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: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 27, 2009
Reforms to the laws of succession are put forward as a fair way to end discrimination against women and Roman Catholics that would make the country a better place.
But had the changes taken place just over a century ago, some experts believe they would have led to Britain becoming part of Germany's Second Reich and ending up on the other side in the Great War.
Queen Victoria's eldest child was female, but because of the rule of male primogeniture, she was bypassed as heir
Source: History Today
Mar 27, 2009
A great deal of exploding gunpowder and a hectic pageant involving actors and ordinary citizens jostling the narrow streets in period costume, will today sound the climax to a series of celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of the Reconquest of Vigo, a little-known but significant local episode in the Peninsular War. This unlikely popular uprising of March 28th, 1809, in the coastal town in northwest Spain was the first successful attempt to see off French rule in the region of Galicia, fol
Source: NYT
Mar 27, 2009
Jewish prisoners at Philadelphia’s notorious Eastern State Penitentiary in the mid-20th century had one gleam of light in their hard lives.
Within the prison walls stood a synagogue, a tiny room created from exercise yards by volunteers from Philadelphia’s Jewish community who believed that Jewish convicts should be able to practice their faith, regardless of their crimes.
The synagogue was built in 1924 and was used until the prison closed in 1970. It was then abandone
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 27, 2009
The Prime Minister will today hold his first meeting with Cristina Kirchner, the Argentinean President, at a conference in Chile.
Mrs Kirchner was elected with a pledge to gain the sovereignty of the islands more than 25 years after Argentina staged an unsuccessful invasion.
Source: Reuters
Mar 27, 2009
An Italian archaeologist says she has discovered what is believed to be the oldest site of religious worship in Cyprus, a temple which is about 4,000 years old.
The find at the Pyrgos-Mavroraki site close to the southern city of Limassol predates any other discoveries in Cyprus by about 1,000 years, Italian archaeologist Maria Rosaria Belgiorno said.
"This is the first evidence of religion in Cyprus at the beginning of the second millennium BC," she was quoted
Source: Independent (UK)
Mar 27, 2009
His name is immortalised in modern Italian as the word for a public urinal, but tomorrow that humiliation will be forgotten as Rome sets about throwing a massive party for the Emperor Vespasian's 2,000th birthday. Naturally enough, the celebratory bash – which takes the form of a 10-month exhibition – is focused on the building for which he is most famous, the Colosseum.
By far the largest amphitheatre the ancient Romans built, it is capable of holding at least 50,000 and perhaps a
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Mar 27, 2009
A five-year-old British hostage made to pose alongside Saddam Hussein in the run up to the first Gulf War, has been reunited with U.S. civil rights campaigner the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who helped secure his eventual release.
The haunting images of a clearly terrified Stuart Lockwood clad in a football top and stood before the Iraqi dictator, who playfully ruffled the child's hair, provoked outrage and consternation across the West.
Mr Lockwood, now 24, his brother and
Source: BBC
Mar 27, 2009
Downing Street said the scrapping of the ban on heirs to the throne marrying Roman Catholics was also discussed.
Mr Brown said people expected discrimination to be removed and Tory leader David Cameron backed the reform.
Meanwhile a BBC poll suggests public support for reform, with 80% wanting equal succession rights for women.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 26, 2009
US President Barack Obama will travel to France on June 6 to attend commemorations of the Second World War D-Day landings....
Mr Obama will travel to the Normandy coast for events marking the 65th anniversary of the allied invasion, said President Nicolas Sarkozy's chief of staff, Claude Gueant.
Source: US News & World Report
Mar 26, 2009
First ladies are always the subject of fascination. Their experiences often illustrate the evolving roles of women in our society, and they are usually an essential part of the governing team at the White House. Most first ladies have taken on special projects that reflect their core values, such as highway beautification for Lady Bird Johnson and the promotion of reading for Laura Bush. Michelle Obama is emulating her predecessors, with a difference. Her signature initiative--improving the live
Source: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk
Mar 26, 2009
A perfectly preserved Nazi bunker which withstood bombardments by RAF planes and the British Army has been uncovered in northern France.
Described as a “military historian's Aladdin's cave”, it includes a German .47 mm Pak 32 field gun which was used throughout the Second World War.
Source: AP
Mar 26, 2009
The Alabama Legislature has passed a resolution honoring black lawmakers who served during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War.
The resolution by Democratic Rep. Alvin Holmes of Montgomery says black Alabama residents played an integral part in the Legislature from 1868 to 1878. At the height of Reconstruction in 1874, there were 33 blacks in the Legislature.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 26, 2009
Gordon Brown has opened talks with Buckingham Palace on removing the 308-year-old law which bars members of the Royal Family from marrying Roman Catholics.
Source: Reuters
Mar 26, 2009
Four centuries after the lure of Venezuelan gold brought ruin to English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, the riches at one giant mine some say is cursed still haunt treasure hunters from across the globe.
Located south of the Orinoco river and near a town bearing the name of the mythical golden city of El Dorado, the Las Cristinas deposit captivates miners and prospectors even though no ore has been legally dug there in two decades.
Studies show it may be Latin America's t
Source: CNN
Mar 26, 2009
Former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has no illusions about the 2008 White House race.
"Over 50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin - mostly for Sarah Palin," McCain said to an eruption of laughter. But "there was a sizable majority of the other party returned to Congress. And, elections have consequences. Elections have consequences. And these consequences we are seeing now in full display."
McCain described himself as &
Source: IHT
Mar 26, 2009
A member of the American team that negotiated to remove the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic from power in 1996 said that he was never promised immunity from prosecution as part of a deal to step down, contradicting several accounts cited in an article on Sunday in The New York Times.
Philip S. Goldberg, who was part of the team led by Richard C. Holbrooke, issued a statement saying that "at no time during the negotiations in Belgrade or elsewhere in the region was an immun
Source: AP
Mar 26, 2009
Two Jewish groups have denounced a Pat Oliphant political cartoon on Gaza as anti-Semitic, likening its fanged Star of David to Nazi imagery before the Holocaust.
The syndicated cartoon published Wednesday in newspapers across the country depicts a goose-stepping uniformed figure wheeling the Jewish symbol as it menaces a small female figure labeled "Gaza."
The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish rights group with more than 400,000 members in t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 26, 2009
More than 77 million ancestry records, including the family histories of David Beckham, Britney Spears and JK Rowling, have been put online.
The London Historical Records 1500s-1900s features details of the capital's citizens such as Oliver Cromwell and William Blake.
Josh Hanna, senior vice president of Ancestry.co.uk, which is hosting the records, said: "We estimate that half of Brits will be able to find an ancestor in this collection, which pre-dates civil regi
Source: Independent (UK)
Mar 26, 2009
The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, angered critics of the Iraq war yesterday when he indicated that a long-awaited inquiry into the planning and execution of the conflict, promised by the Prime Minister, would be held behind closed doors.
He told MPs that the inquiry would be approved "as soon as practicable" once most British combat troops had returned home at the end of July. He admitted there were "important lessons to be learnt" from how the campaign was
Source: Times (UK)
Mar 26, 2009
Flowers are placed in front of the Freedom monument in Riga, the Latvian capital, right, to commemorate the people who were deported to Siberia in 1949.
On the 60th anniversary of the start of the mass deportations carried out by the Soviet Union under Stalin, memorial services were held in the Baltic republics to commemorate tens of thousands sent to Siberia in an effort to eradicate opposition to the communist takeover of their countries.
The repression, launched on
