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: Spiegel Online
Mar 9, 2009
Erika Steinbach is a hated figure in Poland. She has dedicated her career to documenting the suffering of Germans expelled from Eastern Europe following World War II. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke to her about the most recent flare up in Berlin-Warsaw relations and about what Poles must still learn about history.
Source: NYT
Mar 9, 2009
The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.
Source: AP
Mar 9, 2009
LONDON — The Bard, or not the Bard? That is the question posed by Monday's unveiling of a centuries-old portrait of a dark-eyed, handsome man in Elizabethan finery.
Experts say it is the only portrait of William Shakespeare painted during his lifetime — in effect, the sole source of our knowledge of what the great man looked like.
But they can't be certain. In the shifting sands of Shakespeare scholarship, where even the authorship of the plays is sometimes disputed, no
Source: BBC News
Mar 9, 2009
Archaeologists believe they have unearthed the remains of Shakespeare's first theatre, the BBC has learned.
A team from the Museum of London found the remains of the theatre in Shoreditch last summer.
Built in 1576, it is thought the Bard acted there and that it also hosted the premiere of Romeo and Juliet...
Taryn Nixon, from the Museum of London, said her team had found part of the original curved wall of the playhouse, which was believed to be polygonal
Source: Newsweek
Mar 9, 2009
In 1930, few people thought political turmoil in Germany was the most significant event in the world—not with a global Depression underway. Only the year before, in the German national elections of 1929, Adolf Hitler had still been regarded as "something of a joke, a minor figure from a fringe far-right group" whose Nazi Party managed to win just 2.6 percent of the vote and 12 seats in the Reichstag, Liaquat Ahamed writes in his magisterial new history, "Lords of Finance." Bu
Source: The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Mar 9, 2009
Nearly 200 years ago, a ship sank in the Gulf of Mexico, about 35 miles off Louisiana's coast. It stayed, undiscovered, on the seabed, about 4,000 feet below the surface, until 2002, when a crew happened upon the wreckage while checking out a pipeline.
An expedition led by Texas A&M University found no skeletal remains and nothing to indicate the vessel's name, where it came from or how it sank. But underwater sleuths discovered plenty of artifacts, including a telescope, potte
Source: IHT
Mar 9, 2009
Security forces in central Tibet have increased patrols and border vigilance in advance of a sensitive anniversary to guard against possible disruptions caused by followers of the Dalai Lama or by Western groups advocating Tibetan independence, according to state news agency reports Monday. Meanwhile, a police car and a fire engine were attacked with homemade explosives in a Tibetan area on Monday, but no one was wounded.
The announcement of the increased patrols came one day before
Source: Azzaman
Mar 9, 2009
The Iraq Museum has received 531 archeological pieces which were in the possession of senior
government officials.
The pieces were handed over to the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Qahtan al-Jibouri who in turn
gave them to the Iraq Museum, according to the ministry's spokesman Abdulzahara al-Talaqani.
Talaqani said the first batch comprising a magnificent collection of numismatic coins was returned
to the museum by Minister of National Securit
Source: AP
Mar 9, 2009
Experts know of about a dozen Civil War-era shipwrecks off the Texas coast. They might have just identified another.
Contractors searching for debris from Hurricane Ike near Galveston Island took a sonar scan of what the Texas Historical Commission believes is a previously undiscovered ship carrying cotton that sank in 1864.
The Carolina, also known as the Caroline, was a privately owned merchant ship that tried to break though a federal blockade of Galveston. After be
Source: NYT
Mar 9, 2009
Calling into question the legitimacy of all the signing statements that former President George W. Bush used to challenge new laws, President Obama on Monday ordered executive officials to consult with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. before relying on any of them to bypass a statute.
But Mr. Obama also signaled that he intends to use signing statements himself if Congress sends him legislation that has provisions he decides are unconstitutional. He pledged to use a modest approa
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Mar 9, 2009
Many of the most substantive and significant documents generated by the Obama Administration to date are surprisingly absent from the White House web site.
President Obama recently ordered the reorganization of the National Security Council through a Presidential Policy Directive. But the unclassified Directive is not even mentioned on the White House web site, much less posted there. Secrecy News obtained a copy of the signed directive PPD-1 (pdf).
Another directive,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 9, 2009
Mr Patch, who is 110, was made an Officer of the French Legion of Honour in a ceremony at the nursing home where he lives in Wells, Somerset.
Presenting him with the medal, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, France's Ambassador to Britain, said Mr Patch embodied "the ultimate sacrifice made by hundreds of thousands of troops in World War I".
Mr Patch began his Army training in 1917 and was recruited in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry as a Lewis gunner assista
Source: Times (UK)
Mar 9, 2009
John Holt was a dedicated experimental physicist whose work had a deep impact on our understanding of the physics of matter at its most fundamental level and contributed to the development of the atom bomb.
He was one of the few remaining links with the momentous days of the 20th century after the discovery of nuclear fission and was later one of the pioneers of elementary particle physics research which blossomed after the Second World War.
John Riley Holt was born i
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 9, 2009
Around 1.3 million people perished in the Nazi death camp during the Second World War, but a survey of more than 1,000 secondary school pupils aged 11-16 revealed that a quarter still did not know its purpose.
Of those, about 10 per cent were not sure what it was, 8 per cent thought it was a country bordering Germany, 2 per cent thought it was a beer, the same proportion said it was a religious festival and a further 1 per cent said it was a type of bread.
Miramax and t
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Mar 9, 2009
Written to accompany his TV documentary series, it has been a bestseller for Andrew Marr.
But all unsold copies of A History of Modern Britain are being withdrawn after the BBC journalist allegedly falsely claimed in the book that a women's rights campaigner had ties to a group of militant bombers.
Publisher Pan Macmillan has issued an 'urgent' stock recall notice on the book, which has already sold around 250,000 copies.
It is believed the books will ha
Source: International Herald Tribune
Mar 9, 2009
When John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer, was selected by President George W. Bush in May 2004 to join a government board charged with releasing historical Nazi and Japanese war crimes records, trouble quickly followed.
The Abu Ghraib torture scandal was exploding, and fellow panelists learned that Yoo had written secret legal opinions saying presidents have sweeping wartime power to circumvent the Geneva Conventions. They protested that it was absurd to name Yoo, who they
Source: http://www.presstv.ir
Mar 8, 2009
Archeological studies have indicated that traces of ancient population in Iran's northern province of Mazandaran goes back 5,600 years.
“Archeological excavations and precise date recognition at the historical site of Gohar Tappeh revealed urbanism had entered the region about 4,500 years ago,” says Ali Mahforouzi, head of the excavation team of Gohar Tappeh of Mazandaran.
The discovery has also led archeologists to believe that powerful political and economic systems
Source: Foxnews
Mar 8, 2009
The Bush administration has been history for seven weeks, and most of the ex-president's senior aides from his eight years in office -- with the notable exception of Karl Rove -- have stayed largely out of public sight. But many are quietly making their mark in the private sector.
For former Vice President Dick Cheney, post-political life will revolve largely around two activities: spending time with his grandchildren and fishing in Wyoming's rivers.
On Jan. 20, Cheney
Source: http://www.capemaycountyherald.com
Mar 8, 2009
As the nation prepares to celebrate Women’s History Month in March, New Jersey women past and present give visitors and residents plenty of reasons to explore the contributions of the Garden State’s fabulous females – while exploring New Jersey.
“From historically important women to pioneering female sports figures, New Jersey has a rich history of groundbreaking women residents,” notes New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells. “Our state – and in fact, the nation – continu
Source: Boston Globe
Mar 8, 2009
In Boston, history is always just below the surface. And in Charlestown, underneath a row of genteel gardens, in the middle of a teeming city, is believed to be a mass grave containing the bones of possibly dozens of British soldiers killed in one of the most important battles in American history.
The site, part of the sprawling Bunker Hill battlefield, has been pinpointed by a curator from Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia and a Charlestown historian who are confident they know whe
