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
Jan 8, 2009
The first skeletons were unearthed by construction workers last October. A pit dug for the foundation of a new hotel in the Polish city of Malbork revealed the remains of dozens of corpses, all heaped together in what was apparently a World War II-era mass grave. But plenty of questions remained, and investigators began taking a closer look.
This week, Piotr Szwedowski, a Malbork city official, revealed what they found. "Since then, we have exhumed around 1,800 corpses,"
Source: Reuters
Jan 8, 2009
Egyptian archaeologists have found the remains of a mummy thought to be that of Queen Seshestet, the mother of a pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the 24th century BC, the government said on Thursday.
After five hours spent lifting the lid of a sarcophagus in a pyramid discovered south of Cairo last year, they found a skull, legs, pelvis, other body parts wrapped in linen, and ancient pottery, the government's antiquities department said.
Source: IHT
Jan 8, 2009
South Korea has railed for years against the Japanese government's waffling over how much responsibility it bears for one of the ugliest chapters in its wartime history: the enslavement of women from Korea and elsewhere to work in brothels serving the Japanese Imperial Army.
Now, several former prostitutes in South Korea have accused their country's former leaders of a different kind of abuse: encouraging them to have sex with the U.S. soldiers who protected South Korea from North K
Source: IHT
Jan 8, 2009
Bosnia's war crimes prosecutor indicted eight Bosnian Serbs on Thursday suspected of taking part in a massacre of more than 200 Muslims and Croats early in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
The mass killing in central Bosnia occurred on Aug. 21, 1992, as part of an early wave of ethnic cleansing as rebel Bosnian Serb forces clashed with Bosnian Croats and Muslims during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
The victims of the massacre, most of them men, were told they were bein
Source: Foxnews
Jan 8, 2009
Pin-up art — a morale-booster for troops fighting overseas during World War II — is making a comeback, or will be if a California woman has anything to say about it.
Gina Elise, 26, is bringing retro back with her third annual "Pin-Ups for Vets" calendar, which features herself in costumes and poses that were popular among America's fighting men in the 1940s. Profits from the sales of the calendars provide assistance to U.S. military hospitals.
Source: Washington Post
Jan 8, 2009
Officials at Ford's Theatre have decided not to put on permanent display the embroidered overcoat Abraham Lincoln wore the night he was assassinated in 1865.
The theater, on 10th Street NW, had wanted to exhibit the bloodstained coat in a special protective glass case in the lobby, where it would have been visible through the windows 24 hours a day. The coat, its lining embroidered with the phrase "One Country, One Destiny," was to be a signature element of the theater's
Source: Examiner
Jan 8, 2009
The remains of a Civil War soldier have surfaced at the Antietam National Battlefield in western Maryland after 146 years underground.
Battlefield Park Superintendent John Howard says a visitor happened upon some bone fragments and a uniform button near a groundhog hole in October.
The bones have been sent to the Smithsonian Institution for further analysis, but Howard says individual identification is unlikely.
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 8, 2009
German children will be obliged to visit the site of a Nazi concentration camp as part of their regular school curriculum. The move — to be introduced in Bavaria and likely to become the norm throughout the country — is in response to the almost fatal stabbing of a senior police officer by a neo-Nazi.
"We have to take a stand against this far-right octopus, this tentacled monster," said Host Seehofer, the prime minister of Bavaria, who has ordered every ministry to come u
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 8, 2009
A question mark hangs over Pope Benedict XVI's planned trip to Israel in May after Israeli officials expressed outrage over a Vatican statement comparing Gaza to a "big concentration camp".
The Pope today condemned the use of violence by both Israel and Hamas in his annual speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See. "Once again I would repeat that military options are no solution and that violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly
Source: AFP
Jan 7, 2009
A 3,000 year-old inscription discovered at a site where the Bible says David slew Goliath has been deciphered, showing it to be the earliest known Hebrew writing, Israeli archaeologists said on Thursday.
The pottery shard with five lines of text in the proto-Canaanite script that was used by Hebrews, Philistines and others in the region was discovered 18 months ago.
The writing was decrypted by Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa who "has shown this is a Hebre
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Jan 7, 2009
The end may finally be in sight to the seven-year battle historians and archivists have waged to overturn President Bush’s Executive Order 13233 of November 2001 that restricted access to presidential records. On January 7, 2009, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 35,
Source: Foxnews
Jan 7, 2009
Most of the chants [at a Ft. Lauderdale protest] were run-of-the-mill; men and women waving Palestinian flags called Israel's invasion of Gaza a "crime," while the pro-Israel group carried signs calling the Hamas-run territory a "terror state."
But as the protest continued and crowds grew, one woman in a hijab began to shout curses and slurs that shocked Jewish activists in the city, which has a sizable Jewish population.
"Go back to the oven,&q
Source: Independent (UK)
Jan 7, 2009
President Nicolas Sarkozy will raise a political and legal storm today by pronouncing a death sentence on the "examining magistrates" who have been the linchpin of the French judicial system for two centuries.
In a speech to France's highest court, M. Sarkozy will call for the abolition of the juges d'instruction created by the Emperor Napoleon in 1808, magistrates with independent, sweeping powers to investigate serious crimes ranging from murder to political corruption.
Source: National Security Archive
Jan 7, 2009
The Central Intelligence Agency did provide a copy of intelligence files relating to the Bay of Pigs to President Nixon in response to his request, an official of the National Archives and Records Administration said yesterday. He said that the statement to the contrary in Secrecy News on January 5, citing the new book "Family of Secrets," was in error.
"The CIA did not refuse the Nixon administration's request for records on the Bay of Pigs and other topics," J
Source: Los Angeles Times
Jan 7, 2009
WASHINGTON -- Millions will cram shoulder to shoulder to watch Barack Obama take the oath of office this month as the nation's 44th president, another indelible snapshot of American democracy in full display on the National Mall.
But beyond the reach of the camera's lens, the historic promenade that stretches from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol -- the place often called "America's Front Yard" -- is itself a monument to neglect.
Patches of the once-lu
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 7, 2009
A new analysis of archaeological remains could explain why evidence of ancient Greek bar rooms is so elusive.
In classical Greek plays there are many descriptions of lively drinking dens, but no remains have ever been discovered.
Clare Kelly Blazeby, from the University of Leeds, believes the reason is that ancient Greek homes doubled as pubs.
Several houses dotted around ancient Greece dating from 475 to 323BC have yielded the remains of numerous drinking
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 7, 2009
A remarkable model of a Lancaster Bomber made by a captured British pilot from blocks of wood, matches and bits of tin can has been discovered in a house clearance.
The pilot, known only as E Taylor, made the Second World War model while being held prisoner at the Stalag Luft III camp in Poland, immortalised in the film The Great Escape.
It is being auctioned together with a diary of Taylor's time in the camp, in which detailed his arrival.
Source: Foxnews
Jan 7, 2009
President Bush on Wednesday hosted a lunch for the incoming president and the three living former presidents: Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.
President-elect Barack Obama hailed a rare Oval Office gathering of all U.S. presidents as an extraordinary event on Wednesday as the current occupant, President Bush, reminded his predecessors and successor that the office "transcends the individual."
The last White House event to draw the former presi
Source: Foxnews
Jan 7, 2009
The attorney for Nazi hit man Heinrich Boere says a German court has ruled that his client is medically unfit for trial.
Maass brought charges in April against the 86-year-old Boere for the World War II murders of three men in the Netherlands when he was a member of a Waffen SS death squad that targeted civilians in reprisal killings for resistance attacks.
Though Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949 — later commuted to life imprisonment — G
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jan 7, 2009
This perfectly preserved corpse is one six that were unearthed during construction work in Turfan, farwest China’s Xinjiang region.
The bodies are believed to be officials from the Qing Dynasty – the final imperial reign from 1644, which lasted until the founding of the Republic of China in 1911.
The male corpses have long hair – measuring up to 1.7metres in length – worn in a style known as a queue.
The hairstyle was introduced to China in the early 17th
