the 1945 bombing of Dresden to the Holocaus
Source: CNN
Feb 13, 2010
One of America's top World War II fighter pilots, an African-American who took on Nazis abroad and racism at home, was laid to rest Friday at Arlington National Cemetery.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Lee A. Archer, one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, died last month in New York at the age of 90. Archer, who once shot down three German fighters in the span of only a few minutes, went on to become a corporate executive and venture capitalist.
Archer remained in the military t
Source: CNN
Feb 13, 2010
More than 30 letters and cards written by the late Princess Diana were up for auction Saturday in London, revealing personal details such as how she liked to open presents early and that she had trouble coping with media attention.
Most of the correspondence was to Diana's personal beautician, Janet Filderman, but the auction also includes notes to her chauffeur, Steve Davies, and Christmas cards with family portraits sent while she was still married to Prince Charles.
Source: Times (UK)
Feb 13, 2010
MI6 obtained vital secrets from a spy operating at the very heart of Hitler’s high command during the most crucial years of the war, newly discovered intelligence documents have revealed.
The secret agent, code-named “Knopf”, furnished the intelligence service with information on Hitler’s plans in the Mediterranean and on the Eastern Front, the health of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and even the location of the “Wolf’s Lair” — the Führer’s headquarters in Eastern Prussia.
Source: Zenit
Feb 12, 2010
The Holy See is planning to publish on the Internet, free of charge, several documents from the Vatican Secret Archives in relation to World War II.
The initiatives is partially in response to a petition from Pave the Way Foundation, an organization dedicated to bridging gaps between religions.
The foundation proposed making digital files of, and later publicizing, some 5125 descriptions and copies of documents from the closed section of the Vatican archives, from the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 12, 2010
Wesley did not seek to break with the Anglican Church but his beliefs that it should reform by returning to the gospel proved intolerable to the establishment.
He was first labelled "methodist" because of the methodical worship which he practiced with like-minded friends with whom he met regularly in Oxford during his younger years.
Blocked from airing his views from the pulpit, he developed an unorthodox habit of touring the country on horseback or by carria
Source: NYT
Feb 12, 2010
Think “Lincoln” and “New York” and the juxtaposition would most likely conjure up the tunnel or the performing arts center. Until this year, it also would have evoked the majestic Lincoln Building at 60 East 42nd Street. No longer.
With barely a nod to the former president, the owners of the 53-story tower, which opened 80 years ago, changed the name to One Grand Central Place, removed the bronze plaques on which the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural were immortalized and
Source: NYT
Feb 12, 2010
With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress, President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities....
...[P]residents have logged significant accomplishments through the stroke of a pen. In 1996, on his own authority, Mr. Clinton turned a 2,600-square-mile section of southern Utah into the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, in what was called at the
Source: BBC
Feb 12, 2010
65 years after the end of the Second World Ward, RAF Bomber Command has yet to be given an official public memorial. A legacy, some say, of the controversial area bombing which left German cities in ruins and thousands of their citizens dead.
Sixty five years ago this weekend, RAF Bomber Command carried out one of the most devastating air raids of World War Two.
In two separate attacks, more than 800 bombers dropped more than a thousand tons of incendiary bombs and nea
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 12, 2010
America's fabled Kennedy dynasty is set to come to an end after the son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy said he would not run for re-election to Congress in November.
His decision means that Washington will soon to be left without a member of the Kennedy clan holding political office for the first time since 1947.
Representative Patrick Kennedy, 42, of Rhode Island, who has battled with drugs and alcohol abuse, is to announce on Sunday that his life is "taking
Source: NYT
Feb 12, 2010
When Eddie Robinson was growing up here in Louisiana’s capital city about 80 years ago, he discovered the only way a black person infatuated with football could attend a game at the state university: He showed up at 5 a.m. on Saturdays to clean the stadium.
To take his first job as a football coach, in 1941, Mr. Robinson had to travel several hundred miles north, to a segregated teachers’ college in an unincorporated hamlet called Grambling. Mail arrived by train, and students helpe
Source: CNN
Feb 12, 2010
More than a year after President George W. Bush left office, more Americans continue to blame his administration over any other entity for the nation's economic woes, according to a new poll.
In a New York Times/CBS News survey out Friday, 31 percent of Americans said the Bush administration is at fault for the current state of the economy while only 7 percent pointed their finger at President Obama and his team.
An additional 23 percent said the fault lies with Wall St
