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: Barack Obama in a specch, "A New Strategy for a New World"
Jul 15, 2008
Sixty-one years ago, George Marshall announced the plan that would come to bear his name. Much of Europe lay in ruins. The United States faced a powerful and ideological enemy intent on world domination. This menace was magnified by the recently discovered capability to destroy life on an unimaginable scale. The Soviet Union didn't yet have an atomic bomb, but before long it would.
The challenge facing the greatest generation of Americans - the generation that had vanquished fascism
Source: AP
Jul 15, 2008
A janitor whom a university official had accused of racial harassment for reading a historical book about the Ku Klux Klan on his break has gotten an apology — months later — from the school.
Charles Bantz, chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, apologized to Keith John Sampson in a letter dated Friday, saying the school is committed to free expression.
"I can candidly say that we regret this situation took place," Bantz wrote.
Source: Bloomberg News
Jul 15, 2008
Looking at Talaat Harb Square in central Cairo, it is hard to
imagine that British lords and Egyptian princes once mingled there with
songstresses and movie stars; that ladies strolled in sun dresses and men
in linen suits gambled away nights and fortunes in elegant casinos.
These days, unemployed youths shout vulgar catcalls at female shoppers
walking past crumbling facades. Vendors on potholed sidewalks peddle
Chinese-made T-shirts. Legless beggars grab the ankles of passers-by for
Source: CNN
Jul 15, 2008
- There were 56 men who put quill to parchment during the Summer of Independence in 1776.
On July 2, the Continental Congress voted to declare American independence.
On July 4, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.
But it wasn't until August 2 that the delegates began to sign the official, inscribed document.
Most of the signers would be unrecognized today, even if they turned up on the TV show "Dancing with the Stars."
Source: CNN
Jul 15, 2008
Susan Atkins, a terminally ill former Charles Manson follower, has been denied a compassionate release from prison, the California Board of Parole Hearings said Tuesday on its Web site.
Atkins, 60, has been diagnosed with brain cancer and has had a leg amputated, her attorney said. In June, she requested the release, available to terminally ill inmates with less than six months to live.
The board's decision came after a public hearing on Atkins' request. It means the re
Source: NYT
Jul 15, 2008
In its glory days, the United States Navy destroyer John Rodgers was among the most decorated warships of World War II. Now, hull rusting and big guns whitened by bird droppings, the abandoned destroyer finds itself in what could be its final battle, one that could turn the historic ship into a museum or, alternatively, a heap of scrap.
The John Rodgers was one of the 175 Fletcher-class destroyers, which shepherded aircraft carriers and provided withering cover fire during amphibiou
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 15, 2008
For hundreds of years, citizens of the Roman Empire watched chariots tear around the famous racetrack in what was the Formula One event of its time.
Now the historical society, Vadis Al Maximo (To the Maximum), is in talks with city officials to bring the event back – with perhaps slightly less blood and carnage as depicted in the film, Ben Hur.
Franco Calo, of Vadis Al Maximo, said: "The event would last three days, starting on October 17, at the same period whe
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jul 15, 2008
Palaeontologists have unveiled an extraordinary prehistoric 'flying' reptile which lived 235 million years ago.
The kuehneosaurs glided through the subtropical forests of Europe using scaly 'wings' that could carry it distances of more than 30ft.
Experts say the lizard-like reptile, which grew up to 2ft long, used extensions of their ribs to form large gliding surfaces on the sides of their body.
The scientific community is united in the belief that birds d
Source: WaPo
Jul 15, 2008
From San Salvador to Budapest to Washington: The tides of memory and forgetting swept into the El Salvador Embassy on 16th Street NW the other day, transporting ghosts.
Mounted on the walls, their faces peer from postcards of a desperate time -- identity papers, manually typed in great haste, accompanied by glued-on family snapshots, all scanned and enlarged like inscrutable posters for our inspection 64 years later.
One incongruity stands out. You can't help wondering
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 15, 2008
The Vatican has asked for the exhumation of the body of the Church of England's most renowned convert to Roman Catholicism as part of his progression towards sainthood.
The Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman was buried in a small cemetery in August 1890 and Rome now wants his remains to be moved to a marble sarcophagus in the Birmingham Oratory.
The move, which is expected to take place by the end of the year, would enable people to pay tribute to him more easily and
Source: http://www.pittsburghlive.com
Jul 15, 2008
James Adovasio's latest archaeological expedition to find the first
Americans will require little digging.
Still, the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute director will have to reach
depths of several hundred feet.
Adovasio plans to co-lead a two-week expedition in the Gulf of Mexico at
the end of the month to look for evidence of early American Indians along
the ancient coast of Florida, now about 300 feet underwater, Mercyhurst
College in Erie announced Monday.
"We have t
Source: AFP
Jul 15, 2008
Tensions flared Tuesday on Cambodia's border with
Thailand, as a Thai soldier was injured by a landmine and about 100 Thai
troops were held near an ancient temple in a territorial dispute.
Officials in both countries called the incident a misunderstanding that
occurred after the soldiers went to fetch three Thai protesters arrested
earlier in the day for jumping an immigration checkpoint to reach the
Preah Vihear temple.
But later a Cambodian government spokesman said the Thai
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jul 15, 2008
Geneticists in Germany on Monday marked the 75th anniversary of the "Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases Act," by condemning the euthanization of thousands of handicapped people during the Third Reich.The forced sterilization and euthanasia program developed as a consequence of the "law to prevent hereditary diseased offspring," which was enacted on July 14, 1933 and was based on the controversial theory that one could improve the human race th
Source: BBC
Jul 15, 2008
Former SS doctor Aribert Heim is still likely to be alive in Chile, a director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has said at the end of a five-day mission.
Efraim Zuroff said he was convinced people knowing the whereabouts of the 94-year-old Nazi could be found.
"A person this age cannot live on his own," said Mr Zuroff.
Heim tortured and killed prisoners in Mauthausen concentration camp in World War II, but fled Germany in 1962 before authorities were abl
Source: The Times (UK)
Jul 15, 2008
The good news for two villagers in the Söse valley of Germany yesterday was that they have discovered their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-gr
Source: Moscow Times
Jul 15, 2008
The British chose Winston Churchill; the Americans chose Ronald Reagan; and the South Africans chose Nelson Mandela.
Now Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and Tsar Nicholas II, the country's last monarch, are running neck and neck in a contest sponsored by state-run Rossia television called "Name of Russia," a Russian version of the BBC show "Great Britons" aimed at selecting the country's most significant historical figure.
As of 9 p.m. Monday, more tha
Source: Slovak Spectator
Jul 14, 2008
SLOVAKIA’S heritage received a welcome boost when eight rare wooden churches were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List on July 7. The churches join six other Slovak sites already on the list.
The World Heritage Committee added two Roman Catholic churches, three Protestant churches, and three Greek Catholic churches built between the 16th and 18th centuries.
The Roman Catholic churches are in Hervartov and Tvrdošín; the Protestant churches are in Kežmarok, Hronsek and
Source: Science Daily
Jul 14, 2008
The site of the ancient hippodrome course
in Olympia, where the emperor Nero competed for Olympian laurels, has been
discovered. The hippodrome was discovered in Olympia by a research team
that included Professor Norbert Müller (a sports historian from Mainz), Dr
Christian Wacker (a sports archaeologist from Cologne) and PD Dr Reinhard
Senff (chief excavator of the German Archaeological Institute - DAI."This discovery is an archaeological sensation," commented Norbert Müller
of the Joha
Source: Denver Post
Jul 14, 2008
The Rev. Jesse Jackson linked Sen. Barack Obama's viability as a presidential candidate to a civil-rights struggle that began with a fight to desegregate schools a half century ago.
In a half-hour talk during Sunday services at Denver's Friendship Baptist Church of Christ Jesus, Jackson walked attendees through 54 years of civil-rights history that made it possible for both Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., to mount serious presidential campaigns.
Jackson
Source: NYT
Jul 14, 2008
Gaffes have commanded presidential campaign headlines lately, including Carleton S. Fiorina’s remarks on Viagra and health insurance, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s vulgar criticism of Senator Barack Obama. Peter G. Peterson wants people to focus on what he considers real news: the nation is going broke.
Because he wasn’t born yesterday, Mr. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group and a secretary of commerce under President Richard M. Nixon, will spend $1 billion in an effort to
