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: AP
Feb 7, 2009
Two hundred years after the birth of Abraham Lincoln, we still seek him in words and in action, in lessons from his life, in reminders of his legend — and in pilgrimages to the temple built in his honor.
We are drawn to the Lincoln Memorial in so many ways.
Protesters stand among hundreds of thousands as civil rights are invoked, or peace demanded; the great, godlike head looks on from above as if nodding in approval. Barack Obama makes a surprise appearance just days b
Source: NYT
Feb 7, 2009
WHEN the world entered the digital age, a great majority of human historical records did not immediately make the trip.
Literature, film, scientific journals, newspapers, court records, corporate documents and other material, accumulated over centuries, needed to be adapted for computer databases. Once there, it had to be arranged — along with newer, born-digital material — in a way that would let people find what they needed and keep finding it well into the future.
Th
Source: BBC
Feb 7, 2009
Ever since the papers hit the news-stands here in Germany in January, there has been a bout of national soul-searching about the country's Nazi past.
Jewish groups and commentators have questioned the project's historic value, claiming that the reprints of the Nazi-era newspapers will play into the hands of far-right groups who could use the papers for their own propaganda purposes.
The authorities in the state Bavaria went one step further and announced that they wou
Source: IHT
Feb 7, 2009
In his first weeks in office, President Barack Obama has dismantled many environmental policies set by the Bush administration. But in some areas he will be building on the work of his predecessor, rather than taking it apart.
But even those who view his environmental record most harshly acknowledge that he also took significant action. He improved air quality, gave renewable energy a large financial boost, left behind the largest marine sanctuaries ever established and started a di
Source: Newsweek
Feb 7, 2009
Ever since their 444 days spent in captivity, from November 1979 to January 1981, Bruce Laingen and John Limbert's names have been preceded by the words "Iran hostage," a grim honorific that's emblematic of the suffering and frustration that have marked U.S.-Iranian relations.
Laingen was the highest-ranking U.S. diplomat in Tehran when revolutionaries stormed the embassy. Limbert, a Persian speaker and former Peace Corps volunteer, was an English teacher at the time who l
Source: NYT
Feb 7, 2009
In her first weeks in the White House, Mrs. Obama has been the gracious hostess and loyal spouse, welcoming visitors to the Executive Mansion and accompanying President Obama to a prayer breakfast and to a charter school to read to second graders. But in a departure from her predecessor, Mrs. Obama has also begun promoting bills that support her husband’s policy priorities.
Last month, Mrs. Obama celebrated the enacting of a pay-equity law with a reception for women’s advocates at t
Source: BBC
Feb 7, 2009
"The new Russian journalism first lost its modesty, then its innocence."
The words of Alexei Simonov, a Russian media freedom campaigner, sound like an epitaph for "glasnost", the spirit of openness encouraged by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, which accelerated the collapse of communism.
Mr Gorbachev's nemesis - Boris Yeltsin - got re-elected in 1996 with the help of powerful businessmen, whose media told voters that it w
Source: AP
Feb 7, 2009
When you think of Abraham Lincoln, you think of ... Idaho?
As the nation prepares to commemorate the Feb. 12 bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, Western states that didn't exist until after Lincoln's 1865 assassination, much less his 1809 birth near Hodgenville, Ky., are grabbing a piece of the famous birthday.
Problem is, the connection between the architect of the Emancipation Proclamation and the nation's post-Civil War states is sometimes thin. In Idaho, for example, o
Source: Reuters
Feb 7, 2009
The burden of endless public engagements must be exhausting yet they have fulfilled them for 57 years with dignity and without complaint. Their stamina, workload, and composure are remarkable.
There was only a slight drop in the number of engagements last year from 440 to 417 carried out by the Queen even though at 82, she is at an age when most women would have been retired for 20 years. The Duchess of Cornwall, 61, carried out 220 compared to the Duke of Edinburgh, who at 87, perf
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 7, 2009
Three decades after Iran's Islamic Revolution, activists who took part in the events that saw the Shah toppled – and which ushered in an era of unrelenting hostility to the West – despair at how their dreams have been so little realised.
Now, as Iran prepares to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its revolution on Tuesday, many of those who ran through the streets of Tehran in 1979 are disappointed with the results.
As students, their behaviour shook the world, bringing
Source: AFP
Feb 7, 2009
A bishop under fire for denying the Holocaust wants to examine the historical evidence before any possible renunciation of his belief that not a single Jew died in Nazi gas chambers, a report said.
"If I find proof I would rectify (earlier statements)... But all that will take time," Bishop Richard Williamson was quoted as saying by the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel.
The British-born bishop denied the existence of the gas chambers in an interview with Swe
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 6, 2009
The US-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan are being undermined by intelligence failures, according to a study of the two wars.
Commanders in the field are being overwhelmed by contradictory information and are often unwilling to share intelligence among allies, according to the confidential report.
It points to an example of Dutch pilots in Afghanistan who bombed targets on US orders, but were refused access to US "battle damage assessments" on what they
Source: Discovery Channel
Feb 6, 2009
Nuns and priests sacrificed their own lives to provide medical care for the poor in Renaissance France, according to a new study that implicates exposure to contagious plague victims in the deaths of several religious order members.
The study is among the first to find that plague, a deadly bacterial disease also known as "the Black Death," can be quickly and accurately identified in ancient human remains.
Several recently identified women who died after car
Source: MSNBC
Feb 6, 2009
Nuns and priests sacrificed their own lives to provide medical care for the poor in Renaissance France, according to a new study that implicates exposure to contagious plague victims in the deaths of several religious order members.
The study is among the first to find that plague, a deadly bacterial disease also known as "the Black Death," can be quickly and accurately identified in ancient human remains.
Several recently identified women who died after carin
Source: National Geographic
Feb 6, 2009
The oldest known human hairs could be the strands discovered in fossil hyena poop found in a South African cave, a new study hints.
Researchers discovered the rock-hard hyena dung near the Sterkfontein caves, where many early human ancestor fossils have been found.
Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9,000-year-old Chilean mummy.
The sizes and shapes of the coprolites and their location suggest they came from brown hyenas, which still live
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 6, 2009
The foot-wide stone was found by Hartlepool pensioner Connie Lofthouse, 79, after she recognised it from a programme charting its history and disappearance.
In 1989 it disappeared from a knoll near the Glenfinnan Monument at the head of Loch Shiel. There, on 17 August 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie raised a 16ft-high standard on the stone to rally his troops to march on Edinburgh.
In 1990 Mrs Lofthouse was given the stone while living in Kentallen near Glencoe. Two years l
Source: Spiegel Online
Feb 6, 2009
Berlin paid tribute Thursday to the last person shot trying to cross the Berlin Wall. Chris Gueffroy died in a hail of bullets as he tried to flee East Germany on the night of Feb. 5-6, 1989. He was the last person to fall victim to the East German policy of shooting people trying to flee across the Berlin Wall -- although more were to die trying to escape from East Germany before the borders were opened on Nov. 9, 1989.
Gueffroy's mother, Karin Gueffroy, lit a candle to her dead so
Source: Spiegel Online
Feb 6, 2009
What was it he had seen? A fire burning on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific? The next day, the captain of the Duke, an English buccaneer ship, sent an armed party to the island to investigate. When the men returned to the ship, they brought along two surprises: large numbers of spiny lobsters and a shaggy creature.
The figure that climbed on board the Duke on Feb. 2, 1709 was apparently human, but wild as an animal, barefoot and covered in goatskin. The creature, extremely
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Feb 6, 2009
Imagine a time when Seattle had far more trees than people -- if you can.
It was 1909, a year of optimism, when women were poised to get the vote in Washington, and the harsh realities of World War I and the Great Depression were years away.
In the heady post-Gold Rush boom years, civic leaders decided it was time to put Seattle on the map. The plan: Stage the city's first world's fair. The global bash -- the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition -- aimed to attract more resi
Source: WaPo
Feb 6, 2009
The mutton chops and top hat, the powdered white curls and wooden teeth.
How could a child not be fascinated by iconic presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln?
The life history and legacy of the first and 16th presidents are American classroom staples that never go out of style. "Their exploits as young men have appeal for children of all ages," says Jonathan Brand, high school history teacher and headmaster of Chelsea Academy in Front Royal, Va. &quo
