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: CNN
Jun 3, 2009
From where he came, no one could have predicted what Ronald Takaki would become. Raised in a low-income area of Oahu, Hawaii, a descendant of Japanese immigrants who toiled in sugar cane plantation fields, he cared more about surfing than schoolwork.
The pioneering and beloved professor of more than 30 years at University of California, Berkeley, and prolific author who helped change how American history is written, died on May 26.
In the 1960s, he earned a master's an
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Jun 2, 2009
For more than 200 years, buried deep within Thomas Jefferson's correspondence and papers, there lay a mysterious cipher -- a coded message that appears to have remained unsolved. Until now.
The cryptic message was sent to President Jefferson in December 1801 by his friend and frequent correspondent, Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. President Jefferson and Mr. Patterson were both officials at the American Philosophical Society -- a group th
Source: Columbus Dispatch
Jun 2, 2009
A state program that left its mark historically on Ohio for 50 years might fall by the wayside because of budget cuts proposed by the state Senate.
Other budget casualties could include a state office that for two decades has worked to resolve disputes and avoid costly litigation, and another serving Ohio's fast-growing Latino population.
Since its creation in 1959, the Ohio Historical Marker program has erected nearly 1,300 markers where history happened. Examples incl
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Jun 2, 2009
In one of its 10,000 daily press releases, missives and proclamations, the Obama Administration crowed Monday that The Prez is "proud to be the first President to appoint openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100 days of an Administration."
Take off the Pink Medal of Honor, Team O: You forgot about Roberta Achtenberg. As in the former SF Supe who Bill Clinton nominated to be assistant HUD czarina just days after taking office. That's well within
Source: newscientist.com
Jun 2, 2009
THE builders of the ancient Mayan temples at Tikal in Guatemala switched to inferior wood a few decades before they suddenly abandoned the city in the 9th century AD. The shift is the strongest evidence yet that Mayan civilisation collapsed because they ran out of resources, rather than, say, disease or warfare.
Researchers led by David Lentz, a palaeoethnobotanist at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, sampled wooden beams and lintels from all six major temples and two palaces wi
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com
Jun 2, 2009
Researchers have discovered a fossilized face and jaw from a previously unknown hominoid primate genus in Spain dating to the Middle Miocene era, roughly 12 million years ago. Nicknamed "Lluc," the male bears a strikingly "modern" facial appearance with a flat face, rather than a protruding one. The finding sheds important new light on the evolutionary development of hominids, including orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and humans.
In a study appearing i
Source: History Today
Jun 2, 2009
‘Legacies of British Slave Ownership’ is a new project launched, today, by a team of historians from UCL (University College London). The aim of the three-year project is to investigate Britain’s debt to slavery and create an ‘Encyclopaedia of British slave owners’, an online database which will identify all slave-owners in the British Caribbean in the 1830s at the time slavery was abolished. It is the first comprehensive attempt to study the extent and significance of slave-ownership in the for
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jun 2, 2009
In an unprecedented ruling, the Federal Social Court in the western German city gave the green light to three Jewish claimants, two men and one woman all over 80 years old, to claim the pensions.
Judge Ulrich Steinwedel said the cases "stemmed from the darkest chapter of German history and couldn't leave anyone unmoved."
During World War II, the three claimants were confined in ghettos -- cordoned-off zones in eastern European cities where Jews were corralled
Source: BBC
Jun 2, 2009
For the first time since 1980, the US has authorised its embassies around the world to invite Iranian diplomats to Independence Day receptions.
The move is part of a new policy of engagement with Iran under President Barack Obama's administration.
The decision to invite Iranian diplomats to an American reception is a symbolic gesture but it puts an end to almost 30 years of a US policy discouraging even informal contacts with Iranian officials.
It is not
Source: BBC
Jun 2, 2009
Two dinosaur skulls have fetched top prices at an auction in New York.
A giant 65-million-year-old Triceratops skull sold at Bonhams' Natural History auction for $242,000 (£148,000).
A skull from a cousin of the T. rex, the Alioramus remotus, went for $206,000 (£126,000). Both sold for almost double the original estimates.
The auction house would not reveal the buyers, but said the bones could end up as home ornaments.
Source: BBC
Jun 2, 2009
An American man has returned a 21kg (46lb) chunk of medieval pillar taken from Jerusalem's Old City 12 years ago.
Israeli authorities had received a letter from a priest asking forgiveness for the man, after he confessed to taking away the stone.
He said a tour guide had given him the weighty piece of marble, and that he had not realised until later that it had probably been stolen.
The Israeli Antiquities Authority said it was not planning legal action.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 2, 2009
The Prince of Wales is to attend the 65th anniversary celebrations of D-Day after the intervention of President Obama, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The change of heart came after White House officials put pressure on the French government to invite the Queen who was kept off the original guest list by President Sarkozy.
But Buckingham Palace, after hasty talks with Downing Street, is to announce that the Prince of Wales will represent the Queen at the D-Day comme
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 2, 2009
China has begun imposing an information blackout ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, blocking access to popular networking websites such as Twitter and BBC television reports inside China.
The measures came as the authorities tried to close all avenues of dissent ahead of Thursday's anniversary, placing prominent critics under house arrest and banning newspaper from making any mention of the pro-democracy protests.
The co-ordinated internet
Source: CNN
Jun 2, 2009
The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq who retired over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal is calling for a truth commission to investigate Bush-era policies behind the abuse and controversial interrogations of detainees.
"The mechanisms that are responsible for establishing accountability have lost their credibility within the country, and there's a lack of trust in them," retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said in an interview on CNN's "Newsroom" Tuesday. "A
Source: AP
Jun 2, 2009
On the eve of the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the foundation that runs the National D-Day Memorial is on the brink of financial ruin. Donations are down in the poor economy. The primary base of support — World War II veterans — is dying off. And the privately funded memorial is struggling to draw visitors because it's hundreds of miles from a major city.
Facing the prospect of cutting staff and hours, the memorial's president believes its only hope for long-term survival is to be ta
Source: BBC
Jun 2, 2009
A first edition of Charles Darwin's seminal work On The Origin Of Species is to be sold at auction in Edinburgh after being unearthed at a family home.
The book, which was published 150 years ago, transformed the science world with its theories on evolution and natural selection.
Only 1,250 were produced in its first print run back in 1859.
Source: AFP
Jun 2, 2009
A guilt-ridden New Yorker has returned a massive marble stone he took from an excavation site in Jerusalem's Old City 12 years ago, Israel's Antiquities Authority said on Tuesday.
The 21-kilo (46-pound) piece of 9th century marble column disappeared from an Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) dig in 1997.
Several weeks ago the authority received an email from a priest in New York state who requested forgiveness on behalf of a member of his congregation.
&q
Source: AP
Jun 2, 2009
Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square this week, Chinese authorities have rounded up dissidents and shipped them out of town. Now, they've even shut down Twitter.
Along with their usual methods of muzzling dissent, the authorities extended their efforts Tuesday to silence social networking sites that might foster discussion of any commemoration of the events of June 3-4, 1989.
The action is a new sign of the government's concern of th
Source: http://www.marketwire.com
Jun 2, 2009
In a historic moment at the White House today, Mrs. Ronald Reagan stood next to President Barack Obama as he signed the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act, which will honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Wilson Reagan. The 11-member Commission will plan, develop and carry out activities which pay tribute to our nation's fortieth president.
"I was delighted to be back at the White House today and even more delighted to be part of the Ronald Reagan Centennial
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 2, 2009
While the disappearance of Air France flight 447 over the Atlantic is
unusual, there have been previous instances of aircraft vanishing
during flight:
* In 1936, French aviator Jean Mermoz disappeared along with his
Latécoère 300 plane 800 kilometres off the coast of Dakar, Senegal,
after sending a short message reporting engine problems. The wreckage
was never found.
* US aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over
the central Pacific Ocean in 1937 whil
