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: The Oakland Tribune
Oct 4, 2009
OAKLAND
The message, they said, is simple: Those who broke stereotypes after the Civil War by breaking horses in the West deserve to be honored and remembered.
"Twenty-five to 30 percent of working cowboys were people of color," said Wilbert McAllister, 68. "We know the truth. We're not fake."
McAllister is president of the Oakland Black Cowboys Association, which held its 35th annual parade Saturday in the streets surrounding DeFremery
Source: BBC
Oct 4, 2009
War veterans have taken part in a memorial parade in Falmouth to remember those troops that left the town 67 years ago on a World War II mission.
Operation Chariot, in 1942, took out vital German facilities in the French port of St Nazaire and played an important role in winning World War II.
The crew of HMS Cambeltown, filled with explosives, sailed from Falmouth and rammed the dry dock gates.
Five Victoria crosses were awarded for the attack.
Source: BBC
Oct 4, 2009
A memorial to honour secret agents who worked for the Allies in World War II is unveiled in London, featuring a carving of captured and executed Violette Szabo.
They came from all generations of the military - veterans of World War II, serving men and women, and young military cadets - all gathered on London's South Bank to see the new memorial officially unveiled.
The bust gazing out across the Thames depicts Violette Szabo, one of Britain's more extraordinary under-c
Source: AP
Oct 4, 2009
The civil rights group co-founded by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. narrowed the list of finalists for its next president Saturday to his youngest daughter and an Arkansas judge.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference's board of directors will consider the Rev. Bernice King and Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen for the organization's top spot. They will succeed the Rev. Byron Clay, who has served as interim president since February, when Charles Steele resigned
Source: Yahoo News
Oct 3, 2009
CHICAGO (AFP) – Sucked to her death in a muddy river bed, a baby woolly mammoth spent 40,000 years frozen in the Siberian permafrost where her body was so perfectly preserved traces of her mother's milk remained in her belly.
Three years after her discovery by nomadic reindeer herders, Lyuba will head to Chicago as the star of a mammoths and mastodons exhibit at the world-famous Field Museum.
The exhibition, announced at mid-week, opens March 5 and will run through Sept
Source: NYT
Oct 3, 2009
CHICAGO — People who live here felt that the place had been on an exhilarating roll lately. First there was Barack Obama, Chicago’s Barack Obama, capturing the presidency right here in Grant Park, the city’s front yard. Next, or so everyone thought, Chicago was to be picked to host the 2016 Summer Games, more proof that everyone else had at last come to recognize this place as world class...
... Barry Bowlus, a lifelong Chicagoan, likened the Olympic defeat to the city’s fire of 187
Source: NYT
Oct 3, 2009
EDGARTOWN, Mass. — In the 18th and 19th centuries, whaling was a big business here, and it was a diverse business, too. As Arthur R. Railton put it in his book “The History of Martha’s Vineyard,” “almost every whaler had men of color in its crew” — Indians, descendants of slaves and even people from places like the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of Africa.
But, Mr. Railton went on, “men of color only infrequently made it to positions of responsibility.” Usually they ended their v
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world hide an astonishing secret, evidence uncovered by The Daily Telegraph shows.
A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.
A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.
The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its na
Source: OpEdNews.com (via USA Today)
Oct 3, 2009
MUMBAI, India — An incongruous billboard has appeared high above Mumbai's slums: A thin Mohandas Gandhi, the ascetic father of India's independence, sits wrapped in simple white cloth above the image of a fat Montblanc pen.
German luxury penmaker Montblanc launched a limited-edition commemorative fountain pen in honor of Gandhi this week, just in time for the 140th anniversary of the birth of the Mahatma — or "Great Soul" — on Friday.
The price? $24,763.
Source: http://www.nowpublic.com
Oct 3, 2009
A 20-second video showing the only surviving footage of Anne Frank has been posted on her new YouTube channel by the Amsterdam museum, the Anne Frank House.
It was taken in 1941 and is the only film footage of Anne that has ever been known to exist. It is a video of a neighbor's wedding and nine seconds in to the footage, a 13-year-old Anne can be seen leaning over the balcony above to get a look at the bridge and groom. The wedding is thought to have taken place at No 37 Merwedeplein, an
Source: BBC
Oct 3, 2009
A World War II veteran has been buried in the churchyard of a deserted Norfolk village which is used by soldiers as a military training area.
William Hancock, 85, was the first person to be buried in Tottington near Thetford for more than 50 years.
Locals had to leave the village in the 1940s when the Thetford Battle Area was established by the military.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
The Indian government has ordered that love scenes between characters based on its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten, the wife of Britain's last Viceroy, be deleted from a new Hollywood film of their romance.
Officials revealed they had given permission for the film Indian Summer, starring Hugh Grant and Cate Blanchett, to be filmed on location in India on the condition that scenes showing the couple in bed, kissing, and dancing, are deleted.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
A piece of a marble statue discovered at a Roman site in Sussex could be one of only three in existence depicting the Emperor Nero.
The chunk of stone, which is the right side of a boy's head and his lower face, is to be scanned using sophisticated technology and the remainder generated by computer to suggest what he may have looked like.
Archaeologists suspect the sculpture, which was found at Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex, is of Nero as a young boy.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric site, dubbed 'Bluehenge', a mile away from Britain's famous circle of standing stones at Stonehenge.
Researchers have named the after the colour of the 27 Welsh stones it once incorporated.
The new circle, unearthed in secret over the summer, is one of the most important prehistoric finds in decades, archaeologists say.
Already, dispute has begun about what the discovery means for Stonehenge, and what light it
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
The Security Service, MI5, kept a secret file on Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson throughout his time in office because of his friendships with eastern European businessmen and contacts with the KGB.
The first official history to be written about the organisation reveals that a "permanent file" was created on the politician when he entered the Commons in 1945 and remained in use throughout both his premierships from 1964-1970 and 1974-76.
Baroness Manning
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
A British impresario is hoping to restore Shanghai's decadent reputation by opening the first burlesque cabaret since the city teemed with dance halls, White Russians and gangsters in the 1930s.
Chinatown, a three-floor club complete with red velvet booths, Art Deco windows and a curving iron staircase, has opened its doors to a rush of Chinese and foreign revellers, all keen to relive Shanghai's heyday.
The city was cleansed of its notorious nightspots when the Commun
Source: AAP
Oct 3, 2009
THE Federal Government has referred a case of alleged fraud involving a man who claimed to be one of Australia's youngest prisoners of war to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.
South Australian Arthur Rex Crane, 83, has been on the highest level of service pension since 1988 and is the Federal President of the Prisoners of War Association of Australia, Fairfax Media reported.
He has alleged he was captured by the Japanese in 1942, became a prisoner of war
Source: Times (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
From Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler, the invasion of Britain has been a constant theme in the history of these islands, even if the successful attempts have been heavily outnumbered by the unsuccessful ones.
Until now, however, one plan has remained unknown: an 18th-century plot to invade with an American army during that country’s War of Independence.
Drawn up by a French general, the scheme was to bring over an American force of 10,000 that would find a Britain so di
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.
A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.
The short note scrawled on the card suggests his family changed its name to Ahmadinejad when they converted to embrace Islam after his birth.
The Sabourjians traditionally hail from Aradan, Mr Ahmadinejad's
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 3, 2009
The witch bottle was discovered in a pit beneath a back room on the site of the Turk's Head Inn at Tipping Street car park in Stafford.
The vessel is a mid to late 17th-century Bellarmine jug which would have been filled with the likes of nail clippings, hair, bellybutton fluff, pins and iron nails.
The period was full of superstition and they were buried near or under buildings to ward off witches or evil spirits. Oxford Archaeology which is undertaking the dig will
