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: NYT
Apr 17, 2009
Following is the third and final set of answers from Michelle and James Nevius, the authors of “Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.” This week they will be answering questions about the history of Manhattan from Henry Hudson’s arrival in 1609 to the present. If you have ever walked by a building in the borough and wondered about its origins, or whether a historic event really took place where you think it did, or any other little-known fact, they will know the answers. Both
Source: The Fix--WaPo Blog
Apr 17, 2009
New data out of the indispensable Gallup polling organization shows that President Obama's average job approval during his first 90 days in office is 63 percent, the highest rating in its surveys during that critical time period in more than three decades.
Since Jimmy Carter scored an average of 69 percent approval rating in his first 90 days in office, the ratings for the subsequent presidents have steadily declined from Ronald Reagan (60 percent), to George H.W. Bush (57 percent),
Source: Foxnews
Apr 17, 2009
Faculty at Brown University — the seventh-oldest and arguably the most progressive of America's higher learning institutions — caved into pressure by students and teachers trying to right the perceived wrongs of history by voting earlier this month to rename the Columbus Day holiday as "Fall Weekend."
Proponents cited Christopher Columbus' enslavement and violent treatment of Native Americans, and argued the name of the Italian explorer should be expunged from the day of c
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Apr 17, 2009
The disclosure of four Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel opinions on interrogation and torture is likely to have significant political and perhaps legal consequences. But their release is also a landmark in national security classification policy.These OLC memos, released by the Justice Department yesterday, were among the most urgently sought and the m
Source: W & M Press Release
Apr 16, 2009
Without so much as a map or an "X" to mark the spot, a group of William & Mary students recently uncovered some historical "treasure" that is expected to shed new light on the lives of early 20th-century African-Americans, including Maggie L. Walker, the first woman to found a bank in the United States and a black woman who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of other black women.
The students were exploring the attic of a building in Richmond when they ca
Source: NYT (accompanying short article by historian Ted Widmer)
Apr 16, 2009
An anonymous diarist sketched New York City's storefront
shrines to honor the assassinated president in August 1865.
The drawing are seen here for the first time.
Source: AP
Apr 16, 2009
Archaeologists believe they've found the spot where hundreds of Mexican soldiers surrendered to the Texas army after a battle that sealed Texas' independence from Mexico 173 years ago.
Unfired musket balls, bayonets and cavalry ornaments were found in rows in an area about 20 yards wide and 200 yards long near an NRG Energy power plant about 20 miles east of Houston.
The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday that the heavily wooded area was long suspected to be a gold m
Source: The Daily Beast
Apr 16, 2009
President Bush's former No. 2 State Department official says he hopes he would have had "the courage to resign" if he knew the CIA was using waterboarding, a torture tactic, to interrogate suspects. Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, told Al Jazeera English in an interview airing Wednesday he doesn't think CIA agents who interrogated using waterboarding should be prosecuted, even though he thinks it was torture. The White House and the Justice Department signed off
Source: Belfast Telegraph
Apr 16, 2009
Farmer Gary Sproule accidentally unearthed the precious artefact while ploughing over a field at Castlegore near Castlederg last April. The intricate item is believed to date from almost 1,000 years before the birth of Christ.
An inquest was held yesterday in Belfast at which the item, which would have belonged to an important warrior or priest, was officially classified as treasure.
Under the law, a ‘treasure trove’ inquest must be held by the coroner to determine th
Source: Science Daily
Apr 16, 2009
The discovery of a remarkably well-preserved monumental temple in Turkey — thought to be constructed during the time of King Solomon in the 10th/9th-centuries BCE — sheds light on the so-called Dark Age.
Uncovered by the University of Toronto's Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP) in the summer of 2008, the discovery casts doubt upon the traditional view that the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive.
Anc
Source: The Daily Star (Lebanon)
Apr 16, 2009
It has been more than 65 years since the guns fell silent, but the World War II desert battlefields where Allied forces defeated German General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps are still claiming lives. Each year the casualty count grows, as bedouins planting crops, herding livestock and collecting scrap metal are killed or maimed by rusting land mines and munitions hidden beneath the baking sands of Egypt's North West Coast.
More than 670 Egyptians have been killed and 7,500 injured by
Source: BBC
Apr 16, 2009
The designer of the first national memorial to the hundreds killed in the Belfast blitz has recalled how her own family narrowly escaped injury in the bombing raids.
About 1,000 people perished in the city as a result of the attacks by German planes during April and May 1941.
On Thursday, a 5ft high bronze structure by Carolyn Mulholland symbolising the devastation will be officially dedicated at the Northern Ireland War Memorial Hall.
Source: BBC
Apr 16, 2009
A rare photograph showing the proclamation of King Edward VII's ascension to the throne in 1901 has been uncovered in a Devon church.
The faded photograph was found by a parishioner of St Thomas Church in Exeter, where it had been gathering dust at the back of the building.
It shows the mayor and town clerk outside Exeter Guildhall reading the proclamation surrounded by dignitaries.
The picture has been restored by Exeter photographer and author, Peter T
Source: BBC
Apr 16, 2009
A US appeals court has requested more information on the health of a 89-year-old man due to be deported to Germany on war crimes charges.
The removal of John Demjanjuk was halted by the court shortly after he was removed by federal marshals from his Cleveland, Ohio home.
The Justice Department now has until 23 April to tell the court how it decided Mr Demjanjuk was fit to travel.
The request for health information was made by the 6th Circuit US Court of
Source: CNN
Apr 16, 2009
The Obama administration released four Bush-era memos on terror interrogations Thursday.
Also on Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that CIA officials will not be prosecuted for waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics that had been sanctioned during the Bush administration.
The memos, written by a top Justice Department lawyer, provided legal guidance to the entire executive branch, including the intelligence agencies, on permissible "enhanced
Source: Times (UK)
Apr 16, 2009
Anti-tax protests modelled on the "Boston tea party" were staged across the United States yesterday as Republicans sought to stir moribund conservatives into action against President Obama's big-spending policies.
Yesterday's demonstrations, styled on the 1773 revolt against British colonial taxes when cases of tea leaves were tipped into Boston harbour, were billed a "new day for the freedom movement". Although they featured cups of tea, iced tea - and even tea
Source: Times (UK)
Apr 16, 2009
The strains of the French Resistance anthem filled the air yesterday as the country paid tribute to its author, Maurice Druon, a Second World War hero, writer and Anglophile who became the defender-in-chief of the French language.
Mr Druon, who broadcast to France from wartime London, died on Tuesday just short of his 91st birthday.
President Sarkozy, whose colloqial French appalled Mr Druon, paid tribute to him as “a great writer, Resistance fighter, political figure
Source: The Art Newspaper
Apr 15, 2009
The Indonesian minister for culture and tourism was forced to make a public apology after the government ignored urgent warnings and failed to halt a controversial new museum and visitor centre in Mojokerto, East Java, which caused extensive damage to important archaeological remains at Trowulan. The site is the capital of the Majapahit kings, Hindu rulers of the largest empire ever established in Southeast Asia.
The village of Trowulan in Mojokerto was added to Unesco’s World Her
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 15, 2009
Wrapped in parchment and delicately tied with string, the cake is thought to be the only surviving piece from the wedding celebrations of Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, and the Marquis of Lorne.
The 1871 wedding caused outrage among the Royals, especially the Prince of Wales, because it was the first Royal marriage to someone deemed a commoner since 1515.
But Queen Victoria pushed the marriage through for one of the most lavish ceremonies ever seen in the
Source: Spiegel Online
Apr 15, 2009
One of Berlin's most famous landmarks, the Brandenburg Gate, is being exploited by actors wearing Cold War-era uniforms who are lowering the tone by posing for tourists for money, some Berlin politicians are saying.
"It's inappropriate and out of place," Rainer Klemke, the Berlin city official in charge of managing public memorial sites, told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper.
Michael Braun, the cultural affairs spokesman of the conservative Christian Democ
