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: Newsweek
Apr 25, 2009
Erich Honecker could not have guessed he was presiding at his last real May Day. It was May 1, 1989, and the aging overlord of the German Democratic Republic stood atop a reviewing stand in East Berlin before a sea of marching soldiers and flag-waving communist youth. The sun shone, and a soft breeze ruffled his fluffy, grandfatherly white hair. Regimes across the East bloc were holding their annual salute to Marxism and military might. But a blow was coming that would finally smash that empire.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 25, 2009
George W.Bush is less than 100 days into his retirement, but his plans for a personal think tank on a Texas university campus are already mired in controversy.
The George W.Bush Foundation, which is responsible for setting up the library as well as his policy institute, is looking for an executive director who has the support of the Bush family and also the necessary academic credentials.
Last week he invited former aides to a brainstorming dinner and a day-long discus
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 25, 2009
Tanned, relaxed and now embarked on the lucrative lecture circuit, Mr Bush is busy raising money - or "replenishing the ol' coffers", as he put it shortly before leaving office - while waiting for building of his presidential library complex at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas to begin.
The George W.Bush Foundation, which is responsible for setting up the library as well as his policy institute, is looking for an executive director who has the support of the B
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 25, 2009
Bob Ainsworth, the armed forces minister, risked incurring the wrath of veterans of previous conflicts by making comparisons with the war in Europe against the Nazis and the fighting taking place in Helmand today.
"Unless you came all the way up with the Eighth Army from El Alamein and through Italy, you didn't do much more than lads (in Afghanistan) are having to do now", the minister said.
His comments came after it emerged that the Royal Marines' 45 Comma
Source: Deutsche Welle
Apr 25, 2009
The 100-kilogram bomb was discovered by construction workers just 10 centimeters below the sandy surface of a museum forecourt.
A spokesman for Berlin police said a 300-metre radius including Chancellor Angela Merkel's flat was evacuated as part of a precautionary measure around the museum which is part of Berlin's Museum Island complex of buildings that was heavily damaged during WWII.
While bomb experts worked on the device, a rail line carrying express and suburban
Source: AP
Apr 25, 2009
Turkey's president said Saturday that President Barack Obama failed to honor Turks slain by Armenians in a message remembering the dead in massacres nearly a century ago.
Obama on Friday refrained from branding the WWI-era massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey a "genocide," and instead referred to the killings that began in 1915 as "one of the great atrocities of the 20th century."
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said, however, that
Source: CNN
Apr 25, 2009
An American professor doing research in London stumbled across a series of previously unknown letters written by, to, and about Benjamin Franklin, a stunning find that sheds new light on early U.S. history.
The collection of 47 letters are hand-written copies made 250 years ago, when Franklin lived in London. That they were filed under the copyist's name, not Franklin's, may explain why they were overlooked by historians until now, said a curator at the British Library, where the le
Source: Times (UK)
Apr 25, 2009
A bravery award given to Rip, a homeless stray dog who became a Second World War hero by saving the lives of more than 100 air-raid victims during the Blitz, fetched £24,250 [$35,600] at auction [in London] yesterday –- two and a half times more than expected.
The Dickin medal, known as the “animal VC”, was presented to Rip in 1945, five years after he was found bedraggled and starving by ARP warden Edward King after a heavy raid in Poplar, East London.
The friendly mon
Source: UPI
Apr 24, 2009
An archaeologist says a rock used to mark a parking lot at a church in Sweden is actually a 1,000-year-old runestone.
Stockholm County Museum runic expert Lars Andersson said a rock used to help mark the lot's boundaries is thought to date back to the Viking Age in Sweden, The Local said Friday.
Andersson said in a museum statement the discovery of runic inscriptions on the rock thanks to rainy weather was akin to a "religious experience."
Source: United Press International
Apr 24, 2009
An archaeologist says a rock used to mark a parking lot at a church in Sweden is actually a 1,000-year-old runestone.
Stockholm County Museum runic expert Lars Andersson said a rock used to help mark the lot's boundaries is thought to date back to the Viking Age in Sweden, The Local said Friday.
Andersson said in a museum statement the discovery of runic inscriptions on the rock thanks to rainy weather was akin to a "religious experience."
Source: BBC (audio report)
Apr 24, 2009
Mark Whitaker reports from Washington DC on the recent policy of the United States army to embed anthropologists and other social scientists with combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The hope is that they will teach the military to behave in more 'culturally appropriate' ways and reduce the need for lethal force. However, three young academics have died during the 18 months that the policy has been operation, and the American Anthropological Association has condemned the initiat
Source: Bloomberg
Apr 24, 2009
Iraqi commandos smashed a smuggling ring, recovering 235 looted Babylonian
and Sumerian artifacts that they turned over to the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry.
The soldiers arrested a gang of seven thieves who were preparing to smuggle the objects outside of
Iraq, according to a statement e-mailed today by the U.S. military in Baghdad. They were tipped off
by residents in the southern Iraqi towns of Abu al-Kahsib, Bab al-Tawael and al-Amir.
Source: Deutsche Welle
Apr 24, 2009
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented the award to the 72-year-old at a ceremony attended by 200 guests at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn. It is the first time that the prize, which includes a cash award of 10,000 euros, has been awarded.
"Vaclav Havel is a big name in the European democracy movement," said Steinmeier. "The peaceful developments in Central and Eastern Europe would be unimaginable without his work," Ste
Source: BBC
Apr 24, 2009
The alleged abuses by US personnel are said to relate to President George W Bush's time in office.
The photos are being made public in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) five years ago.
The court order had been contested by the Bush administration.
The US defence department said the Pentagon had agreed to release a "substantial" number of previously unseen photographs by May 28.
Source: AP
Apr 24, 2009
North and South, black and white, history buffs like the Doyles and educators - some 2,000 people in all - are expected to attend the daylong gathering at the University of Richmond, where the leading Civil War historians won't exactly rewrite history. But they do promise new scrutiny of a war whose causes have long since been reduced to bumper sticker slogans.
Conference organizers said overwhelming public interest in the conference underscores a national hunger to better grasp the
Source: NYT
Apr 24, 2009
When it comes to the whole 100 Days hoopla, President Obama and his team were against it before they were for it.
To hear the White House tell it, Mr. Obama never much cared for the idea of marking his 100th day in office, next Wednesday. A trumped-up journalistic convention, senior aides called it. (O.K., they have a point.)
“Not a ton different than the 99th,” declared Mr. Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs. “A Hallmark holiday,” said a senior adviser, David Axelro
Source: BBC
Apr 24, 2009
Artefacts from a 17th Century ship wreck found off the Dorset coast are set to go on display.
Students and experts from Bournemouth University have worked for two years on the wreck site, in an area off Poole Harbour known as The Swash Channel.
The ship, which lies about 23ft (7m) down, is thought to date from the 1620s but its country of origin is unknown.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 24, 2009
Proud of the role that his grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, played during the Second World War, the Prince of Wales is to appear in a film that will tell the stories of 12 figures who helped save Jews from the Nazis.
In The Rescuers: Heroes of the Holocaust, Prince Charles praises the "very remarkable" mother of the Duke of Edinburgh, who hid Jews in the royal palace in Athens and withstood interrogations by German officials.
The film, which says the 12
Source: National Journal (subscribers only)
Apr 24, 2009
Presidents dread it, historians decry it and professors denounce it. But thanks to the abiding image of Franklin D. Roosevelt taking the government by storm seven decades ago, President Obama gets his first report card next week when he celebrates his 100th day in the Oval Office.
It is a milestone whose importance the president played down while he sought the office, but one he cannot escape.
"The first hundred days is going to be important," Obama told a Col
Source: CBS News
Apr 24, 2009
Steve Hartman presents this week's "Assignment America" from Great Falls, Mont., where 112-year-old Walter Breuning proudly stands as the oldest man currently living in the nation.
