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: http://www.fairfaxtimes.com
Aug 27, 2008
Much to the satisfaction of local history buffs, the site of the only major Civil War battle fought in Fairfax County is finally being preserved as a historic park.
Members of the Chantilly Battlefield Association, led by Chantilly resident Ed Wenzel, and other Civil War historians lobbied hard as development encroached on the battlefield little by little.
But their dream of an Ox Hill Battlefield Park will be realized with a ribbon-cutting on Sept. 1 that is expected t
Source: http://www.statesman.com
Aug 27, 2008
STONEWALL — Under blue skies, members of the Lyndon B. Johnson family and roughly 1,000 well-wishers gathered around the former president's grave and laid a wreath to mark the 100th anniversary of Johnson's birth.
"From the beginning, Lyndon Baines Johnson was big," said his daughter Lucy Baines Johnson, who said his weight at birth was estimated to be about 10 pounds.
She continued: "The fact is whether you knew him or not, we are all Lyndon Baines Johns
Source: NYT
Aug 27, 2008
History is being made in Denver, but so far it has been slipped under the carpet during prime time. One night was tailored to pay homage to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's barrier-breaking near-miss, yet there was no overt celebration of the bull's-eye: Barack Obama is poised to be the first black American presidential nominee.
Clinton told the supporters she called "the sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits" that "together, we made history," and moved many of t
Source: CNN
Aug 27, 2008
he Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery is at the center of combat between preservationists and cemetery officials.
The giant marble sarcophagus marking the location of four unknown U.S. service members from World War I to Vietnam has been battling the elements since it opened to the public in 1932. More than 70 years later, it is showing the scars, with cracks encircling it.
On its most famous inscription -- "Here rests in honored glory an American
Source: Tehran Times
Aug 27, 2008
A team of archaeologists has recently begun salvage excavation at a 3000-year-old cemetery in the ancient site of Tahluj near the village of Mirar-Kola in northern Iran.
The cemetery will be submerged under mud and water when the Alborz Dam,located in the Savadkuh region in Mazandaran Province, becomes operational.
Three graves have been discovered during the excavations at the site, which covers an area of a hectare, team director Mehdi Abedini told the Persian servi
Source: History Today
Aug 27, 2008
Events are taking place around Australia today to mark 100 years since the birth of one of the greatest sportsmen of all time. The cricketer Sir Donald Bradman, who was born on August 27th, 1908, amassed the greatest Test batting average in history (99.94) and is still revered in his home country. Australia’s major cities and the NSW town of Cootamundra, where Bradman was born, are holding functions to commemorate the day. Bradman died on February 25th, 2001, aged 92.
Source: Science Daily
Aug 27, 2008
Misinterpreted fragments of leg bones, teeth and brow ridges found in
Palau appear to be an archaeologist's undoing, according to researchers at
three institutions. They say that the so-called dwarfs of these
Micronesian islands actually were modern, normal-sized hunters and
gatherers.
Scientists from the University of Oregon, North Carolina State University
and the Australian National University have refuted the conclusion of Lee
R. Berger and colleagues that Hobbit-like little peo
Source: http://www.dailypress.com
Aug 27, 2008
First, it was simply some vandalism near Fort Huger, a Civil War park in northern Isle of Wight, that was reported to the sheriff's office on Aug. 19. The next day, a replica Civil War cannon was gone, along with a historic sign, 1st Sgt. Paul Phelps said.
So far, investigators don't have any leads, he said. The crime scene is in a remote area, so no one saw anything, he said.
Phelps said he doesn't know how someone made off with the cannon, which was behind a low red-b
Source: Telegraph
Aug 27, 2008
The image, which resembles the mother of Jesus in her traditional open-armed pose, has reportedly been causing local residents to shake and cry in wonder.
Christopher Moreau, who first spotted the tree’s markings in his neighbour’s garden in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, believes that it may have helped the health of his mother-in-law, who recently recovered from cancer.
"At first I thought I was seeing things," the 47-year-old said. "Then I went a
Source: NYT
Aug 27, 2008
The Democratic National Convention is akin to a longstanding family reunion. And eight years ago, Barack Obama was not on the guest list.
He was drained of money and confidence, fresh from a punishing defeat in a Congressional primary race here. Even the Illinois delegation did not have room at the party’s gathering in Los Angeles for Mr. Obama, then a 39-year-old lawyer, who had annoyed some state Democrats for not waiting his turn to seek a higher office.
Never mind
Source: Independent
Aug 27, 2008
A 270-year-old diary of Charles Wesley, one of the country's foremost hymn-writers, has revealed the extent of the author's depression, anxiety over his wife's miscarriage and disputes over the future of the Methodist Church founded by his brother John.
The coded diary, written between 1736 and 1756, has been decrypted by a Liverpool professor who worked on 1,000 hand-written pages for 10 years. It sheds a highly personal and human as well as religious light on the author of a
Source: Independent
Aug 27, 2008
Descendants of Sir Ernest Shackleton are trying to recruit a final explorer to help them replicate their ancestor's journey to the South Pole.
Legend has it Sir Ernest recruited his expedition members with an ad promising "small wages", "constant danger" and a "doubtful safe return".
A century later, the new team wants someone with a "relentless passion to succeed" and a supply of "good jokes". They will also hav
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 26, 2008
As Barack Obama broke off from his holiday in Martha's Vineyard to lead America in eulogising Ted Kennedy, just 10 miles away on Chappaquiddick a small wooden bridge provided a very different memorial.
Forty years ago last month, Sen Kennedy drove his car off Dyke Bridge in Chappaquiddick after a day's sailing and hard drinking with a group of married friends and young women who had worked on his brother Robert's presidential campaign.
After a carefully choreographed
Source: Time
Aug 26, 2008
The former presidential candidate tells CBS News he is sorry for not beating Bush 41 and by extension avoiding a Bush 43 presidency.
“If I had beaten the old man you’d of never heard of the kid and you wouldn’t be in this mess. So it’s all my fault and I feel that very, very strongly.”
Source: NPR
Aug 26, 2008
The first night of the Democratic convention here in Denver was about the Obama family, to be followed the next two days by the Clinton family — Hillary on Tuesday and Bill on Wednesday. But Monday's emotional moment was about the last surviving brother of the Kennedy family, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in May.
It wasn't the first time convention delegates were brought to tears by a Kennedy.
That was in 1964. Lyndon Johnson, wh
Source: AFP
Aug 26, 2008
Archaeologists have unearthed a well-preserved 1,300-year-old female mummy in a residential area of the Peruvian capital.
The woman was from the Wari culture, said archaeologist Isabel Flores, who heads work at the Huaca Pucllana, a mud-brick complex several blocks large located in the Miraflores district of Lima.
"It is an important find, because we have found over the years several tombs that have been looted, but never one that was intact," Flores told AFP
Source: International Herald Tribune
Aug 26, 2008
In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on an historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file - among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth - available to all on the Internet.
Equipped with highly powerful cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and w
Source: Telegraph
Aug 26, 2008
A 14 year legal battle over the reward for finding Italy's famous Iceman mummy is to be settled with an out of court 70,000 pound payment, it has emerged.
According to reports in the Italian media the local authorities are ready to give German couple Helmut and Erika Simon, who found the 5,000 year old mummified corpse a "generous" settlement to end the ongoing court battle.
Since his discovery in 1991 the Iceman has been subject to many legal battles with Aus
Source: AP
Aug 26, 2008
A federal judge has ordered key secret grand jury
testimony released in the atomic spy trial of Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled Tuesday regarding the testimony of
several witnesses whose sealed testimony was taken in 1950 and 1951.
He cited the needs of historians.
Federal prosecutors had already agreed to release the records of 35 of
the 45 witnesses. Hellerstein's rulings mean testimony from all but
three witnesses can be public.
Source: http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com
Aug 26, 2008
With the Democratic National Convention under way, and the Republican
National Convention soon to follow, it's natural to wonder what these two
parties are thinking of in terms of the environment in general and
national parks specifically.
Of course, earlier this year the Traveler touched on where Senators
Clinton, McCain and Obama stood on national parks in response to questions
from the National Parks Conservation Association.
At that time Senator Barack Obama said he believ
