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 History Magazine
Dec 20, 2009
Christmas is approaching; people are giving themselves over to wild excess, while misanthropes moan. They wail that Christmas has become a festival of excess, an orgy of licentiousness, a celebration of gluttony.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of the history of the midwinter festival now known as Christmas will know that, ever since humans became capable of sharing a common culture, they have let their hair down and partied at the time of year when the days are shortest.
Source: Fox News
Dec 20, 2009
The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up more people than any other.
The inmate population has risen steadily since the early 1970s as states adopted get-tough policies that sent more people to prison and kept them there longer. But tight budgets now have states rethinking these policies and the costs that come with them.
"It's a reversal of a trend that's been going o
Source: AP
Dec 19, 2009
Polish police and border guards stepped up security checks at airports and border crossings Saturday as the search intensified for the infamous sign stolen from the Auschwitz death camp memorial.
The brazen overnight theft of one of the Holocaust's most chilling and notorious symbols early Friday sparked outrage from around the world, and Polish leaders declared recovering the 16-foot sign a top priority. The sign read "Arbeit Macht Frei" — work makes you free — a grim Naz
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 19, 2009
Silvio Berlusconi has been seen to have more in common with Benito Mussolini than anybody had supposed after the violent attack he endured last week.
It had already been a terrible year for the Italian prime minister. Castigated by the Roman Catholic Church for his dalliances with showgirls, sued for divorce, accused of sleeping with a prostitute and facing two corruption trials, the last 12 months of personal and political pitfalls were capped last weekend when he was struck in th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 19, 2009
The Vatican is on collision course with the Jewish world after Pope Benedict XVI moved his controversial wartime predecessor, Pius XII, farther along the path to sainthood.
The unexpected move came months after Pope Benedict found himself at the centre of huge controversy when he rehabilitated a British bishop who has consistently denied the severity and scope of the Holocaust.
The German-born pontiff risks worsening relations with Jewish groups after declaring Pius &q
Source: Times Online (UK)
Dec 19, 2009
The Pope is expected tomorrow to declare his predecessor John Paul II “venerable” in the first of three official stages that the previous pontiff will take on his fast-track journey towards sainthood.
The late Pope will then be beatified next October, the month after the Venerable John Henry Newman is beatified by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Britain, taking the 19th-century divine a step closer to becoming England’s first non-martyr saint since the Reformation.
Source: LA Times
Dec 18, 2009
It looks like Abraham Lincoln. It moves like Abraham Lincoln. And it quotes Abraham Lincoln. But historians say it still doesn't sound like Abraham Lincoln.
After a four-year absence, Walt Disney Co. pulls the curtain back today on a new high-tech version of Lincoln for its "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" show at the Opera House on Main Street in Disneyland...
While Although Disney imagineers spent the last year sweating such technological details as how to c
Source: AP
Dec 18, 2009
A Las Vegas teacher has been told to stay home while district officials investigate a claim that she denied in class the Holocaust happened, a newspaper reported Friday.
Clark County schools spokesman Michael Rodriguez said Northwest Career and Technical Academy teacher Lori Sublette was assigned to remain home, and appropriate action would follow an investigation.
Student Katie Piranio told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Sublette said during a Nov. 25 class that his
Source: NYT
Dec 18, 2009
A former director of the Secret Service said Friday that the F.B.I. had engaged in an “abuse of power” by trying to pressure him to “give us the president” during the investigation of President Bill Clinton’s interactions with Monica Lewinsky a decade ago.
The official, Lewis C. Merletti, who headed the former president’s protective detail and later became the agency’s director, said in an interview that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had grilled him just days before Mr. Clinto
Source: LA Times
Dec 18, 2009
The animatronic president is set to debut after getting a high-tech update. But scholars say his speech, unchanged from when it appeared decades ago, is not like the real thing.
It looks like Abraham Lincoln. It moves like Abraham Lincoln. And it quotes Abraham Lincoln. But historians say it still doesn't sound like Abraham Lincoln.
After a four-year absence, Walt Disney Co. pulls the curtain back today on a new high-tech version of Lincoln for its "Great Moments w
Source: BBC
Dec 18, 2009
A set of paintings depicting a 19th Century jousting tournament in Ayrshire are to go on display in the area.
East Ayrshire Council has successfully raised £85,100 to buy the Eglinton watercolours by James Henry Nixon.
The works depict scenes from a Medieval re-enactment tournament staged by the 13th Earl of Eglinton in 1839.
Historic shields, which furnished the knights' tents, were also bought for £7,000. The works will go on display at Dean Castle, Kil
Source: BBC
Dec 18, 2009
The biggest work ever published about the lives of famous Irish men and women has been launched in Belfast by poet Seamus Heaney.
The nine-volume Dictionary of Irish Biography features more than 9,700 entries and spans 2,000 years of the island's history.
Alongside Northern Ireland luminaries from Joey Dunlop to CS Lewis, the historians and writers have profiled some of the more unusual figures from the past. Here are some abridged versions of just few of them.
Source: BBC
Dec 18, 2009
The UN Security Council has given the tribunal for Rwanda's genocide until 2012 to finish all its cases.
The BBC's Jamhuri Mwavyombo at the court's base in Arusha, Tanzania, says the tribunal will have to speed up its work to meet this new deadline.
The court, set up to try those most responsible for the genocide, was originally due to close in 2008 but some key suspects remain at large.
Rwanda has long complained that the tribunal is too slow and expensi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 18, 2009
Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state, was charged with genocide by a UN court today but has always denied having a prominent role in the regime, saying he was kept out of Pol Pot's inner circle.
The 78 year-old had already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as a member of the central committee of the regime that oversaw the deaths of up to two million people by starvation, overwork, torture and execution.
Khieu Samphan has never de
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 18, 2009
Monica Lewinsky claimed that former President Bill Clinton lied under oath when he described their liaison during the impeachment trial, according to a new book.
"The Death of American Virtue" by law professor Ken Gormley also asserts that Mr Clinton had long-running affair with Susan McDougal, a key player in the Whitewater scandal.
Miss McDougal, from Mr Clinton's home state of Arkansas, spent 18 months in jail after refusing to answer questions from prosec
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 18, 2009
The infamous "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free)" sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp has been stolen in an audacious overnight raid provoking Jewish groups to condemn the theft as a "declaration of war".
Neo-Nazi groups were immediately blamed for the act described by police as "professionally planned", and which happened at three o'clock on Friday morning.
Investigators believe that at least two people wer
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 18, 2009
Josef Stalin defaced classical nude drawings with macabre messages ridiculing political opponents that he had executed, a new exhibition has revealed.
The artwork, which has gone on display for the first time, offers a disturbing insight into his violent psyche and warped sense of humour.
Although the sketches depict people Stalin did not know, some of the images obviously reminded him of people he had killed or purged as he conducts angry one-way dialogue with them b
Source: Fox News
Dec 18, 2009
The most popular mixed martial arts organization in the United States is laying down the law: You can fight with us, you can bleed for us, you can shout till you're hoarse for us ... but under no circumstances can you walk into an eight-sided ring looking like a Nazi.
Zuffa LLC, which owns World Extreme Cagefighting and the Ultimate Fighting Champioship, is standing by its decision to ban apparel made by Hoelzer Reich, a California apparel company, due to the "offensive" i
Source: Medieval News
Dec 18, 2009
A recent article is challenging the notion that the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson was killed by an arrow to the eye during the famous Battle of Hastings. The battle, fought in 1066, was a pivotal moment in England's history, ushering in an era of Norman rule.
In an article for The Historian, a publication by the Historical Association, Chris Dennis argues that Harold Godwinson was actually hacked to death by a group of knights that may have included William the Conqueror.
Source: AFP
Dec 17, 2009
Starting the day right by eating a bowl of cereal in the morning dates back more than 100,000 years, according to Canadian researchers in a study to be released Friday.
Indeed, scientific evidence until now showed the practice started only 12,000 years ago at the closing stages of the last Ice Age.
Mercader said in his study he found the oldest example of early man's extensive consumption of cereal and root staples in a deep limestone cave near Lake Niassa in Mozambique
