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: BBCHistoryMagazine.com
Aug 27, 2009
David Musgrove, editor of BBC History Magazine, welcomes you to the new BBC History Magazine website:
"Hope you like what you see. It's been substantially updated and improved, I hope, from our last site, which frankly deserved to be consigned to history some time ago. What are the plans for this site? Well, there are a few. We'll be putting up some content from the magazine itself, including certain features, book reviews, and our historic visits. You'll find much more of this
Source: BBC
Aug 27, 2009
The largest Viking hoard found in Britain since the 19th century has been bought by two British museums.
The find, valued at £1,082,000, was discovered in a field in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, by a father and son metal-detector team in January 2007.
After two years of fundraising, the collection has been purchased by the York Museums Trust and the British Museum in London.
It is expected to go on display at the Yorkshire Museum in York next month.
Source: BBC
Aug 27, 2009
It is a window on the birth of England and a reminder of the often overlooked first King of all of Britain, Athelstan.
It was buried as Viking nobility fled from Yorkshire at a key moment in British history and more than a thousand years later it was discovered by two men with metal detectors in a field near Harrogate in North Yorkshire.
It is the greatest Viking hoard of treasure to be discovered in Britain for more than 150 years.
And now it's been clea
Source: BBC
Aug 27, 2009
A long-lost letter revealing details of the first Englishman to lead an expedition to North America is to be published in a historical journal.
Written by King Henry VII, it suggests that Bristol merchant William Weston sailed to the New World in 1499.
Bristol University's Dr Evan Jones said it was "an exciting find" that gave a glimpse of a previously unknown, but epic achievement.
The document gives little detail, but makes a tantalising refer
Source: BBC
Aug 27, 2009
Records of more than 100,000 British prisoners of war captured during World War II are being published online.
The ancestry.co.uk lists, accessible for a fee, were compiled by the German military authorities under the 1929 Geneva Convention.
They contain details of British and Commonwealth personnel held in Germany, Austria and Poland in WWII.
The records have only now been made public and the website claims to be the first in the world to publish them.
Source: BBC
Aug 27, 2009
The six-year war between forces loyal to Sudan's government and rebels in Darfur has effectively ended, the UN's military commander in the region says.
General Martin Agwai, who is leaving his post this week, said the vicious fighting of earlier years had subsided as rebel groups split into factions.
He says the region now suffers more from low-level disputes and banditry.
The UN says 300,000 people have died in Darfur, but the Sudanese government puts th
Source: CNN
Aug 27, 2009
It was a gilded name in politics, but Ted Kennedy's life was an almost impossible kaleidoscope of outstanding public service, astonishing personal failures and the heavy burden of the unfulfilled legacies and promise of three older brothers: Joseph, Jack and Bobby.
Ted, the youngest of the Kennedys, became the patriarch of the family at 36 when Bobby -- whose 1968 presidential campaign championed the sick, the poor and the elderly -- was assassinated.
He would never be
Source: Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
Aug 27, 2009
"In this historic memoir, Ted Kennedy takes us inside his family, re-creating life with his parents and brothers and explaining their profound impact on him. or the first time, he describes his heartbreak and years of struggle in the wake of their deaths. Through it all, he describes his work in the Senate on the major issues of our time -- civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the quest for peace in Northern Ireland -- and the cause of his life: improved health care for all Americans,
Source: Taiwan News
Aug 27, 2009
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Berlin on Thursday was to include talks on the modern-day Mideast conflict as well as acknowledgment of the painful history that ties Germany with the Jewish state created in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust...
... The subject of settlements was sure to be raised at Netanyahu's meeting with Merkel on Thursday. Speaking Wednesday, German government spokesman Klaus Vater said that Berlin advocates that "no further settlements be
Source: UPI
Aug 26, 2009
Israeli archaeologists say they have found a miniature precious stone carved with the image of Alexander the Great.
The stone, dating to the Hellenistic period, was found at the Tel Dor excavation site south of Haifa, the Israeli news Web site Arutz Sheva reported Wednesday.
The stone is less than a centimeter long (less than a half-inch) and less than a half-centimeter wide, Ayelet Gilboa, one of the archaeologists directing the work, told the news Web site. The type o
Source: Zenit
Aug 26, 2009
In a joint communiqué on the occasion of World War II's 70th anniversary, German and Polish bishops underlined the need for young people to justly analyze the conflict.
The message, signed by the presidents of the German and Polish bishops' conferences, respectively, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch and Archbishop Jozef Michalik, was published Tuesday.
It called on "the new generations to acquire and preserve a just evaluation" of the war.
"Despit
Source: BBC
Aug 26, 2009
It was built in Belfast, yet no-one bothered to make an application for a museum to commemorate it.
Now a fresh appeal is being made for the establishment of a maritime museum in Belfast linked to the Titanic.
The Heritage Lottery Fund was criticised in Northern Ireland earlier this year, when it allocated £500,000 towards a new museum in Southampton which will include an element dedicated to the liner.
But the body revealed on Wednesday that it had never
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 26, 2009
The USSR plotted to invade Manchester during the height of the Cold War, it has emerged.
A map drawn up by Soviet generals shows that the military had charted an armoured invasion of the city, for distribution to frontline commanders. The plans would be put into action if relations between the UK and the USSR deteriorated further.
The maps ignored one-way streets and rush hour jams, marking the lines of an assault in bold orange, the Guardian reports. According to the
Source: The National Security Archive
Aug 26, 2009
The Central Intelligence Agency participated in every aspect of the wars in Indochina, political and military, according to newly declassified CIA histories. The six volumes of formerly secret histories (the Agency's belated response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by National Security Archive senior fellow John Prados) document CIA activities in South and North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in unprecedented detail. The histories contain a great deal of new material and shed light o
Source: CNSNews.com
Aug 26, 2009
On the 46th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington, Education Secretary Arne Duncan declined to say whether King’s view that just laws are based on God's law should be taught in public schools...
... At a press conference Tuesday publicizing the Kids for King education initiative, which aims to get children to learn about King’s teachings, CNSNews.com asked Duncan whether he thought the content of King’s letter should be taught in public schools.
Source: BBC
Aug 26, 2009
Staff at an 18th Century Scottish castle have been praised for saving it from widespread damage in a fire.
The alarm was raised at 0730 BST at Floors Castle near Kelso after the blaze began near a freezer and spread behind lath and plaster walls.
Roxburghe Estates manager Roddy Jackson said the "quick actions" of staff had limited the damage to one room.
It meant the castle - the family home of the Duke of Roxburghe - was able to open to the publi
Source: BBC
Aug 26, 2009
Markings on a 16th Century carving from Stirling Castle could be the oldest surviving piece of written Scottish instrumental music, historians believe.
A sequence of 0s, Is and IIs have been found on one of the Stirling Heads - wooden medallions which would have decorated the castle's royal palace.
It is believed the music could have been played on instruments such as harps, viols, fiddles and lutes.
An experienced harpist has been trying to play the tune.
Source: BBC
Aug 26, 2009
In the latest of a series of articles marking the outbreak of World War II 70 years ago, BBC Russian affairs analyst Steven Eke analyses how opinions on the Nazi-Soviet pact have changed over the years.
In recent years, the tone and content of disagreements between Russia and the West over interpretations of World War II have seemed reminiscent of the Cold War.
The original German-language copy of the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on the Nazi-Soviet div
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 26, 2009
A Picasso painting stolen from Kuwait during Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion has been discovered in southern Iraq.
Iraqi police arrested a man who was planning to sell "The Naked Woman" during a raid on his house in southern Iraq, officials said on Wednesday.
The painting was apparently among the artwork looted from Kuwait by Iraqi forces, said police spokesman Maj. Muthana Khalid.
It was seized on Tuesday during a raid near the mainly Shia city o
Source: Foxnews
Aug 26, 2009
Sen. Edward Kennedy's bipartisan efforts were reflected in the outpouring of sympathies from former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
All four living former presidents were among the many mourners Wednesday who paid tribute to the life and legacy of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
During 47 years in the Senate, Kennedy worked with 10 presidents -- five from each political party. And despite his liberal streak, he didn't hesitate
