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
Mar 25, 2008
Oakland Cemetery is a quiet place where people gather for memorials one day and weddings the next, where workers picnic among gravestones and neighbors turn wandering brick paths into jogging trails.
But this resting place of governors, Confederate generals, "Gone with the Wind" author Margaret Mitchell and golf legend Bobby Jones looks anything but peaceful now.
The March 14 tornado that swept through Atlanta blazed a path right through the cemetery, uprooting towe
Source: http://www.cphpost.dk
Mar 25, 2008
The raccoon population in Denmark is widely believed to have originated from two pairs of raccoons let loose in the wild by a leading Nazi officer in 1934
The growing population of raccoons is threatening the nation's wildlife. And what most people don't know is that this invasive species originates from Germany with a murky past linked to a prominent Nazi officer, reported Berlingske Tidende newspaper.
Source: AP
Mar 25, 2008
The names of some 3.5 million people displaced after World War II have been provided to Holocaust memorial groups and museums in the United States, Israel and Poland by a recently opened archive of Nazi-era documents.
The International Tracing Service of the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday that it had handed over a third round of digitally copied documents to the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Warsaw-b
Source: History Today
Mar 25, 2008
The subspecies of lions kept in the Royal Menagerie are now extinct in the wild, according to new research on skulls found at the Tower of London. Research by scientists from the Natural History Museum and the University of Oxford found the big cats kept since medieval times were Barbary lions. The remains were found in the moat in the 1930s and then stored at the London museum; one dates from between 1280 and 1385. Richard Sabin, curator at the Natural History Museum, stated: ‘We’ve not known u
Source: http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk
Mar 25, 2008
MUNDANE household objects were used by our distant ancestors to honour their dead according to an expert from Chester University.
Combs, tweezers and razors were among the distinctive artefacts used by the Anglo-Saxons.
According to new research conducted by an international expert at the University of Chester, the popular perception that the early Anglo-Saxons would mark death with grandiose gestures is untrue.
Source: BBC
Mar 25, 2008
A timber circle dating back 4,000 years which was found in the sea off the Norfolk coast is to return to the county in a permanent display.
Seahenge, with 55 oak posts and a central upturned stump dating from the Bronze Age, was found emerging from a beach at Holme-next-the-Sea in 1998.
Timbers were studied at the Bronze Age Centre, Peterborough, then preserved at the Mary Rose Trust, Portsmouth.
Next month Seahenge will go on display at the Lynn Museum in
Source: http://www.post-trib.com
Mar 25, 2008
One of the only vehicles known to have been used by Martin Luther King Jr. will start its journey back home to Memphis, Tenn., today after a long and storied journey to Indiana.
The car, a white 1966 Lincoln Continental with a black top, has been restored so thoroughly that it probably could be driven all the way to the National Civil Rights Museum.
But Rich Fortner, who has spent the last eight months toiling over, cursing at and loving the car, isn't taking any chance
Source: Science Daily
Mar 25, 2008
Corn has long been known as the primary food crop in prehistoric North and Central America. Now it appears it may have been an important part of the South American diet for much longer than previously thought, according to new research by University of Calgary archaeologists who are cobbling together the ancient history of plant domestication in the New World.
In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U of C PhD student Sonia Zarrillo and archaeolo
Source: CNN
Mar 25, 2008
A Finnish tourist was detained after allegedly stealing a piece of volcanic rock from one of the massive Moai statues on Easter Island.
Marko Kulju, 26, faces seven years in prison and a fine of $19,100 if convicted of stealing pieces of the right earlobe from a Moai, one of numerous statues carved out of volcanic rock between 400 and 1,000 years ago to represent deceased ancestors.
Source: BBC
Mar 25, 2008
A Welsh society in America wants a plaque reinstated marking the supposed arrival of a prince in the US three centuries before Columbus.
Some claim Prince Madoc ap Owain was one of the first Europeans on North American soil when he landed at Mobile Bay, Alabama, in around 1170.
A plaque marking the legend that Welsh was passed on to native Americans went up in the 50s but has now been removed.
The Alabama Welsh Society has begun a petition calling for it to
Source: BBC
Mar 25, 2008
The UK's first dedicated World Heritage Centre has been officially opened in the south Wales valleys.
First Minister Rhodri Morgan opened the £2.7m visitors' centre on the site of a once rundown school in Blaenavon.
The former ironworks town in Torfaen won world heritage status in 2000 and the council estimates £40m has since been spent on regenerating the town.
The town has been transformed and Mr Morgan said the special status had proved a catalyst for regenera
Source: AP
Mar 25, 2008
Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" last week when saying she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996. She later characterized the episode as a "misstatement" and a "minor blip."
The Obama campaign suggested the statement was a deliberate exaggeration by Clinton, who often cites the goodwill trip with her daughter and several celebrities as an example of her foreign policy experience.
Source: BBC
Mar 25, 2008
An attempt to persuade Lerwick Sheriff Court that the Shetland Islands are not legally part of Scotland has been postponed until next month.
Stuart Hill, 65, planned to argue that the islands were only passed from Denmark to the Scots crown in the 15th-century as security for a debt.
Mr Hill is the defender in a civil action but will argue that Scots law has no jurisdiction over him.
He believes Shetland was only on long-term loan to Scotland.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 25, 2008
Restrictions on public buildings flying the Union flag are to be lifted under Gordon Brown's plans to boost Britishness.
Ministers are expected to publish a white paper which will include proposals to allow schools, hospitals and council buildings to fly the flag all year round.
Legislation dating from 1924 means public buildings can only fly the Union flag 18 days a year, including the Queen's birthday and Remembrance Day.
The white paper proposes to allow
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 25, 2008
Nicolas Sarkozy will address a rare joint gathering of MPs and peers in Parliament this week surrounded by dramatic images of two of France's greatest military defeats at the hands of the British.
The French president, who is visiting London on Wednesday, will speak in the Royal Gallery. The room is dominated by two large frescoes that stretch along opposite walls, one of Trafalgar, the other of Waterloo.
While not expected to embarrass the president, photographs of his
Source: http://www.newsobserver.com
Mar 24, 2008
A copy of the Bill of Rights stolen from the state Capitol during the Civil War now officially belongs to the people of North Carolina, state Attorney General Roy Cooper said today.
Superior Court Judge Henry W. Hight Jr. issued an order today that ended all remaining claims to the document. Hight declared that North Carolina owns its original copy of the Bill of Rights, Cooper's office said in a news release.
The judgment ended a lengthy legal battle by the state for o
Source: http://www.wdbj7.com
Mar 24, 2008
The mission of the National Civil War Chaplains Museum in Lynchburg is to educate the public about the role of chaplains, priests, rabbis and religious organizations in the Civil War.
The museum helps preserve religious artifacts and shows the influence religion had on the lives of political and military personnel.
With a number of paintings and other period artifacts, the Civil War Chaplains Museum has a lot of great things to display just not enough space to display i
Source: Baltimore Sun
Mar 24, 2008
Two days after the last shots of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War were fired here, a 16-year-old neighborhood boy named John H. Rosensteel walked onto the battlefield to help bury the dead.
There he found the body of a Confederate soldier, a boy about his own age, and picked up a rifle lying near him. The rifle was the first item in what would become the largest private collection of Gettysburg relics, as well as a family legacy.
Since that day in July 1863, Rosens
Source: AP
Mar 24, 2008
A treasure hunter wants permission to dig in a state forest in northern Pennsylvania for a cache of gold he says was lost by a Union convoy transporting it to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia during the Civil War.
The legend has circulated for decades about the half-ton of lost gold - worth about $20 million at today's prices.
Dennis Parada says he believes he has found the site of the missing treasure in an Elk County state forest and is fighting to get state permission to dig
Source: http://www.christianpost.com
Mar 24, 2008
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made clear this past weekend that he is an atheist after European news agencies last week claimed that he had confirmed his Christian faith during a visit to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi in Italy.
Gorbachev, the last communist leader of the Soviet Union, confronted speculations that he had been a closeted Christian during an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax.
"Over the last few days some media have been diss
