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: Times (UK)
Feb 1, 2008
Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is"morally ambiguous," a leading educational body recommends.
History and citizenship lessons should stick to the bare facts rather than encouraging loyalty to Britain when covering subjects such as the Second World War or the British Empire, the Institute of Education researchers said. Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be dow
Source: Palm Beach Post
Feb 1, 2008
The Seminoles were expecting a battle.
They cut down grass so they'd have a better view of the enemy and made notches in trees, to keep their guns steady.
"They lured them into a crossfire," Seminole historian Willie Johns said of the Indians' target, some 1,000 U.S. soldiers who arrived Christmas Day 1837, at the north end of Lake Okeechobee.
The ensuing battle - involving about 400 Seminoles - was the largest and bloodiest fight of the Second Se
Source: AP
Feb 1, 2008
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The bronze medallion embedded in the pavement behind the Commercial Bank of Texas is easy to overlook. About the size of a DVD, it barely registers as a bump for the cars pulling into the drive-thru window.
But it is there — engraved with the name of the space shuttle Columbia and the date five years ago Friday that the spacecraft exploded over the skies of eastern Texas.
The metal disc serves as a quiet tribute to the spot where a piece of the shut
Source: Bloomberg News
Jan 31, 2008
Argentina's navy identified a wreck off the coast of Buenos Aires province as the Ussukuma, a Nazi supply vessel that sank after an encounter with British warships in the early days of World War II.
The Ussukuma, scuttled by its crew in December 1939 after leaving the port of Bahia Blanca, was probably transporting food, fuel and explosives for German warships, according to Argentine historian Carlos De Napoli, who helped identify the wreck.
Source: Daily Mail
Jan 31, 2008
No one can accuse the Germans of ignoring the horrors of the past. So concerned have they become about a lack of knowledge of the Holocaust among children that they are distributing a new book in schools depicting their country's genocide in an easily accessible graphic novel.
The "comic book" format is seen as the best way to get a whole new generation of teenage children to confront the most dreadful period of their nation's history.
The book - entitled The Search
Source: http://www.thebostonchannel.com
Jan 31, 2008
A centuries-old ship washed ashore on a Wellfleet beach after Sunday's storm on Cape Cod, according to a published report.
The 19th-century schooner could be seen south of Newcomb Hollow Beach on Tuesday, the Cape Cod Times reported. It's not clear when the ship sunk, but it's the largest shipwreck to wash up or be uncovered since a similar ship appeared on a beach in Orleans about 10 years ago, according to William Burke of the National Park Service.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 31, 2008
A lost city at the bottom of the ocean contains chemical traces that suggests it could have been the cradle of life on Earth.
Some believe the right ingredients for life made their way from outer space. Darwin thought it emerged in a "warm little pond" and others have looked for answers on the sea floor.
Now evidence to back the latter submarine idea has emerged from the "Lost City" which lies at a depth of 2,600 feet, where creamy white to grey spir
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Jan 31, 2008
It is not often that the announcement of a lieutenant colonel's retiring makes it into the pages of The Washington Post. But then again, it is not often that an Army officer is the subject of a lengthy New York Times Magazine profile or the author of an acclaimed history, Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam (University of Chicago Press, 2005), to say nothing of a contributor to the widely discussed The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Fiel
Source: NYT
Jan 31, 2008
CERRITOS, Calif. — Robert Olson hardly looks like the head of a smuggling ring specializing in Asian antiquities.
On Wednesday morning, barefoot, dressed in a white T-shirt and stained, fraying black slacks, with receding white hair and a gap where his lower front teeth should be, Mr. Olson, 79, still appeared stunned that a dozen federal agents showed up early one morning a week ago to search his apartment here in this suburb southeast of Los Angeles.
The agents took f
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 31, 2008
Elected politicians from Germany’s far right NPD party have refused to stand and honour the victims of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party.
The German dictator became Chancellor 75 years ago on Wednesday, and many small ceremonies of remembrance for the millions killed by the Nazis were held across the nation.
But in the parliament building of the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, six members of the NPD, or National Democratic Party, refused to take part in a
Source: History Today
Jan 30, 2008
Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes have been scattered at sea on the 60th anniversary of his death. His great-granddaughter, Nilamben Parikh, was at the ceremony off the coast of Mumbai with ten other relatives of the Indian political leader. The 75-year-old Ms Parikh stated: ‘This is a day for deep thought. This day will help us think how to move forward.’ The ashes were scattered about 1km from the shore, 60 years after Gandhi was assassinated on January 30th, 1948 by a Hindu fanatic. After his cremation,
Source: http://www.aftenposten.no
Jan 30, 2008
Most Norwegian high school students (65 percent) don’t know who Pol Pot was or what the Gulag means (64 percent). A new survey shows Norwegian 15-20-year-olds are sorely lacking in their knowledge of 20th-century history.
Over a quarter of the students polled couldn’t even identify Mao Zedong, while 75 percent had never heard of "The Great Leap Forward".
The survey, carried out under the auspices of Norwegian "think tank" Civita (
Source: Ascribe
Jan 30, 2008
The Library of Congress and the Foundation Center, in a joint partnership, have recently compiled a new web-based fundraising guide to help the preservation community save the nation's millions of at-risk artifacts for future generations.
The guide, "Foundation Grants for Preservation in Libraries, Archives, and Museums," is available for free download at the Library of Congress web site: http://www.loc.gov/preserv/ .
Source: Dallas Morning News
Jan 30, 2008
A group of Methodists is stepping up efforts to force a church vote in July on whether Southern Methodist University has the right to lease out land for the George W. Bush Presidential Library and policy institute.
A regional mission council of the United Methodist Church gave SMU permission in March to lease out part of the campus for the library. SMU remains in exclusive negotiations for the complex. As part of those negotiations, school and church officials said, SMU requested a
Source: AP
Jan 30, 2008
An archaeological dig in downtown Berlin has uncovered evidence that the German capital is at least 45 years older than had previously been established, authorities said Wednesday.
During excavation work last week in the Mitte district, archaeologists uncovered a wooden beam from an ancient earthen cellar, said Karin Wagner of the city-state's office for historical preservation.
It was in exceptionally good condition, having lain under the water table for centuries, and
Source: BBC
Jan 30, 2008
A team of archaeologists from the University of Exeter has found a Roman fort dating from the 1st Century AD in fields in Cornwall.
Several items of pottery have been excavated and a furnace which may have been used to smelt minerals.
Researchers said the find at Calstock, close to a silver mine, could show for the first time the Romans' interest in exploiting Cornish minerals.
Source: WaPo blog
Jan 30, 2008
There's more to Sen. Edward Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama than meets the eye. Apparently, part of the reason why the liberal lion from Massachusetts embraced Obama was because of a perceived slight at the Kennedy family's civil rights legacy by the other Democratic presidential primary frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Sources say Kennedy was privately furious at Clinton for her praise of President Lyndon Baines Johnson for getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act
Source: Scott W. Johnson at frontpagemag.com
Jan 30, 2008
Charles Enderlin is the France 2 Jerusalem correspondent who broadcast the incendiary account of the death of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura at the hands of Israeli troops operating in the Gaza Strip in September 2000. Based on film footage provided by a Palestinian cameraman, Enderlin's report has become infamous among students of Arab propaganda both for its destructive effects and for its probable falsity. The al-Dura affair now bids to join the Dreyfus affair in the French hall of shame.
Source: AP
Jan 30, 2008
A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected an alleged Nazi death camp guard's challenge to a final deportation order by the nation's chief immigration judge.
A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled there was no basis to John Demjanjuk's challenge of a December 2005 ruling that he could be deported to his native Ukraine or to Germany or Poland.
Source: Jim Al-Khalili at the website of the Guardian
Jan 30, 2008
[Jim Al-Khalili is a professor of physics at the University of Surrey; he is the 2007 recipient of the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Prize.]
Watching the daily news stories of never-ending troubles, hardship, misery and violence across the Arab world and central Asia, it is not surprising that many in the west view the culture of these countries as backward, and their religion as at best conservative and often as violent and extremist.
I am on a mission to dismiss a c
