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: Times (UK)
Jan 8, 2010
President Sarkozy may have cooled to Gordon Brown, but France has just fallen for the charms of another British leader — Sir Winston Churchill.
“Le Vieux Lion,” as the British leader was known, has found new popularity thanks to two bestselling books — a fresh translation of his Second World War memoirs and a prize-winning biography.
Enthusiasm for Churchill is being fed by new interest in the war era among a generation born since France preferred to forget the trauma
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 8, 2010
The justice ministry said it will hand over to the South Korean government a list of Koreans who were forced to work in Japan during the war and repatriated after the conflict without receiving any pay.
Even the admission that the records exist is a breakthrough as previous Japanese governments had steadfastly refused to admit that they had survived the war. The documents will detail the 200,000 Koreans who worked without pay at mines and factories and list the amount each should h
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jan 8, 2010
At a discussion of "Is Google Good for History?" here Thursday, there weren't really any firm "No" answers. Even the harshest critic here of Google's historic book digitization project confessed to using it for his research and making valuable finds with the tool.
But that doesn't mean Google Books wasn't criticized. In a discussion at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, scholars questioned the way Google has organized the books project and
Source: USA Today
Jan 7, 2010
Clothing first appeared 170,000 years ago. That's what University of Florida researchers have deduced from an unlikely source - the annoying clothing louse.
David Reed, associate curator of mammals at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida campus, worked with colleagues worldwide for five years to sequence the DNA of clothing lice to determine when they first began to diverge from the harmless but cringe-inducing head louse.
The study, in thi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 7, 2010
A team of divers claim they have discovered the remains of the USS Revenge, a ship wrecked off Rhode Island in 1811.
The ship was commanded by US Navy hero Oliver Hazard Perry, known for defeating the British in the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie and Ontario in the War of 1812, as well as the line: "I have met the enemy and they are ours."
His battle flag bore the phrase "Don't give up the ship," and to this day is a symbol of the Navy.
The d
Source: MyRecordJournal.com
Jan 7, 2010
Marie Secondo was near the end of her first year as curator of the Barnes Museum in Southington when, in the midst of organizing a supply closet, she came across a small shoebox that held a time-erasing bundle. Inside were letters, most of them still in the envelopes in which they'd been sent. She opened a few and, as she recalled, said, "Holy cow, can these be real?"
Though the letters were dated nearly a century and a half in the past, they were in fine enough shape to c
Source: Civil War Interactive Newswire
Jan 7, 2010
The Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT), the nation’s largest nonprofit battlefield preservation group, has announced its land preservation accomplishments for 2009. Despite the difficult economy and challenges facing all charitable organizations, CWPT helped to permanently protect 2,777 acres of hallowed ground at 20 different Civil War battlefields in five states during the last calendar year. Overall, CWPT has protected more than 29,000 acres of battlefield land at 109 sites in 20 states.
Source: BBC
Jan 7, 2010
The French government has announced that it will set up a new panel to try cases of genocide and war crimes committed in France or abroad.
The new court would speed up the way genocide cases are tried where the suspect is on French territory but the process involves several jurisdictions.
The unit is to include linguists and specialists with historical knowledge.
French authorities are currently hearing several cases against Rwandan genocide suspects livi
Source: Fox News
Jan 7, 2010
A classic turn-of-the-century English novelist whose works have been read by countless millions of people is having his work sanitized for a new generation of readers.
Joseph Conrad, whose "Heart of Darkness" and "Lord Jim" have been scrutinized by English students on multiple continents for decades, wrote a lesser known novel in 1897 called "The Nigger of the Narcissus."
Now, in what critics are calling a blatant act of politically correct
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 7, 2010
Lord Lloyd Webber’s art charity last night settled a three year old dispute over a £33 million Picasso painting with a German professor who had claimed one of his forebears had been forced to sell it by the Nazis.
The multi-millionaire British composer had been due to sell The Absinthe Drinker at Christie’s in New York in November 2006 and donate the proceeds to his charity, the Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation.
However a judge halted the sale on the eve of the auctio
Source: Hürryet Daily News (Turkey)
Jan 7, 2010
An ancient city located in the Turunç district of the resort town of Marmaris will be restored to serve tourism.
The Marmaris Chamber of Commerce, or MTO, Muğla University Archeology Department, Turunç Municipality and The Union of Tourism and Infrastructure in Marmaris and its Environs, or MARTAB, have joined forces for the project.
Speaking at the amphitheater of the 4,000-year-old city of Amos, located approximately 20 kilometers from Marmaris, MTO President
Source: NPR
Jan 7, 2010
The Census Bureau says it has included "Negro" as a way for individuals to classify their race in the 2010 Census because some older African-Americans wrote it on their forms in 2000.
But many African-Americans find it insulting.
-- "It's almost like a slap in the face," Nikyle Fitzgerald tells WTOL in Toledo.
-- "I am a little offended," Dawud Ingram says to WCBS-TV.
-- "It's a bad vibe word," Kevin Bish
Source: CNN
Jan 7, 2010
As President Obama begins to send more of the 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in the new year, some critics are invoking those snapshots from history to argue that the United States can’t afford to get bogged down in another Vietnam.
But those snapshots actually come from another war: The Philippine-American War, which lasted from 1899 to 1902. The war is largely forgotten today, but it was a bloody preview of the type of warfare that the U.S. military faced in Asia and now
Source: Discovery News
Jan 7, 2010
So called "non-avian theropod" dinosaurs from the Cretaceous had feathers, nests, laid eggs and roosted like birds. If they were so much like birds, why don't we just say they were birds?
A paper in the February issue of Medical Hypotheses argues that these "dinosaurs" could very well, in fact, have been birds. The group includes what are now called troodontids and oviraptorids.
All birds are technically avian dinosaurs, but there's still controver
Source: China View
Jan 7, 2010
The legendary politician and general from the Three Kingdoms Period (AD 220-280), Cao Cao can rest in peace now that his descendants proudly acknowledge him.
For centuries, despite Cao's record as a fair ruler and military genius who treated his subordinates like family and was also skilled in poetry and martial arts, he suffered from a bad reputation.
Few people have openly acknowledged they were Cao's descendants over the past centuries, making Cao's family tree an
Source: San Diego Union Tribune
Jan 7, 2010
Professional historians usually concern themselves with the past, but this week in San Diego they’ll be immersed in one of the most contentious issues of the present — same-sex marriage.
The annual convention of the 125-year-old American Historical Association, held here for the first time, will feature a 15-session “mini-convention” on various aspects of matrimony, including how its definition has evolved through time.
These free meetings, which start today and are ope
Source: BBC
Jan 7, 2010
A historian famed for marking the 700th anniversary of the death of William Wallace by marching the route of his journey to execution has died.
David Ross, 51, a writer and convenor of the Society of William Wallace suffered a heart attack at his home in East Kilbride on Saturday.
He was known as the "biker historian" as he visited historic sites across Scotland on his motorcycle.
First Minister Alex Salmond is among those who have paid tribute
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 7, 2010
Frederick Ward, a man known as Australia's own Robin Hood, may have evaded police and emigrated to Canada, rather than being shot dead by law enforcers in 1870, as the history books say.
A new book written by one of Ward's descendants claims that the man buried in his grave is not Ward, but his uncle Harry, the Indpendent reports. Ward himself escaped to the Californian goldfields and then settled in Canada, where he lived a quiet life before dying in 1903, his family ebelieve.
Source: artdaily.org
Jan 7, 2010
Through careful analysis and the use of state-of-the-art technology, specialists from Mexico, Italy and the United States have determined how Mexica sculptures like "Coyolxauhqui", "Sun Stone", and "Tlaltecuhtli" were painted originally, defining the chromatic palette used by Mexica artists in the late 15th century and early 16th.
Studies of paint found in the pores of the stones confirmed that Mexica sculpture, as Greek and Roman, was polychrome. An in
Source: LA Daily News
Jan 7, 2010
Chris Nichols knows a good beer-barrel building when he sees one. And a group of Kennedy High School students has an eye for San Fernando Valley architectural gems.
Both are seeking to save four historic buildings, from a Lankershim Ranch reading room to a North Hills church.
And both are working to name each a city Historic-Cultural Monument, which would protect such landmarks as the onion-domed Sepulveda Unitarian church and the barrel-shaped bar once known as the Idl
