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: NYT (Magazine)
Sep 16, 2009
This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If you didn’t know the book’s vintage, you might confuse it for
Source: Virginia Gazette
Sep 16, 2009
JAMES CITY — Local archaeologists have discovered Argall Towne, a short-lived village that was the first suburb of nearby Jamestown.
The village was started in 1617 by Capt. Samuel Argall, then a colorful lieutenant governor of the colony. It thrived for three years, but his impetuous behavior led many of the settlers to move away to Martin’s Hundred near Carter’s Grove Plantation.
Alain Outlaw of Williamsburg-based Archaeological & Cultural Solutions has been sear
Source: novinite.com (Sohpia News Agency)
Sep 16, 2009
A team led by Bulgarian archaeologist Prof. Nikolay Ovcharov has uncovered an enormous cult complex at the ancient Thracian city of Perperikon in the Rhodoppe Mountains.
The complex consists of at least 9 altars each 2 meters in diameter located on an area of 12 square km. They are dated back to about 1 500 BC thanks to objects discovered around them, which is about the time of Ancient Egypt and the civilization of Mycenae and Minoan Crete. This is the Late Bronze Age and the Early
Source: News9.com (OK)
Sep 16, 2009
Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.
The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.
Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank and said the group wanted to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know.
The Oklahoma City-based think tank enlisted nation
Source: Little About
Sep 16, 2009
Archaeologists from Newcastle University, in collaboration with English Heritage, have begin the first systematic excavation of a cemetery on Hadrians Wall in England, in order to preserve it effectively.
Hadrians Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England.
An important Roman cremation cemetery, situated on a cliff edge, forms part of the World Heritage Site at Birdoswald Fort, Cumbria.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
Sep 16, 2009
Tolkien, one of his generation's most respected linguists, was ''earmarked'' to crack Nazi codes in the event that Germany declared war.
ntelligence chiefs singled him and a 'cadre' of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire.
Its staff - which included Alan Turing, the gay codebreaker - would later decipher the 'impenetrable' Enigma machines.
This saved Britain from German conquest by allowing the Navy to
Source: philly.com
Sep 16, 2009
Nearly 180 years ago, President Andrew Jackson handed a letter to a military officer with a message for two American Indian tribes: Leave Mississippi and Alabama, or else.
His direct language was the start of federal efforts that led to the forced relocation of five tribes and the infamous "Trail of Tears," as thousands of Indians died from starvation, exposure, and disease.
But historians have always had to depend on a draft of Jackson's message - not the fin
Source: telegraph.co.uk
Sep 16, 2009
Members of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty that ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire have asked for the right to run for the Austrian presidency.
Rudolf Vouk, their lawyer, said the family has lodged a request for the repeal of a 90-year-old ban that prohibits its members from being elected Austria's head of state."Such a disposition is no longer justifiable and contravenes the right to free and democratic elections" as well as the principle of equality before the law
Source: USA Today
Sep 16, 2009
Lucille Boggess lost two brothers in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. She wonders what will happen to the memorial to them and the other "Bedford Boys" whose deaths that day made their town in the Blue Ridge foothills a national symbol of suffering in World War II.
"I'd be very saddened" if the financially troubled National D-Day Memorial in the southwest Virginia town had to close, says Boggess, 80. "This community made a sacrifice on D-Day. We wan
Source: tampabay.com
Sep 16, 2009
TAMPA — Burned and sunk, the steamship Scottish Chief lay at the bottom of the Hillsborough River for 146 years, a legend for its ability to keep Tampa afloat amidst the city's isolation during the Civil War.
Underwater archaeologist John William Morris, with the Florida Aquarium, said Tuesday a research team has found the ship, a vessel not seen since the night in 1863 when Union troops raided the shipyard.
Morris' team first spotted the suggestion of a ship Aug. 29 w
Source: Independent (UK)
Sep 16, 2009
The shadow puppeteer flicks his wrist as he beats a stumpy stick against a wooden box and begins a dramatic introduction to a story about Kunti, a mother who fights for social justice. This is Pucung, a remote Indonesian village where skeletal leather puppets, some of Indonesia's best-known handicrafts, are made. The character has a mass of black hair. Ann Dunham, too, was famous for her shock of black hair, which she claimed came from a trace of Cherokee blood in her veins. Barack Obama's mothe
Source: Independent (UK)
Sep 16, 2009
A war hero decorated for his bravery in the fight against Hitler is finally being honoured by his home town 55 years after his death.
Paddy the pigeon was the first bird make it back to England with vital news from the D-Day Normandy landings in June 1944.
His exploits of daring-do, avoiding deadly German falcons released to catch the airborne messengers, and making it back across the Channel, earned Paddy the Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Sep 16, 2009
To Tasmania's Aboriginal community it is "racist art", an enduring symbol of the persecution, murder and dispossession their ancestors suffered under white colonial rule.
More than 130 years after her death, a bust of Tasmania's most famous Aboriginal woman, Truganini, is at the centre of controversy, with demands it be returned to her homeland by the British Museum which owns it.
Now representatives of the community have flown to Britain in the hope of reclai
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 16, 2009
Buried away on the dusty shelves of a London library is a student’s vision for a new world order.
Doctoral dissertations are usually of little interest outside the world of academic research but this book casts an intriguing light on the beliefs of one of the Middle East’s most influential figures.
The publication by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the eldest son of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his second wife, is set to fuel the debate about the pace of democ
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Sep 16, 2009
The dementia affecting hundreds of thousands of Britons may be a legacy of the Second World War, a scientist has claimed.
Research presented at a conference in York yesterday suggested that traumatic stress can trigger Alzheimer's and other conditions.
More than 700,000 people suffer from dementia in the UK and Dr Karen Ritchie, from France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research, believes that many of today's cases could have been caused by armed combat,
Source: BBC
Sep 16, 2009
At least 10,000 coins believed to be from the Roman era have been uncovered in Shropshire.
Officials from Shropshire Council's Museum Service said the coins, thought to be from 320 AD to 340 AD, were found in a large storage jar.
They said the haul, found by an amateur treasure hunter, had been sent to experts in London to examine.
Councillor Stephen Charmley said it was the largest coin hoard to be found in the county in modern times.
Source: BBC
Sep 16, 2009
A Finnish court has moved to Rwanda to hear evidence in the genocide trial of a former Rwandan preacher who moved to the Scandinavian country in 2003.
Finland has charged Francois Bazaramba with genocide and 15 counts of murder in Rwanda in 1994.
Finnish law allows prosecutions for crimes against humanity wherever they are committed.
If found guilty, Mr Bazaramba, 58, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. He denies all the charges.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 16, 2009
Tony Blair has said that he does not miss life at Number 10 because he hated Prime Minister’s Questions.
Reflecting on his political career and 10-year term as leader, Mr Blair also said he sometimes wished he had become a rock star instead.
Mr Blair made the comments as he addressed a star-studded audience of around 1,000 people attending the GG2 Leadership & Diversity Awards at the Grosvenor House hotel in London’s Park Lane.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 16, 2009
Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg are pushing ahead with separate films about Abraham Lincoln, despite the prospect of the biopics reaching cinemas at similar times.
Spielberg has said he would continue with his long-planned film about the US president who abolished slavery, after it emerged that Redford was planning a rival project that could be finished first.
The director told Variety magazine that he would not pull the plug on the film, which is set to star Liam
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 16, 2009
George W Bush believed Barack Obama was "a cat" who "has no clue", dismissed Sarah Palin as a nonentity and insulted Hillary Clinton's posterior, according to a new account of life in the White House under the former president.
For all his politeness in public, Mr Bush is alleged to have privately mocked fellow big name politicians, claims his former speech writer Matt Latimer, whose book Speech Less: Tale of a White House Survivor has been awaited with some anx
