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: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 4, 2008
Thousands of illegitimate mixed-race children fathered by American GIs were given up by their British mothers and shipped across the Atlantic, according to newly released papers.
The issue of how to deal with the unwanted offspring of the illicit affairs divided the country towards the end of the Second World War and exposed the racial prejudices of the time.
It was considered so serious that there were dire warnings it could harm Anglo-American relations and the Govern
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 4, 2008
The final resting place of three German U-boats, nicknamed "Hitler's lost fleet", has been found at the bottom of the Black Sea.
The submarines had been carried 2,000 miles overland from Germany to attack Russian shipping during the Second World War, but were scuttled as the war neared its end. Now, more than 60 years on, explorers have located the flotilla of three submarines off the coast of Turkey.
Source: http://www.journal-news.net
Feb 3, 2008
HARPERS FERRY — Four states and four counties have begun preparations to commemorate the 2009 sesquicentennial anniversary of abolitionist John Brown’s raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
On the evening of Oct. 16, 1859, Brown led a group of abolitionists on a six-mile march from the Kennedy Farm in Washington County, Md., across the railroad bridge into Harpers Ferry and seized control of the town in order to steal weapons from the old federal armory so they could be used in the
Source: http://www.shreveporttimes.com
Feb 3, 2008
The question of the month's relevance could be ended with a look at how children are educated, said John E. Fleming, director emeritus of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, which has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.
"All they have to do is look at school textbooks and curriculums and see that African-American history is not a major part of what's being taught in school today, in 2008," he said. "If you survey young people about Afr
Source: WaPo
Feb 3, 2008
THE STORY BEHIND THE CONTENTIOUS STRUGGLE TO GET THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL BUILT can be told by piecing together information from hundreds of sources: books, memoirs, historical newspapers, academic and architectural journals, the Congressional Record, a doctoral thesis, letters and other documents.
An attempt to create a national monument honoring Lincoln in Washington two years after his assassination in 1865 had foundered. Lingering divisions over the Civil War precluded further talk
Source: AP
Feb 3, 2008
The figure in the photograph is clad in Army fatigues, boots and helmet, lying on his back in peaceful repose, folded hands holding a military cap. Except for a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, he could be asleep.
But he is not asleep; he is dead. And this is not just another fallen GI; it is Ernie Pyle, the most celebrated war correspondent of World War II.
As far as can be determined, the photograph has never been published. Sixty-three years afte
Source: NYT
Feb 3, 2008
EARLY in the last century, Argentina was one of the world’s 10 richest countries. Its fabled beef and other farm exports were building an industrial economy. In 1928, it had more cars than France and more telephone lines than Japan. The dream of its Spanish founders — to transform a wild land tucked near the bottom of the world into a great country of European culture and education inhabited by white-skinned people — was coming true.
But those days are deep in the past. As the Argen
Source: NYT
Feb 3, 2008
SOMETIMES the simplest of arguments can reveal the deepest of divisions. Take the dispute between Senator Barack Obama and the Clintons over the legacy of Ronald Reagan. The episode began in Reno, Nev., you will recall, when Mr. Obama told an editorial board that Mr. Reagan was a president of ideas who had moved the country’s politics. His ideas weren’t necessarily good ideas, as Mr. Obama framed it, but they were transformative.
That may sound like a straightforward statement of hi
Source: NYT
Feb 3, 2008
More than six decades after the end of World War II, the families of men like Joe Huba are making a new push to find and bring home the remains of their missing and dead. After years when survivors accepted the solace of mass memorials and unknown-soldier graves, a younger generation is seeking something much more personal.
The relatives are spurred by strides in DNA matching, satellite mapping and Internet archives, and by a new advocacy group impatient with the pace of the militar
Source: WaPo
Feb 3, 2008
It fell to Mike Turpen, a former Oklahoma attorney general, to warm up the crowd, and he did so with gusto. "Bill Clinton!" he shouted to several thousand people gathered in the McCasland Field House at the University of Oklahoma. "He gave us eight years of peace and prosperity! Do you remember?"
In case they didn't, the former president bounded onstage, took the microphone and spent some of the next hour reminding them: He balanced the budget and paid down the n
Source: http://www.sabanews.net
Feb 2, 2008
A specialized Turkish team in archeology will visit Yemen on Tuesday for counting the rest of castles, fortresses, mosques, military facilities and Turkish baths built in Yemen with Turkish experiences.
General manger of International Cooperation and Connection in the Ministry of Culture Jamal Mu'ajam told Saba that the team, consisting from three professors in Ankara University, would arrive during this week and will cooperate with specialists form General Organization for Antique
Source: http://www.abc.net.au
Feb 2, 2008
Thousands of people are gathering in the Russian city of Volgograd to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the end of one of the most crucial battles of World War II.
The Battle of Stalingrad saw more than 2 million Soviet and German soldiers desperately fighting in the snow and mud for six months.
The Germans eventually surrendered in a battle that not only changed the course of the war but helped forge Russians' sense of who they were and who they continue to be.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 2, 2008
A fifth of British teenagers believe Sir Winston Churchill was a fictional character, while many think Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur and Eleanor Rigby were real, a survey shows.
The canvass of 3,000 under-twenties uncovered an extraordinary paucity of basic historical knowledge that older generations take for granted.
Despite his celebrated military reputation, 47 per cent of respondents dismissed the 12th-century crusading English king Richard the Lionheart as fictional
Source: NYT
Feb 2, 2008
Growing up in the palest of Chicago suburbs, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had some of her earliest exposures to African-Americans through field trips. She sat in the back of her father’s Cadillac as he detoured through the inner city, cautioning her about the fate of people who, in his conservative Republican view, lacked the self-discipline to succeed.
She took a sociology course at Wellesley College that included a trip through Boston’s poor areas. On Tuesdays, she went to a hou
Source: AFP
Feb 1, 2008
HANOI (AFP) — Vietnam on Friday marked 40 years since the Tet Offensive with colourful military parades of its veterans and re-enactments of the surprise wave of urban assaults that marked a turning point in the war.
Communist Party leaders and military chiefs watched as former guerrillas and regular soldiers filed past Ho Chi Minh City's Reunification Palace, formerly the presidential palace of the US-backed Saigon regime ousted in 1975.
Youths in black Viet Cong pajamas with mode
Source: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com
Feb 1, 2008
Memories of the epic 26-day-and-night battle for the Hue Citadel 40 years ago that helped convince the world that the American occupation of southern Viet Nam was doomed might have faded.
But not for Hoang Thuc Bao.
The much-decorated old soldier was there and this is his story.
It was at 4 pm sharp on the eve of the Lunar New Year on January 28,1968, when the force received their order to start their task: To liberate the Hue Citadel, he said.
Source: ABC News
Feb 1, 2008
Dozens of German words have for decades been taboo for native speakers because of the way those words were used by the Nazis.
Now, an 800-page dictionary has been published to serve as a guide to avoiding linguistic traps into which Germans can easily fall.
Terms such as "endloesung" (final solution) or "selektion" (selection) can quickly get the user into trouble, because the words acquired specific meanings and associations during the Third Reich.
Source: AP
Feb 1, 2008
A New York City lawmaker's plan to regulate antique firearms like other weapons could have severe economic repercussions for museums and historical societies around the state and prevent hundreds of living history events and re-enactments staged every year.
If passed in its current form, the proposal by Democratic Assemblyman Michael Gianaris of Queens would make the state the first in the country to require owners of antique guns, black powder weapons and muzzleloading firearms to
Source: AP
Feb 1, 2008
The National Archives wants a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit seeking quick access to records about a health care task force Hillary Rodham Clinton headed as first lady, or delay the release for about a year.
Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group, has complained in a lawsuit that the National Archives isn't moving fast enough on its April 2006 request to see the documents. The archives says Judicial Watch is trying to jump ahead of those who made earlier requests u
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Feb 1, 2008
On January 29, 2008, President Bush issued Executive Order 13457 “Protecting American Taxpayers From Government Spending on Wasteful Earmarks.” Executive Order 13457 could have a real impact on funding for specific historical sites and programs, research and archival projects, and colleges and universities since they are often times the beneficiaries of congressional earmarks.The executive order follows through on the threat the President made during his State of the Union a
