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: NPR
Aug 4, 2009
Seeing former president Bill Clinton in North Korea today on a mission to win the release of two journalists and perhaps raise other issues of concern in U.S.-North Korean relations immediately brings to mind a question:
Has any former president taken on such a job, presumably with the blessing of the current administration?
I called presidential historian Stephen Hess at the Brookings Institution to talk about the historical precedent. Hess basically said nothing quite
Source: NYT
Aug 4, 2009
After 13 years of failed redevelopment efforts, the United States Postal Service is giving up and auctioning off its largest vacant property: the hulking 2.7-million-square-foot old central post office here.
The suggested opening bid for the auction is $300,000, which is less than an individual condominium goes for in many of the surrounding downtown buildings...
... The behemoth, which is nine stories tall with 14-story corner towers, is several blocks southwest of the
Source: bloomberg.com
Aug 4, 2009
Plans by German scholars to reprint Adolf Hitler's"Mein Kampf"" as an academic treatise were rejected by the state copyright holders, who said a new edition of the book could fuel support for far-right groups.
The Bavarian authorities this week reaffirmed a 64-year-old ban on the book after the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History, or IFZ, applied for permission to reprint the work. State officials said that extremist groups could have legally promoted the book if the
Source: israelnationalnews.com
Aug 4, 2009
The Chabad Lubavitch Hassidic movement renewed its efforts on Monday to obtain "righteous gentile" status from the Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial institute for a senior Nazi who saved Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef Schneerson, the movement's leader during World War II.
The effort was based on new information revealed by historian Danny Orbach that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the commander of German intelligence, smuggled the rabbi and hundreds of other Jews out of the Third Reich withou
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Aug 4, 2009
A German Jew sent to Britain as a schoolboy to escape Hitler's gas chambers is to be a witness for the prosecution at what is expected to be the last great Nazi war crimes trial.
Kurt Gutmann, 82, has been chosen as one of a handful of co-plaintiffs who will testify against John Demjanjuk, who is accused of taking part in the murders of 27,900 people at the Sobibor extermination camp in occupied Poland.
Kurt’s brother Hans and his mother Jeanette died there in 1942, tw
Source: History Today
Aug 4, 2009
To celebrate their 150th anniversary and its strong naval heritage, Woods’ 100 Old Navy Rum recently launched a project to find out what it means to be a hero for people in the UK today. During the month of June researchers interviewed 1,000 people from across the UK. The results of their research revealed that for 41% of people members of the army and the navy were considered the most heroic. A quarter of those questioned viewed doctors and paramedics as particularly heroic, followed by the pol
Source: The Independent
Aug 4, 2009
Fatah, the dominant Palestinian movement under Yasser Arafat that has gone from debacle to defeat since his death, begins its first leadership convention in 20 years today.
The big question as more than 2,000 delegates gather in Bethlehem is whether the secular group on which the world pins any remaining hopes for a peace deal with Israel can cast off the taint of corruption, regain its legitimacy and put forward new faces who can take back the ground lost to the Islamic fundamental
Source: Michael Hirsh at the website of Newsweek
Aug 4, 2009
The White House today described Bill Clinton's surprise visit to North Korea as a "solely private" effort to secure the release of two captive American journalists. But the real story behind the trip very likely goes back to the public diplomacy that then-president Clinton was conducting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il nearly 10 years ago, during Clinton's final months in office.
At the time, the United States and North were tantalizingly close to a deal to stop all N
Source: thisisgloucestershire.co.uk
Aug 4, 2009
A Cotswolds history buff has unearthed a piece of weaponry believed to be among the rarest ever discovered in Gloucestershire.
Steve Taylor, from Hatherley, stumbled across the treasure, part of an ancient sword handle, while metal detecting on a farm near Cirencester.
The bronze head, which would have been fitted to the end of a Celtic sword to keep the blade in place, is worth about £5,000.
Steve has given the artefact, which dates from 200-400BC, to Cire
Source: BBC
Aug 4, 2009
Rarely seen images from the early days of photography will be revealed in the British Library's first ever major photographic exhibition.
About 250 original images, including work by 19th century pioneers William Henry Fox Talbot and Julia Margaret Cameron, will go on display in London.
Curator John Falconer said it would examine the history of photography.
The British Library's collection of 300,000 images includes pictures taken in the fields of science
Source: AP
Aug 4, 2009
It seems John Quincy Adams was way ahead of his time.
Starting Wednesday, history will meet modern technology as the Massachusetts Historical Society begins posting Adams' updates from 200 years ago on Twitter. The historical society will include a presidential tracker of sorts, linking maps to show Adam's progress on a diplomatic trek to Russia as U.S. minister.
The tweets will include mentions of his favorite reads, memorable meals, weather updates and the daily drama
Source: BBC
Aug 4, 2009
For many Germans, deployment in Afghanistan meant delivering aid and reconstruction to the country's relatively peaceful north.
But now the situation is becoming increasingly dangerous. And Germany seems to have found itself unwillingly dragged into a war.
Back home, meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel last month awarded four soldiers the Bundeswehr's new cross of honour.
It was the first time since the end of World War II that Germany had awarded medals f
Source: BBC
Aug 4, 2009
A history enthusiast may have unearthed a rusting relic of Royal Navy "fire and sword" tactics from the 1700s while weeding his Highlands garden.
John Hodgson found what is believed to be bar shot - metal balls, linked together by an iron bar - at his home in Morven.
Retired marine archaeologist Dr Colin Martin said the ammunition was designed for tearing a ship's rigging.
But he said it could be from one of two warships that attacked Morven in
Source: CNN
Aug 4, 2009
"Read my lips: No new taxes."
That famous phrase from George H.W. Bush came as he accepted his party's presidential nomination at the Republican National Committee convention in 1988.
Pushing forward to 2009, another president may have trekked onto the same territory.
On Monday, the White House sought to shoot down concerns that middle-class families may face a tax increase in order to combat rising deficits and a struggling economy after its two
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 3, 2009
US President Barack Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day and is being protected by an increasingly over-stretched and under-resourced Secret Service, according to a new book.
Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.
Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret
Source: BBC
Aug 3, 2009
It is one of the best preserved Stone Age villages in Europe, but Skara Brae in Orkney is just a few metres from the sea and it is a constant battle to save it from coastal erosion.
Experts warn as many as 10,000 historic sites around Scotland are at risk of being swept away, many of them unexcavated and unprotected.
Source: Time
Aug 3, 2009
On a gray and rainy Saturday, five young men are gathered at the Body Guard music studio in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital. The modest one-story building has only two rooms and no sign out front. Inside, the walls are lined with a velveteen fabric, the floor is covered in shag carpeting and there's minimal sound equipment — just a dated computer, two keyboards, a microphone and a mixing desk. The men are recording a track called "One Love," as King Fisher, the studio's founder and fa
Source: BBC
Aug 3, 2009
A chapter in Culloden: The History and Archaeology of the Last Clan Battle said the risk of friendly fire was a"very real one".
Archaeologists found shrapnel from mortar shells close to where frontline infantry had stood.
Sites where fallen government soldiers were buried have also been discovered.
University of Glasgow's Dr Tony Pollard, who edited the book, said large pieces of shrapnel were found close to where the Barrel's and Munro's regiments w
Source: france24.com
Aug 3, 2009
A vast operation in search of WWII-era bombs in the western French city of Brest on Sunday forced 16,000 people to leave their homes for the day.
About 16,000 residents in Brest were evacuated Sunday to make way for a major operation to rid the northern French city of unexploded ordnance dating from World War II.
Sirens wailed as some 400 police officers and firefighters fanned out to ensure everyone had left the designated security zone in downtown Brest before mine-cl
Source: BBC
Aug 3, 2009
Stealing from a rabbit warren or impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner may not sound like crimes of the century, but in Victorian England they could land you with a hangman's noose around your neck.
Trial records newly released by the National Archives and put online have lifted the lid on a brutal penal system and showcased some of the most infamous criminal cases.
Executions were public spectacles, with the wealthy hiring balconies to get better views, and it did not tak
