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: WaPo
Jul 29, 2009
Maytham Hamzah cast his eyes toward the remains of King Nebuchadnezzar's guest palace in Babylon, one of the world's first great cities. He smiled, bitterly.
"They destroyed the whole country," Hamzah, the head of the Babylon museum, said of U.S. forces in Iraq. "So what are a few old bricks and mud walls in comparison?"
U.S. forces did not exactly destroy the 4,000-year-old city, home of one of the world's original seven wonders, the Hanging Gar
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 29, 2009
Some children believe Bob Geldof discovered gravity and the Somme is a
world famous painting, according to new research.
The findings emerged from a study of 5,000 children, which revealed
most do not have a clue about basic historical facts.
One in 20 picked former Boom Town Rats singer Geldof instead of Sir
Isaac Newton when asked to name the man who discovered gravity.
And 12 per cent of youngsters thought the Somme was a famous painting,
rather than the site of the b
Source: AP
Jul 29, 2009
The site of a history-changing battle lies somewhere amid the dense tangle of forest along the Lake Champlain shoreline in this Adirondack town.
Four-hundred years after French explorer Samuel de Champlain went to war against the Iroquois on July 30, 1609, the battleground's exact location remains elusive.
For years, the two locations claimed bragging rights as the site of Champlain's 1609 battle. But other historians have taken a closer look at the explorer's own accou
Source: BBC
Jul 29, 2009
A notorious criminal in Bosnia, deemed a national security threat, has gone on the run from prison in the central town of Zenica.
The man, Karray Kamel bin Ali, also known as Abu Hamza, was serving a four-year sentence for armed robbery and domestic violence.
Bin Ali, who was born in Tunisia, was previously suspected of plotting to kill the late Pope John Paul II.
Source: Foxnews
Jul 29, 2009
White supremacist James von Brunn was indicted Wednesday in the deadly June 10 shooting of a Holocaust Museum guard.
The seven-count indictment charges Von Brunn, 89, of killing Stephen Tyrone Johns at the museum in Washington, D.C.
If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Four of the counts also are punishable by death.
Source: Scoop (Independent News)
Jul 28, 2009
Among the high profile clients of British antiquities dealer Robin Symes was Maurice Tempelsman -- one of the pillars of the Eastern Establishment (Council on Foreign Relations, Africa-America Institute, long-time beau of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and "friend" of former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright); Leon Levy & Shelby White and the Metropolitan Museum of Art were customers too. Symes bought his pieces primarily from now-convicted antiquities smuggler Giacomo Medi
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jul 28, 2009
These amazing pictures show a group of university students going boldly where no man has ever gone before as they explore a new cave which lies staggering half-kilometre below ground.
They are the first humans ever to plunge into the depths of the awe-inspiring network in the Mavri Laki region of the White Mountains on the Greek island of Crete.
Source: Discovery News
Jul 28, 2009
A 400-year warm spell helped the ancient Inca to build the largest empire ever to exist in the Americas, a new study has established.
Beginning around 1100 A.D., the increase in temperature served as a "perfect incubator" for the Inca's expansion, an international team of researchers report in the current issue of the journal Climate of the Past.
"Climate warming does not always have to be a negative issue. Our research shows that it can favor societal de
Source: The Daily Beast
Jul 28, 2009
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell jumped into the fray on issues surrounding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on Tuesday night with a rebuke of the Harvard professor. Having been the victim of racial profiling "many times" himself, Powell said Gates should have practiced more restraint with the police officer who arrested him. "I think [Gates] should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal," Powell said on Larry King Live of the Gat
Source: Wired
Jul 28, 2009
It’s one of the few great archaeological mysteries of the world, and now a bunch of gadget-wielding geeks are going to try and solve it.
The tomb of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol empire and one of the world’s greatest and most ruthless emperors, has remained hidden for nearly eight centuries. According to legend, Khan died in 1227 near the Liupan mountains of China and is thought to be buried in the northeastern region of what is currently Mongolia.
Now a group of
Source: Science News
Jul 28, 2009
Night-shining clouds created after space shuttle launches may offer clues into the cause of the Tunguska event, a mysterious blast which rocked southern Siberia more than a century ago.
Thin clouds have appeared at abnormally high altitudes over polar regions following space shuttle launches on several occasions in the past decade. These noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds typically occur in summer and lie at altitudes of about 85 kilometers, in a layer of the atmosphere called th
Source: National Geographic
Jul 28, 2009
Naked, beheaded, and tangled, the bodies of 51 young men—their heads stacked neatly to the side—have been found in a thousand-year-old pit in southern England, according to carbon-dating results released earlier this month.
The mass burial took place at a time when the English were battling Viking invaders, say archaeologists who are now trying to verify the identity of the slain.
The dead are thought to have been war captives, possibly Vikings, whose heads were hacke
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 28, 2009
Seventy years ago, the owner of a Suffolk estate invited guests to celebrate the unearthing of a 'Viking' ship on her land. Little did she know it would turn out to be one of the most important Anglo-Saxon finds of the century.
The sherry party that Mrs Edith Pretty threw at her home above the River Deben in Suffolk on July 25 1939 was one of those occasions that everyone remembers for the wrong reasons. The invitation, dispatched to the great and good of the locality – including t
Source: Spiegel Online
Jul 28, 2009
The fate of Napoleon's Grand Army was sealed long before the first shot was fired. In the spring of 1812, more than 600,000 men marched towards Russia under the command of the diminutive Corsican -- an army larger than the population of Paris at the time.
The massive army was on its way to topple the Russian Czar Alexander I. Yet long before the fighting started, a few soldiers staggered out of the ranks and collapsed at the side of the road. Were the men drunk as skunks, or was som
Source: http://fredericksburg.com
Jul 28, 2009
Barely four hours before the public was to be heard yesterday on a proposal to build a Wal-Mart in the Wilderness battlefield area, Orange County officials canceled the hearing because of a technicality.
Wal-Mart personnel found that one of two legally required notices advertising a May 21 public hearing before the county Planning Commission had not been published by the local weekly newspaper. County officials were notified of the problem yesterday morning and decided to cancel la
Source: BBC
Jul 28, 2009
Ukrainian investigators say they have found skull fragments believed to be those of the journalist, Georgiy Gongadze, who was decapitated in 2000.
The find came just days after the arrest of a former Ukrainian general suspected of carrying out the murder.
Mr Gongadze was an investigative journalist who had exposed high-level corruption. He was an outspoken critic of former President Leonid Kuchma.
Three policemen were convicted of his murder last year.
Source: The Daily Beast
Jul 28, 2009
There are, apparently, no birthers in the House of Representatives: Salon reports that the House unanimously passed a resolution on Monday affirming that Hawaii is, in fact, the birthplace of President Obama. Introduced by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii, as part of a measure commemorating the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood, Greg Sargent at The Plum Line described the resolution as confronting "House GOPers with a choice: They can vote for the measure, and endorse the idea
Source: Politico.com
Jul 28, 2009
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the police officer who arrested him will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House at 6 p.m. Thursday, a senior administration official said.
The White House was anxious to resolve the issue so it would quit dominating the news. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told “Fox News Sunday” that officials hoped to “get that done in the next several days.”
The charge of disorderly conduct was dropped by the Cambridge
Source: Times (UK)
Jul 28, 2009
The Queen is skipping today’s celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Britain’s oldest colony after a row with the island’s pro-independence leader.
Bermuda is commemorating the shipwreck on July 28, 1609, of the Sea Venture, the flagship of a fleet sent to resupply the Jamestown colony in America.
Sailors, including the crew of the visiting Royal Navy destroyer HMS Manchester, will re-enact the 150 settlers rowing ashore on what is now St Catherine
Source: Media Matters (liberal watchdog website)
Jul 27, 2009
From the July 27 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk (hat tip to Twitter user StefanoScalia):
[HNN: Wikipedia map of the Middle East]
