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
Sep 19, 2008
FORT MORGAN, Ala. — When the waves from Hurricane Ike receded, they left behind a mystery -- a ragged shipwreck that archeologists say could be a two-masted Civil War schooner that ran aground in 1862 or another ship from some 70 years later. The wreck, about six miles from Fort Morgan, had already been partially uncovered when Hurricane Camille cleared away sand in 1969.
Researchers at the time identified it as the Monticello, a battleship that partially burned when it crashed tryi
Source: Sydney H. Schanberg at the Nation Institute website
Sep 18, 2008
John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a
Source: NYT
Sep 18, 2008
A 14,600-acre piece of the Adirondacks long prized by environmentalists for its forests and wetlands, including a pond where Ralph Waldo Emerson led a “philosophers’ camp,” was purchased on Thursday by a preservation group for $16 million, the group said.
The property, which had been owned by a Vermont family for 56 years, will not immediately be open to the public because of leases for recreational hunting and fishing that will last several more years. But the group, the Nature Con
Source: Reuters
Sep 18, 2008
Four giant, graffiti-covered slabs of the Berlin Wall could fetch as much as 3,000 euros ($4,350) each at an auction Friday, a Berlin auction house said Thursday.
The four 2.8-tonne [6,200-pound] chunks of the wall that once divided Communist East Berlin and capitalist West Berlin are pieces of German history, said Hans Peter Plettner, spokesman for Deutsche Grundstuecksauktionen AG.
Even though much of the Berlin Wall was quickly broken up ground down for road construc
Source: AP
Sep 18, 2008
A French museum has found a previously unknown piece of music handwritten by Mozart, a researcher said Thursday. The 18th century melody sketch is missing the harmony and instrumentation but was described as an important find.
Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, said there is no doubt that the single sheet was written by the composer.
"This is absolutely new," Leisinger said in a telephone intervie
Source: BBC
Sep 18, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI has defended the actions of predecessor Pius XII during World War II, saying the pontiff spared no effort to try to save Jews.
Pius XII has long been accused by Jewish groups and scholars of turning a blind eye to the fate of the Jews.
Pope Benedict said that Pius had intervened directly and indirectly but often had to be "secret and silent" given the circumstances.
Pope Benedict said he wanted prejudice against Pius to be ove
Source: BBC
Sep 18, 2008
The federal archive in Berlin has for the first time compiled a list of some 600,000 Jews who lived in Germany up to 1945 and were persecuted by the Nazis.
The names and addresses, which took four years to compile, will be made available to Holocaust groups to help people uncover the fate of relatives.
By the time of the Nazis' defeat, only some 20,000 Jews remained in Germany, most in displaced persons camps.
Six million Jews across Europe were murdered
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 18, 2008
Horrible Science writer Nick Arnold has spent years tracing the location of the Battle of Cynuit in 878.
A Saxon army routed an invading force of Vikings which besieged them in a fortress in North Devon or Somerset, the site of which has been the subject of speculation.
England's ruler, Alfred the Great was not present in person at the battle in which the Saxons were led by an Alderman named Odda.
King Alfred later routed a second, larger Viking Army at
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 18, 2008
A total of 548 British and Dutch PoWs were machine-gunned when the Suez Maru, the Japanese "Hell Ship" transporting them, was sunk by an American torpedo attack in the Flores Sea off Indonesia in November 1943.
According to a statement made by the Japanese ship's commander, attempts were made by a minesweeper to rescue the PoWs, but they could not be reached in time.
However, six years later a crew member admitted the truth, and was backed up by the ship's p
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 18, 2008
A replica of the cross was worn around the neck by the then Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey as a symbol of his office.
But the cross, which was found in a grave within the area of the small Roman city at Shepton Mallet in Somerset, is almost certainly a fake.
Scientists at Liverpool University, who conducted tests using new technology, have concluded that they are "99 per cent" certain the cross or amulet does not date from Roman times.
The re
Source: International Herald Tribune
Sep 18, 2008
Will future historians write about the Great Depression of the 2000s as they did about the one in the 1930s? The world's central bankers sought to answer "no" Thursday - resoundingly, though not definitively.
With a huge infusion of cash, the U.S. Federal Reserve, joined by its fellow central banks around the globe, unleashed their most forceful volley of financial firepower yet. The goal was to persuade a convulsing banking system that there will be no shortage of money
Source: International Herald Tribune
Sep 18, 2008
If the experience of Japan is any guide, the U.S. Federal Reserve's
plans to accept equity as collateral for loans will have little impact on
the credit crisis and may even erode the central bank's influence over
markets.
While the Bank of Japan tinkered with its collateral policy, the
government spent public funds to replenish the capital of debt-laden
banks, and that is what ultimately helped pull Japan out of its crisis,
analysts said.
The United States, by contrast, has
Source: http://www.alligator.org
Sep 18, 2008
The future seemed sturdy for 34 historic sites in St. Augustine that
needed renovation after UF announced plans to take the buildings under its
wing July 2007.
However, with the state’s shrinking budget, UF hasn’t been able to fulfill
that offer and probably won’t be able to anytime soon.
“The price tag to take care of these buildings is sort of daunting,” said
Catherine Culver, marketing and events coordinator for St. Augustine’s
Department of Heritage Tourism.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Sep 18, 2008
A $2-million donation to the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education will assist the organization in beginning work to store video testimonies of Holocaust survivors in a searchable Internet archive that will be available to the public, the foundation announced today.
Source: AP
Sep 18, 2008
Federico Garcia Lorca's family won't oppose the opening of a mass grave where his body is believed to have been dumped after Franco supporters allegedly executed the poet and playwright at the outbreak of Spain's Civil War, a leading daily said Thursday.Last week, relatives of two other men believed to be buried in the same grave asked National Court judge Baltasar Garzon to order the grave opened. The request is part of a surging nationwide movement to give proper burial to
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 18, 2008
A rare Saxon relic found by a metal detector enthusiast, who at first thought it was a milk bottle top, is expected to fetch between £10,000 and £15,000 at auction next month. The 9th-century gold pointer, known as the Yorkshire Aestel, was found by Tim Pearson, an amateur treasure hunter, at Aughton, South Yorkshire, in 2005. The hollow cast pointer would have been used by monks as an aid to reading manuscripts. According to the auctioneers Bonhams, King Alfred (871-99) commissioned several aes
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 18, 2008
The whereabouts of The Nancy, which sank off the western shores of the Isles of Scilly in 1784, has long remained a mystery.
The loss of the ship was all the more tragic because on board was Ann Cargill, a famous 18th century opera singer who was returning from India with her illegitimate child.
Her body - still clutching the baby - was recovered and then buried, but the wreck of the The Nancy was never traced.
A total of 49 people were on board the London
Source: NYT
Sep 17, 2008
The federal and New York State governments have agreed to become anchor tenants in the Freedom Tower, the tallest, most symbolic and most scrutinized skyscraper project at ground zero, under a plan announced today by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City and the governors of New York and New Jersey.
Source: Spiegel Online
Sep 17, 2008
Linz is to be Europe's Capital of Culture in 2009. Before the Austrian city takes on that mantle it is showing an exhibition about how Hitler had wanted to make Linz a "Culture Capital for the Führer."
Linz is taking on a lot. On New Year's Eve the Austrian city will kick off a three-day opening festival with fireworks and drum rolls, to celebrate its year as Europe's 2009 Capital of Culture. Under the direction of Martin Heller, it's planning an intensive program of exhib
Source: Bloomberg News
Sep 17, 2008
The remains of two outsized earthenware pots, a
ditch and evidence of a gate dating back more than 3,000 years are
changing scholars' perceptions about the city of Troy at the time Homer's
``Iliad'' was set.
The discoveries this year show that Troy's lower town was much bigger in
the late Bronze Age than previously thought, according to Ernst Pernicka,
the University of Tubingen professor leading excavations on the site in
northwestern Turkey.
His team has uncovered a trench
