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
Jan 28, 2008
NEW YORK - A state archivist was charged Monday with stealing hundreds of artifacts — documents representing "the heritage of all Americans," according to the history buff who found some of them on eBay — to pay his household bills.
Daniel Lorello, 54, is accused of taking the rare items from the New York State Library, including Davy Crockett Almanacs, Currier and Ives lithographs and the 1865 railroad timetable for Abraham Lincoln's funeral train. Authorities believe he
Source: AP
Jan 28, 2008
A long-time state archivist was accused on Monday of stealing hundreds of historic artifacts and documents from the New York State Library, including two Davy Crockett Almanacs, and selling some on eBay.
Daniel Lorello, 54, an archives and records management specialist in the state Education Department since 1979, was arraigned Monday on charges of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and scheme to defraud.
He was released on his own recognizance and
Source: AP
Jan 28, 2008
A cottage three miles from the White House in which Abraham Lincoln likely paced the floors while contemplating the end of slavery was until now largely unknown to the public.
Few District-area residents knew it was still standing on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, and tourists searching for Lincoln sites in the nation's capital were far more likely to stop at the Lincoln Memorial or Ford's Theatre, where the 16th U.S. president was assassinated.
But in
Source: WaPo
Jan 28, 2008
On a rainy day 52 years ago, the cover was blown on one of the biggest espionage plots of the Cold War. Soviet and East German forces announced that they had found a quarter-mile-long tunnel that the CIA had burrowed into East Berlin as part of a massive wiretapping operation.
Though the audacious project had come to a crashing end, news of the discovery generated unrestrained glee across the Atlantic at CIA headquarters. America's spymasters were thrilled by the world's response: a
Source: BBC
Jan 28, 2008
Women who worked the land during World War II to keep Britain supplied with food and timber can now apply for a badge commemorating their efforts.
The badge is the first official recognition of the contribution made by members of the Women's Land Army (WLA) and the Women's Timber Corps (WTC).
Members of the WLA - also known as the Land Girls - and the WTC have campaigned for recognition for decades.
Ex-Land Girl Hilda Gibson, 83, said the badge was a "
Source: NYT
Jan 28, 2008
In the countdown to President Bush’s final State of the Union address, there are strong signals that it will be reminiscent in some ways of the speech given by his father 16 years ago.
President Bush is certain to focus on the economy on Monday night, reiterating his faith in Americans’ enterprise and work ethic, arguing for a short-term shot in the arm and repeating his call for low taxes as a permanent way of life. Mr. Bush believes deeply in Americans’ “keeping more of their hard
Source: NYT
Jan 28, 2008
With those words, Senator Hillary Clinton cracked open a door and a dust-up blew in. She was referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and although she set her remarks in a historical continuum that took in three presidents as well as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., her critics suggested that she had favored President Lyndon B. Johnson’s role over Dr. King’s.
But in the several weeks since, history books have been cracked, archives searched. And Americans have been reminded th
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Jan 27, 2008
History was one of Gordon B. Hinckley's passion. He lived it. He read it. He engaged it.
No other LDS president so balanced his attachment to the past with his devotion to the future.
During his nearly 13-year tenure at the top of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Hinckley oversaw the building of temples in Palmyra, N.Y., where the church was founded in 1830 and in Winter Quarters, Ill., where the Mormons rested for a season before beginning their lo
Source: Boston Globe
Jan 27, 2008
The grounds of the Paul Revere House, Boston's oldest building and a historic Colonial landmark, are getting an examination. But there will be no probing; the procedure is noninvasive.
Using a technology called ground penetrating radar, Allen Gontz, an assistant professor of environmental, earth, and ocean sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, began a series of soil tests at the North End site on Tuesday. He is looking for gas lines, water pipes, and deep features l
Source: AP
Jan 27, 2008
BLITAR, Indonesia - Hiding out in the dense, humid jungle, Markus Talam watched Indonesian soldiers herd manacled prisoners from trucks, line them up and mow them down with round after round of automatic weapons fire.
It was 1968, and the killings were part of a final offensive by forces under Gen. Suharto to wipe out the communist party and secure his position as leader of Indonesia, now the world's most populous Muslim nation.
"They gunned them down and dumped th
Source: Boing Boing
Jan 27, 2008
The Canadian National Post looks on with mild horror as American linguists report on the growing trend in the American south to use "Canadian" as a masking euphemism for black people, so that white racists can say socially inappropriate things without tipping listeners off about the cancer in their souls.
Source: Boston Globe
Jan 27, 2008
General John Glover does not appear in major history textbooks, and he is not usually mentioned in discussions about the Revolutionary War. But the Marblehead native has long been revered by town residents as an important cog in the country's fight for independence.
"He's really an unsung hero," said Kevin Stirnweis of Marblehead, captain of the 14th Continental Regiment, a reenactors' version of the outfit Glover oversaw from 1759 to 1782. "He really came to [George]
Source: NYT Magazine
Jan 27, 2008
Why do presidential candidates touting their concern for the economy pose with factory workers rather than with ballet troupes? After all, the U.S. now has more choreographers (16,340) than metal-casters (14,880), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More people make their livings shuffling and dealing cards in casinos (82,960) than running lathes (65,840), and there are almost three times as many security guards (1,004,130) as machinists (385,690). Whereas 30 percent of Americans worked
Source: AP
Jan 27, 2008
Erich Kaestner, believed to be the last German veteran of World War I, died Jan. 1 in Cologne. He was 107.
No organization keeps track of remaining veterans in Germany, and his death was not in the news until last week. It was confirmed Friday by his son, Peter.
“That is the way history has developed,” the son told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “In Germany, in this respect, these things are kept quiet — they’re not a big deal.”
Source: AP
Jan 26, 2008
Saddam Hussein allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction to deter rival Iran and did not think the United States would stage a major invasion, according to an FBI interrogator who questioned the Iraqi leader after his capture.
Saddam expected only a limited aerial attack by the United States and thought he could remain in control, the FBI special agent, George Piro, told CBS's "60 Minutes" program in an interview to be broadcast Sunday.
&
Source: NYT
Jan 26, 2008
It was a lofty idea: formulate a British “statement of values” defining what it means to be British, much the way a document like the Declaration of Independence sets out the ideals that help explain what it means to be American.
Because of the peculiarities of its long history, Britain has in modern times never felt the need for such a statement. But in an era of decentralized government and citizens who tend to define themselves less by their similarities than by differences of r
Source: NYT
Jan 26, 2008
The New York Police Department produced a detailed analysis in 1998 opposing plans by the city to locate its emergency command center at the World Trade Center, but the Giuliani administration overrode those objections. The command center later collapsed from damage in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
“Seven World Trade Center is a poor choice for the site of a crucial command center for the top leadership of the City of New York,” a panel of police experts, which was aided by the Sec
Source: NYT
Jan 26, 2008
Appraisal forms, import applications, reference materials. To that usual array of tools a museum might harness in assessing donated artifacts, some museums in Southern California appear to have added one more, according to investigators’ affidavits: a wink and a nudge.
Affidavits related to search warrants executed at four Southern California museums on Thursday say that staff members at two of the four museums worked closely with the main targets of the investigation, visiting a s
Source: http://www.titusvilleherald.com
Jan 25, 2008
On Friday afternoon, Titusville High School revived a scene from the city's history 69 years ago, when investigative journalist Ida Tarbell and historian and author Dr. Paul Giddens were invited to the school by the Titusville Historical Society Jan. 25, 1939, for a dinner in their honor.
THS faculty, staff and students used articles printed about the evening in 1939 editions of The Titusville Herald to help recreate the finer details of the dinner -- from who was in attendance to t
Source: BBC
Jan 25, 2008
A campaign has been launched to build a permanent memorial to a bear which spent much of its life in Scotland - after fighting in World War II.
The bear - named Voytek - was adopted in the Middle East by Polish troops in 1943, becoming much more than a mascot.
The large animal even helped their armed forces to carry ammunition at the Battle of Monte Cassino.
