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: Medieval News
Oct 15, 2009
Archaeologists have discovered two Crusader-era murals depicting heaven and hell in a medieval church near Syria's coast — a rare find that could reveal new information about the Christian knights who battled Muslims for control of the Holy Land hundreds of years ago.
Experts are now renovating the 12th century paintings, which were discovered last year by a joint Syrian-Hungarian team excavating an old Crusader fortress on a hilltop near the Mediterranean Sea in the western provinc
Source: BBC
Oct 15, 2009
Archaeologists believe they have traced a mass grave of soldiers who fought in a 17th Century battle in Germany under a modern-day supermarket.
Scots - many of them Highlanders - were among the ranks of Protestant soldiers fighting Catholic forces at Lutzen, a key clash during the 30 Years War.
Culloden expert Dr Tony Pollard has been involved in an international team's investigations at Lutzen.
He said another mass grave on another part of the battlefiel
Source: BBC
Oct 15, 2009
A new exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo's work is set to open in the Vatican.
The Catholic Church once labelled Galileo, now regarded as modern astronomy's founding father, a heretic.
Now a selection of Galileo's instruments - along with those of other key figures in astronomy - are being put on display in the Vatican.
There will also be some of Galileo's original documents in which he excitedly recorded his first discoveries.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 15, 2009
Michael Broadbent, the former director of Christie's wine department, accepted a public apology on Thursday over claims that he behaved unprofessionally in the auction a bottle of Lafite said to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson, the American president.
The 1787 bottle sold at Christie's in London 24 years ago for £105,000, which remains a record sum. The dusty - and likely undrinkable - bottle of wine derives its value from the etched initials "Th.J" on its side, which s
Source: BBC
Oct 15, 2009
The black leather daybed had deteriorated badly and conservators at the Leather Conservation Centre (LCC) took 65 hours to carry out the work.
It will now go on display at the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth.
The piece of furniture was handed down by generations of Nelson's family and given to the museum last year.
Source: Times (UK)
Oct 15, 2009
The former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic is to go on trial in The Hague later this month for his alleged role in directing war crimes during the Bosnian war.
Dr Karadzic, who was captured in Belgrade last year after more than a decade on the run, faces 11 charges including two counts of genocide for allegedly masterminding Serb atrocities throughout the conflict from 1992 to 1995.
The trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugosla
Source: Times (UK)
Oct 15, 2009
The Queen attended an unpublicised special service at Westminster Abbey yesterday to celebrate the centenary of MI5 and MI6.
The heads of the security and intelligence services were present for the unique ceremony in the cloisters of the Abbey.
The Queen unveiled a plaque which acknowledged the service of the staff of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the signals intelligence centre, in the defence of the realm.
Source: Science Daily
Oct 15, 2009
Contestants on TV shows like Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen know that their meat-cutting skills will be scrutinized by a panel of unforgiving judges. Now, new archaeological evidence is getting the same scrutiny by scientists at Tel Aviv University and the University of Arizona.
Their research is providing new clues about how, where and when our communal habits of butchering meat developed, and they're changing the way anthropologists, zoologists and archaeologists think about our evol
Source: Jordan Times
Oct 15, 2009
AMMAN - Ancient burial chambers in the Jordan Valley are being threatened by modern development and may be demolished, according to an international report released this week.
The dolmens foothills of Damiyah were listed among 77 endangered sites around the world on the World Monuments Fund (WMF) annual watch list.
Damiyah, located in the northern Jordan Valley, is home to hundreds of dolmens, megalithic table-shaped block formations, which some experts believe may date
Source: Agence France-Presse
Oct 15, 2009
A CERAMIC rack from a crematorium at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp has been found during maintenance work at the site.
"The ceramic rack was buried in the ground among the ruins of one of the former crematoria,'' Bartosz Bartyzel, spokesman for the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum at Oswiecim, southern Poland, said.
The ceramic rack showed signs of heavy use and of having been exposed to extremely high temperatures, as well as damage from when retreating Nazi forces
Source: WSJ
Oct 14, 2009
PARIS -- The word on the table that morning was "cloud computing."
To translate the English term for computing resources that can be accessed on demand on the Internet, a group of French experts had spent 18 months coming up with "informatique en nuage," which literally means "computing in cloud."
France's General Commission of Terminology and Neology -- a 17-member group of professors, linguists, scientists and a former ambassador -- was g
Source: Azzaman.com
Oct 14, 2009
Iraqi diplomats in Germany have stopped the sale of 28 Mesopotamian artifacts believed to have been smuggled from the country in the years since the 2003-U.S. invasion.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has asked the Iraqi embassy in Germany to appoint a lawyer and launch a lawsuit to have the artifacts returned to Iraq.
Under an Iraqi law issued in 2007, Iraqi envoys in foreign countries are required to report on the exhibition of Mesopotamian artifacts or their auctioni
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 14, 2009
A prescription for a sleeping drug given to Adolf Hitler's Nazi deputy Rudolph Hess when he was a prisoner in the Tower of London is to be sold at auction.
The prescription was made by pharmacist H A Rowe who dispensed the potassium bromide and choral hydrate draught ''with flavouring'' to Hess in 1941.
It refers to 'Herr Rudolph Hess, Deputy Fuhrer, Luftwaffe' who had flown to Britain in an unauthorised attempt to negotiate a peace treaty in the Second World War.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News (Turkey)
Oct 14, 2009
The Elmali Coins that were revealed in Antalya’s Elmali district in 1984 as a result of unlawful excavations are set to be exhibited at the Antalya Archeology Museum.
The treasure had been smuggled to the United States in 1984 and has been on exhibit in the Ankara Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara since it was returned to Turkey in 1999. The process to get the coins back was hard and challenging, including major legal wars.
Sadik Badak, Antalya deputy for the rul
Source: NYT
Oct 14, 2009
Soldiers have often returned to old battlefields, to honor fallen comrades and to exorcise persistent demons. British soldiers go back to the Falklands. Normandy cemeteries are on many V.F.W. and American Legion itineraries. Vietnam veterans can even get package tours now to the places where they were stationed.
Now, Americans wounded in the Iraq war are being ferried back to the scenes where they were maimed to help achieve psychological closure, the first time such visits have bee
Source: Politico
Oct 14, 2009
For Republicans looking forward to the first Bush-free election in a decade, the book publishing schedule is the bearer of bad news: Between New Year’s Day and next November, as many as five Bush administration officials — including the former president himself — will rehash history in hardback.
The literary luge ride down memory lane shoves off with a return to the economic collapse via former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s “On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of
Source: Yahoo News
Oct 14, 2009
PRESCOTT, Ariz. – Willard Varnell Oliver, a member of the Navajo Code Talkers who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language, died Wednesday. He was 88.
Lawrence Oliver said his father died at the Northern Arizona Veterans Administration Health Care System Hospital in Prescott, Ariz. He had been declining health for the past two years.
Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. ordered flags on the Navajo Nation to be flow
Source: McClatchy
Oct 14, 2009
WASHINGTON -- One evening near Christmas in 1955, Harry Truman walked into his Independence, Mo., home to find his wife tossing stacks of old letters into the blazing hearth.
He looked stricken.
A chronicle of the 33rd president's courtship, marriage and daily life in the first half of the 20th century was going up in smoke.
"Bess!" said Truman, who saved every scrap of paper, including 1,300 letters that he had written her. "God! What are y
Source: AP
Oct 14, 2009
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush said Wednesday he has no regrets and would carry out his brazen protest again, even if it cost him his life.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi told Swiss television station Leman Bleu that, after being mistreated in Iraqi custody for two days following his outburst last Dec. 14, a judge asked him whether he regretted the gesture.
After his release last month he obtained a tourist visa for Switzerland with the help of
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 14, 2009
The controversial works are part of a wider exhibition of 60 pieces that are being shown for two weeks from Wednesday at the former Holy Trinity Church, now known as One Marylebone, in central London.
The exhibition featuring 16 artists, called The Age of Marvellous, coincides with the Frieze Art Fair in nearby Regent's Park.
Organisers say the exhibition is designed to “integrate areas of human knowledge that exist outside the boundaries of traditional art making”.
