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: Times (UK)
Jan 24, 2009
He is one of Britain’s best-known historical figures, famed for his exploration of the New World, controversial romantic liaisons and the chivalrous act of placing his jacket over a puddle so that Queen Elizabeth I’s feet would not get wet.
Much less known is Sir Walter Raleigh’s kinship with a young black boy from Guyana, whom he brought back with him from the Americas and who became ensconced in the explorer’s household, according to newly discovered records.
Centurie
Source: Open Democracy
Jan 24, 2009
As the twentieth anniversary of the end of communism in Poland approaches, polls estimate that around 44% of Poles have come to approve of his move against the Solidarity movement while only 32% are critical. The general himself invariably claims that his decision was motivated by fear that the Soviet Union would invade Poland - thus crushing far more than Solidarity. His critics argue that Moscow wouldn't have invaded and have Soviet documents to back their case. The Russians, relieved that th
Source: NYT
Jan 24, 2009
In reality the Kennedys ceased long ago to be the nation’s “first” political family. For most of the last two decades the Clintons have dominated the Democratic Party as its power couple. And in scorekeeping terms the Republican Bushes have set a new standard for monopolizing high office — their string of victories now includes three presidential terms, two vice-presidential ones and a pair of governorships in two politically important states (Florida and Texas).
By contrast, the Ke
Source: New York Times
Jan 24, 2009
The Army has decided to cut off retirement pay for veterans of a militia formed to guard the territory of Alaska from the threat of Japanese attack during World War II.
The change means 26 surviving members of the Alaska Territorial Guard — most in their 80s and long retired — will lose up to $557 in monthly retirement pay, a state veterans officer said this week. The payments end Feb. 1.
The state is pursuing a remedy for “these brave Alaskans, who did so much for the
Source: BBC
Jan 24, 2009
The film Valkyrie tells the story of an attempt on Hitler's life by an army colonel, Claus von Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise. In Germany the question whether it does justice to the German Resistance is being fiercely debated, as Dan Payne discovered.
In an opinion poll in 1956, only 20% of people agreed with the idea of naming a school after Stauffenberg.
Speaking to me at an exhibition on the Colonel's life in Stuttgart's Altes Schloss, Dr Dowe said it was an unc
Source: Foxnews
Jan 24, 2009
At times, ever since he left the White House in defeat 28 years ago, Carter's freewheeling, freelance diplomacy has put him squarely at odds with his successors. While other ex-presidents have rode off into the sunset to enjoy, for the most part, quiet retirements, Carter has stayed busy writing best-selling books, conducting his own foreign policy and winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his work.
His supporters hail him as a hero and his critics deride him as self-righteou
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 24, 2009
Science historians Adrian Desmond and James Moore have compiled compelling new evidence which reveals Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery and this was the moral impetus behind his work.
Private notes and letters uncovered by the pair reveal that Darwin's opinions on slavery were far stronger than had previously been believed.
Notebooks from his five year voyage on HMS Beagle, during which Darwin first began to form his famous theories on natural selection, deta
Source: Telegraph(UK)
Jan 24, 2009
About 60 mortar rounds from the Second World War have been discovered under the American embassy in the Philippines.
The last thing workers digging in the grounds expected to discover, therefore, was a huge cache of bombs buried in the embassy's grounds.
The Philippine capital, Manila, was the scene of terrible fighting at the end of the Second World War, when American forces tried to liberate the country from Japanese occupation.
The rusted, mud-covered r
Source: Telegraph(UK)
Jan 24, 2009
Sir Walter Raleigh, the famed explorer of the Americas, adopted a native boy he brought back to England from his travels, it has emerged.
Parish records show that Sir Walter brought a young, black boy with him from Guyana when he returned to England following one of his voyages of discovery.
A baptism register discovered in the London Metropolitan Archives shows that the boy was baptised in the Parish of Saint Luke, in Chelsea, on February 13, 1597.
The
Source: BBC
Jan 24, 2009
The Pope has lifted the excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church of four bishops appointed by a breakaway archbishop more than 20 years ago.
One of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's appointees, Briton Richard Williamson, outraged Jews by saying the Nazi gas chambers did not exist.
Israel's envoy to the Vatican said the papal decision would "cast a shadow on relations with Jews".
The Vatican said the excommunications had been lifted after the b
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Jan 24, 2009
Veterans of British nuclear bomb testing in Australia have no evidence to prove their health problems were caused by the radioactive blasts, a London court heard.
Lawyers for the British Ministry of Defence told the High Court that claims about how the veterans had suffered a variety of illnesses since the tests more than 50 years ago were not backed up by solid medical evidence.
More than 800 veterans have gone to the High Court in the hope they will be given the go-ah
Source: Fox 13 (Tampa)
Jan 23, 2009
TAMPA – The massive Confederate flag that flies over the intersection of Interstate 4 and Interstate 75 has been raised again after coming down for repairs.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans took it down to fix wind damage.
They say they hope to have it lit up during Super Bowl week, but they say the lights are not installed yet.
The NFL said whether the flag is up during Super Bowl week or not is a private matter.
"The NFL does not have ju
Source: AP
Jan 23, 2009
A full federal appeals court won't hear a lawsuit by three Tennessee students threatened with suspension if they wore Confederate flag T-shirts.
A three-judge panel ruled in August that Blount County, just south of Knoxville, could ban the clothing. On Friday, the judges denied a request for a hearing by the full federal appeals court in Cincinnati.
Source: Spiegel Online
Jan 23, 2009
It's no secret: Munitions dating from the Second World War are buried under the airfield at Tegel Airport and could pose a threat to planes veering off the runway. Berlin's Senator for Urban Development, Ingeborg Junge-Reyer said work on cleaning up the remaining grenades and bombs will start in the spring, the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper reported on Friday.
The excavation work is to bring the airport in line with standards from the United Nation's International Civil Aviation Org
Source: AP
Jan 23, 2009
The Vatican's relations with Jews risked a new crisis Friday after an excommunicated British bishop — reportedly in line for rehabilitation — said that historical evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed" during World War II.
Two Italian newspapers reported Thursday that Pope Benedict XVI planned to lift the excommunication of Richard Williamson and three other bishops punished for having been consecrated without papal consent 20 years ago
Source: National Security Archive
Jan 23, 2009
When the 9/11 hijackers crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S. nuclear bomb squad was out of the country on its first foreign deployment since 1998, at a British air base in the Cotswolds, according to the new book "Defusing Armageddon" and key primary sources posted today in the National Security Archive's Nuclear Vault by Archive senior fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson.
The after-action report from that deployment, "DOE EXERCISE 03-01 JACKAL CAVE,
Source: AP
Jan 23, 2009
Impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tells The Associated Press that his Dec. 9 arrest on corruption charges "is what Pearl Harbor Day was to the United States."
"It was a complete surprise, completely unexpected. And just like the United States prevailed in that, we'll prevail in this," he said in an interview today in Chicago, outside the office of one of his attorneys.
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Blagojevich is acc
Source: BBC
Jan 23, 2009
A man thought to be the last surviving Irish fighter of the International
Brigade in the Spanish Civil War has died at 93.
Bob Doyle, who died in London on Thursday, fought on the Aragon front
during the war for the pro-government republicans against the
nationalists.
He was captured by Italian fascists at Calaceite in March 1938 and
imprisoned in the San Pedro prison camp.
He also served in the British merchant navy during World War II.
Source: BBC
Jan 23, 2009
Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January is an occasion for Jews and Roma (Gypsies) to remind the world how their families were terrorised and butchered by the Nazis in World War II.
The Roma people of Vlasca - traditional metal workers called Kalderash - are closed and inward-looking. They are reluctant to talk to anyone from outside the community.
Historians often call it "the forgotten Holocaust". Up to 500,000 Roma are believed to have died in mass shootings
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 23, 2009
A murder mystery involving royal intrigues and an eccentric scientist with a golden nose could be resolved after 400 years when researchers open the tomb of Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer, in the light of new evidence that he was murdered by a contract killer.
Archeologists are waiting for permission to open the tomb in the Tyn Cathedral, one of the landmarks of the Old Town in Prague. Brahe, the first astronomer to describe a supernova, in 1572, is also famous for his incredib
