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: ABC
Jul 27, 2009
It has been 72 years since famed aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator
Fred Noonan disappeared while attempting to fly around the world. But
the mystery remains unsolved: Nobody knows exactly what happened to
Earhart or her plane.
Now researchers at the International Group for Historic Aircraft
Recovery, or Tighar, say they are on the verge of recovering DNA
evidence that would demonstrate Earhart had been stranded on
Nikumaroro Island (formerly known as Gardner Island) before finall
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 27, 2009
An extremely rare copy of Mein Kampf, signed by author Adolf Hitler and dedicated to a fellow inmate at Landsberg prison, is being sold at auction.
The red cloth book is thought to be one of only a handful of pre-publication copies given to the Nazi dictator in 1925.
Translated as "My Struggle", Hitler dedicated the political manifesto to fellow Nazi, Georg Maurer.
A lucid black scrawled inscription reads, "Herrn Johann Georg Maurer. In memo
Source: Caberra Times
Jul 27, 2009
Archaeologists have uncovered the ancient remains of a young man in northern Vietnam who could be the oldest known paraplegic in the world.
The discovery has astounded researchers, showing the long-term survival of a man with a severe disability in a community where almost 50 per cent of people died before they turned five.
Source: Arkansas Democrat Gazette
Jul 27, 2009
National Park Service officials hope the recent conviction of a Russellville couple for violating a federal law will serve as a lesson to those who traipse across public land seeking a piece of history to take home.
The Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 prohibits digging up, destroying, disturbing or collecting arrowheads, pottery or other ancient artifacts found on federal land.
"There's a huge concern that the public doesn't know what's allowed,"
Source: BBC
Jul 27, 2009
A list of the country's most important battlegrounds is being drawn up and is expected to be complete by 2011.
Councils will then have to consider a site's history when deciding planning applications, although building on battlefields will not be forbidden.
The scheme was officially unveiled on the 320th anniversary of the Battle of Killiecrankie, the first major battle of the Jacobite Risings.
Source: BBC
Jul 27, 2009
Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor has denied eating human flesh or ordering militias to eat their enemies.
Speaking at his war crimes trial in The Hague, Mr Taylor was quoted as saying accusations of cannibalism levelled against him were "total nonsense".
Some of Mr Taylor's former fighters have previously told the court that he had ordered them to eat their enemies.
Mr Taylor has denied 11 charges related to the civil war in Sierra Leone, L
Source: BBC
Jul 27, 2009
A house in South Africa where Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi lived in the early 1900s has been put up for sale.
The house's owner says she has failed to find an institution interested in preserving the building's legacy, so she is selling it on the open market.
Gandhi is thought to have lived there for three years from 1907 - when he began to formulate his philosophy of non-violent resistance.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 27, 2009
Germany's far-right NPD Party is on a collision course with the government over plans to build a museum celebrating the Third Reich's "Strength Through Joy" movement, which organised leisure activities for the masses.
Jürgen Rieger, the vice-president of the party that seeks to ban all immigration and sever all ties with the EU, has submitted plans to authorities in Wolfsburg - home to car giant Volkswagen - for the museum intended to "show the people what this organ
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 27, 2009
Claude Choules, Britain's last surviving veteran of the First World War, shrugged off his achievement and described the war as boring.
His measured reaction was typical, according to his daughter Anne Pow, 80.
Her father had often told her that war was mostly very tedious punctuated by moments of extreme danger, she said.
Mr Choules is one of three First World War veterans still alive. The other two are Frank Buckles, a 108-year-old American, and Canadian
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 27, 2009
A book released to mark the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing – complete with a piece of Moon rock in the binding – is to go on sale for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Only 12 copies of the special edition of MoonFire will be available, because of the scarcity of the rock.
The commemorative book is based on accounts of the Apollo 11 mission by Norman Mailer, the US author and space exploration enthusiast who died in 2007.
The extra-large tome featu
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 27, 2009
An extremely rare copy of Mein Kampf, signed by author Adolf Hitler and dedicated to a fellow inmate at Landsberg prison, is being sold at auction.
The red cloth book is thought to be one of only a handful of pre-publication copies given to the Nazi dictator in 1925.
Translated as "My Struggle", Hitler dedicated the political manifesto to fellow Nazi, Georg Maurer.
A lucid black scrawled inscription reads, "Herrn Johann Georg Maurer. In me
Source: CNN
Jul 27, 2009
Fifteen years ago this month, Rwanda declared a cease-fire in a genocide that left more than 800,000 dead. In the attacks that started in April 1994, Hutu militias and members of the general population sought out Tutsis and moderate Hutus -- and went on a 100-day killing rampage.
Civilians and children got incentives to take part in the atrocities, including promises of land belonging to their Tutsi neighbors.
It was one of the most brutal genocides in modern history.
Source: BBC
Jul 27, 2009
The house's owner says she has failed to find an institution interested in preserving the building's legacy, so she is selling it on the open market.
Gandhi is thought to have lived there for three years from 1907 - when he began to formulate his philosophy of non-violent resistance.
He lived in South Africa for 21 years, working as a lawyer and activist.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jul 27, 2009
A Virginia man has been sentenced to life in prison for joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate then-president George W Bush.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who grew up in Falls Church, Virginia was convicted in federal court in 2005. He was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison, but an appeals court sent back the case out of concern that the sentence was too lenient.
US judge Gerald Bruce Lee said the new sentence takes into account the fact that Abu Ali has never renou
Source: AP
Jul 26, 2009
A scene from an animated film shown to visitors at the new Acropolis Museum that depicts Christian priests destroying parts of the Parthenon has been deleted following protests by the Greek Orthodox Church.
The creator of the segment, Greek-born French filmmaker Constantin Costa-Gavras, has demanded that his name be taken off the film credits in protest.
The animated segment showed figures clad in black climbing up ladders and destroying part of the Parthenon frieze; th
Source: WBBM
Jul 26, 2009
As America marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, a new book has captured the history and drama of the mission which included man’s first landing on the moon. “Rocket Men – The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon” by author Craig Nelson provides a detailed account of the mission and draws from 23,000 pages of NASA and CIA documents, interviews and oral histories.
“The more you know about this story, the prouder you are to be an American,” said Nelson in an interview with Newsr
Source: NYT
Jul 26, 2009
AS the National Park Service readies for its close-up this fall in Ken Burns’s new documentary, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” the frenzy of attention sure to accompany the series will fix a spotlight the size of the Grand Canyon on the country’s famed wilderness areas like Yellowstone and Yosemite.
But the film itself, according to Mr. Burns, will focus on the evolution of the park system and the “history of the idea” behind it, going far beyond the iconic natural spots
Source: Stone Pages Archaeo News
Jul 26, 2009
A team of U.S. scientists that has unearthed a layer of microscopic diamonds on a California island (USA) is calling the find a possible 'smoking gun' to prove a controversial theory that debris from a massive comet - believed to have smashed into northern Canada nearly 13,000 years ago - wiped out the woolly mammoth and dozens of other Ice Age mammals, triggered a 1,000-year period of global cooling and threatened the fragile foothold of North America's earliest human inhabitants.
Source: Stone Pages Archaeo News
Jul 26, 2009
The earliest suggestion of something worth uncovering on thias plateau above the Huron River (Ohio, USA) were some dark electronic smudges on a piece of graph paper. The smudges piqued Brian Redmond's professional curiosity, though. They were a kind of map of the field's subsurface, traced by an instrument called a fluxgate gradiometer. Sweeping one a few inches above the ground produces a sort of magnetic fingerprint of subsurface soil that's been disturbed in some way, whether by digging or bu
Source: Stone Pages Archaeo News
Jul 26, 2009
In a new study, a scientist is analyzing how humans came to develop clothing, and how that innovation might have in turn given our species an evolutionary edge over other hominids. According to a report in Science Alert, the scientist in question is Ian Gilligan, a doctoral researcher from the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at ANU (Australian National University). In his study, Gilligan wants to understand the physiological, psychological and prehistoric aspects of clothing. "I'm in
