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: CNSNews.com
Nov 4, 2009
Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama noted Wednesday's 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, while insisting he wants the U.S. and Iran to move beyond "suspicion, mistrust and confrontation."
Islamic militants stormed the embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, seizing its occupants. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.
The crisis "deeply affected the lives of courageous Americans who were unjustly held hostage, and
Source: CNN
Nov 4, 2009
Thirty years ago Wednesday, Iranian student revolutionaries climbed over the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and seized dozens of Americans, whom they ultimately held hostage for 444 days.
The hostage crisis, coming in the aftermath of Iran's Islamic revolution, ended diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran -- a rift that persists to this day.
Iran celebrates the embassy takeover as an official holiday, and tens of thousands showed up in Tehran on Wednesd
Source: Secrecy News
Nov 4, 2009
During the course of World War I, tens of thousands of
photographs were withheld from publication by the U.S. military.
These included images that might have revealed troop movements or military
capabilities, pictures that were liable to be used in enemy propaganda, or
those that could adversely affect military or public morale.The
development of military controls on publication of photographs during WWI
was described in
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 4, 2009
A chain of cosmetic stores has banned its staff from wearing Remembrance Day poppies.
Catherine Barr, an assistant with Bodycare UK for seven years, was astonished when she was ordered to remove the poppy she had worn to work.
“I turned up for work wearing my poppy and was told by management that I couldn’t. I was quite upset and really annoyed, so refused to remove it.”...
... Because of her refusal an area manager called at the store to inform her it was
Source: Time
Nov 4, 2009
Not too long ago, Ricardo Herrero was one of Miami's Cuban-American hard-liners, an ardent supporter of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba as well as the ban on U.S. travel to the communist island. But a half-dozen trips to Cuba during this decade have changed his mind about the latter. "There are no better ambassadors of American culture and American democracy than Americans themselves," says Herrero, 31. Many fellow Cuban Americans who've traveled there, he adds, have come to the sa
Source: Time
Nov 4, 2009
For decades, the French considered it taboo to question whether immigration and foreign influences were diluting France's social and cultural character. Indeed, the topic was considered so toxic that no one in France besides extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen would even take it up in public. But times have changed. Twenty years after Le Pen's National Front Party (FN) became a political force in France, its view that immigration is threatening the French national identity is starting to gain
Source: Guardian (UK)
Nov 4, 2009
A threat that a rich personal archive of Siegfried Sassoon's journals, poems and letters would be broken up or sold to the US appears to have been lifted, it will be announced today.
The National Heritage Memorial Fund will say it is awarding £550,000 to Cambridge University's campaign to buy the war poet's literary archive. That means the university is just £110,000 short of the £1.25m needed to secure it from the Sassoon estate.
The news, due to be announced at the Ho
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 4, 2009
The astonishing photo shows Nazi supporters saluting a procession through the heart of London, as Hitler's troops carry a coffin draped in the swastika flag.
Taken in 1936, the scene shows the funeral procession of German ambassador Leopold von Hoesch who was carried through Whitehall, in sight of Buckingham Palace, before being transferred to a gun carriage and transported down The Mall.
The black and white picture, seemingly Britain's worst nightmare, was shot three y
Source: Yahoo News
Nov 4, 2009
GUANGZHOU, China – President Barack Obama's half brother has broken his media silence to discuss his new novel — the semi-autobiographical story of an abusive parent patterned on their late father, the mostly absent figure Obama wrote about in his own memoir.
In his first interview, Mark Ndesandjo told The Associated Press that he wrote "Nairobi to Shenzhen" in part to raise awareness of domestic violence.
"My father beat my mother and my father beat me,
Source: Lee P Ruddin
Nov 4, 2009
Plans for a new Civil War heritage trail were endorsed by the city’s Lord Mayor last night.
“It is great news that the Lord Mayor will be helping to ensure Liverpool’s roles in the Sesquicentennial are successful,” Tom Sebrell said shortly after his meeting with Mike Storey.
American born and London-based historian Tom, who is about to receive his PhD, is currently writing the material for walks and bus (possibly even ferry) tours in 2011 and beyond.
To
Source: BBC
Nov 4, 2009
An Iron Age treasure hoard unearthed by a metal-detecting amateur has been unveiled.
The four gold Iron Age neck ornaments, or torcs, date from between the 1st and 3rd Century BC and are said to be worth an estimated £1m.
They were discovered in September by "first-time" metal-detector enthusiast David Booth in a field in Stirlingshire.
The find is the most important hoard of Iron Age gold in Scotland to date.
Source: BBC
Nov 4, 2009
The international war crimes tribunal's chief prosecutor is due to visit Serbia to gauge the country's progress hunting for its two remaining war fugitives.
Serge Brammertz will spend two days in Belgrade before submitting a report to the UN Security Council.
His comments on how Serbia is co-operating with the tribunal will be key to its ambitions for EU membership.
Source: BBC
Nov 4, 2009
Scientists have identified the most ancient fossil relative of the dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex.
The new addition to T. rex's clan is known from a 30cm-long skull uncovered during excavations in Gloucestershire in the 1900s.
The well-preserved fossil is held in London's Natural History Museum. A British-German team has now uncovered evidence linking it to what may be the most famous dinosaur family of all.
The dinosaur, named Proc
Source: BBC
Nov 4, 2009
The Egyptian mud-brick house of British archaeologist Howard Carter has been re-opened as a museum.
Carter was living in the house 87 years ago when he made his most famous discovery, the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun.
He had been employed by collector Lord Carnarvon to search for the tomb of the then relatively unknown pharaoh.
Relatives of Carter and his patron were among the first visitors to the newly-renovated property.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 4, 2009
The sign hung at 12, rue Chabanais, in the days when the building housed the most prestigious of Paris's infamous bordellos, read 'Welcome to the Chabanais: The House of All Nations'.
The brothels closed down 60 years ago and nowadays the skinny eight-storey building on a tiny street near the Louvre houses an employment agency and a bunch of flats. But right across the road, at number 11, a gallery is keeping its memories alive.
Nicole Canet, who runs a gallery-boutiq
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 4, 2009
Leaked copies of two speeches Sarah Palin prepared for last year's US election night have revealed she planned to salute her husband Todd as the nation's "first ever Second Dude" in the event of victory.
In defeat, which she suffered with Senator John McCain at the hands of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the Republican vice-presidential candidate wanted to tell Todd to "get ready for the Iron Dog snow machine race!".
A new book, Sarah from Alaska, det
Source: AP
Nov 4, 2009
The Vatican post office says it has issued its first Braille stamps to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, the French creator of the writing and reading system for the blind.
The stamps feature a portrait of Braille and his system's raised dots that spell out Braille, Vatican City State and the price.
Braille was born in France in 1809 and lost his sight at an early age. He then developed a reading and writing system based on patterns of rai
Source: Fox News
Nov 4, 2009
Thirty years after the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, some former hostages are trying to forget their 444 days in captivity, while others intend to memorialize the "dark day" with those who endured it firsthand.
L. Bruce Laingen, 87, was the U.S. charge d'affaires in Tehran — the highest ranking diplomat in the country — when the American embassy was overtaken by militants and radical Iranian students on Nov. 4, 1979, in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution. He
Source: Irish Examiner
Nov 4, 2009
THE skeletal remains of more than a thousand people have been recovered from what experts believe was one of the country’s largest medieval cemeteries.
The ancient bones have produced evidence of several suspected murders and one case of leprosy – an extremely rare occurrence in medieval times.
Osteoarchaeologist Carmelita Troy, of Headland Archaeology in Cork, said yesterday she has studied the ancient remains of nearly 1,300 individuals – adult males and females along
Source: The Times Online (UK)
Nov 4, 2009
An enthusiast with a metal detector has unearthed a £1 million hoard of Iron Age gold necklaces from a field near Stirling in a discovery that is set to revolutionise the way that historians view some of Scotland’s ancient inhabitants.
According to experts at the National Museums of Scotland (NMS), the four beautifully worked “torcs” represent the most significant find of Iron Age metalwork in the country. One of the Stirling necklaces is a ribbon torc made from twisted Irish or Sco
