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: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Dec 21, 2007
As we have reported since September, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) has been blocking a vote in the Senate on the “Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007″ (H.R. 1255, S. 886). On December 18, 2007, without explanation, Senator Bunning finally lifted his hold. The next day, it was expected that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would bring the bill to the floor under the Senate’s unanimous consent rule that allows non-controversial legislation to be considered on an expedited ba
Source: National Security Archive
Dec 21, 2007
Washington D.C., December 21, 2007 - On the fifteenth anniversary of the discovery of the Archive of Terror in Paraguay, the National Security Archive posted Spanish-language documents that reveal new details of how the Southern Cone military regimes collaborated in hunting down, interrogating, and disappearing hundreds of Latin Americans during the 1970s and 1980s.
The collaboration, which became officially known as "Operation Condor," drew on cross-border kidnapping, sec
Source: NYT
Dec 21, 2007
In 1998, Bill Richardson, then the United States ambassador to the United Nations, flew to Japan in search of backing for potential military strikes in Iraq.
Landing in Tokyo, he asked how a previous session, conducted by his boss, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, had gone. Not well, Mr. Richardson learned. Dr. Albright’s Japanese counterpart requested permission to smoke, she lectured him on the dangers of tobacco, and things never improved from there.
So Mr.
Source: NYT
Dec 21, 2007
There was the period last spring when Mitt Romney claimed while campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire that he had been a hunter “pretty much all my life,” only to have to admit later he had seriously hunted on only two occasions.
Then there was the endorsement Mr. Romney claimed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday that he received from the National Rifle Association while running for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, when it turned out the group had never endorsed him.
Source: AP
Dec 21, 2007
After 800 years at the bottom of the sea, a merchant ship loaded with porcelain and other rare antiques was raised to the surface Friday in a specially built basket, a state news agency reported.
The Nanhai No. 1, which means "South China Sea No. 1," sank off the south China coast with some 60,000 to 80,000 items on board, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Wu Jiancheng, head of the excavation project.
Archaeologists built a steel basket around the 100-foot v
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 21, 2007
Two chalk drawings of penguins by the explorers Captain Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton have been discovered in a basement at Cambridge University.
The priceless sketches, which date from 1904 and 1909, were probably done during the lecture tours given by the pair after they returned from their Antarctic voyages.
Source: AP
Dec 21, 2007
The last World War I veteran in Ohio, and one of only three known remaining U.S. veterans of the conflict, has died.
J. Russell Coffey was the last WWI vet in the state, according to the Veterans Affairs Department. He died Thursday at the age of 109, said the Smith-Crates Funeral Home in North Baltimore, about 35 miles south of Toledo.
Source: NYT
Dec 20, 2007
About four years ago, Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, began noticing the streaks blackening the marble facade of the Beaux-Arts main building when he walked into work each day.
Mr. LeClerc consulted experts, who told him that pollution and moisture were corroding the statuary ornament and wearing away the marble surface. Precious detail on the neo-Classical Carrère & Hastings building was disappearing, like the edges of elegant cornices and the features o
Source: NYT
Dec 20, 2007
Columbia University has decided to junk a 70-year-old atom smasher that is the nation’s oldest artifact of the nuclear era, ending weeks of internal debate and lobbying over its fate.
The machine, known as a cyclotron, sits in the basement of Pupin Hall, home of Columbia’s physics department. Covered by dust and graffiti, it weighs 30 tons and stands seven feet tall and 12 feet wide, its giant arms holding aloft a huge electromagnet that once helped guide subatomic particles and spl
Source: AP
Dec 20, 2007
The restored ruins of two opulent Roman villas and private thermal baths will open to the public Saturday, along with a 3-D reconstruction that offers a virtual tour of the luxurious residences discovered in downtown Rome.
The 19,375-square-foot complex, dating from the second to fourth centuries, features well-preserved mosaic and marble floors, bathtubs and collapsed walls that archaeologists believe belonged to a domus — the richly decorated residences of Rome's wealthy and noble
Source: http://www.dailypress.com
Dec 20, 2007
Jamestown archaeologists stepped back from months of careful digging Wednesday to show off what project director William Kelso described as one of the pioneering English fort's most complex and significant architectural features.
First uncovered in mid-2006, the puzzling dark-stained patch of ground initially resembled a nearby well so richly packed with early artifacts, it required a summer of digging to explore. But as archaeologists probed farther into the slumping soil, the feat
Source: International Herald Tribune
Dec 20, 2007
As of midnight Thursday the once contentious border between Poland and Germany will be thrown open. For the most part, it has been more whimper than bang for the fall of one of the most historically fraught and violently fought over frontiers on earth.
Traveling along the 450-odd kilometers, or about 280 miles, of the border - from the German town of Zittau in the south, where the German and Polish dividing line ends at the border of the Czech Republic, to the Polish port city of Sz
Source: AP
Dec 20, 2007
Vandals in southern Austria trashed a memorial erected in honor of victims of the Nazi regime, authorities said Thursday.
Officials said an estimated €3,000 (US$4,300) worth of damage was done to the glass memorial in the city center of Villach, which lists the names of local residents who perished in World War II.
Source: Times (London)
Dec 20, 2007
A handwritten letter in which Diana, Princess of Wales, claimed that her husband was planning to kill her was revealed in full for the first time yesterday at the inquest into her death.
Written by the Princess in October 1996, she told of her belief that the Prince of Wales wanted her dead so he could marry Tiggy Legge-Bourke, a nanny to Princes William and Harry.
The Princess, who mistakenly believed that Legge-Bourke was having an affair with Prince Charles and had b
Source: Fox News
Dec 20, 2007
The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.
"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.
A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdr
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Dec 20, 2007
CORRECTION 12/26/07:
Secrecy News was too hasty in writing the December 20 headline that"Foreign Relations in the U.S. [was] Not Published in 2007." That
turned out to be wrong.
On December 21, 2007 the State Department published two print volumes
of the Foreign Relations of the United States series, along with an
electronic document collection.
In addition to the Intelligence Community volume, the State Historian's
Office released a FRUS volume on"Greece, Cyprus, Turkey
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 20, 2007
An American businessman has drawn the fury of residents of the Isle of Man by declaring himself king of the island with honours being offered to anyone willing to shell out thousands of pounds.
Businessman David Drew Howe, 38, claims to be a cousin to the Queen and a direct descendant of the Stanley family.
He crowned himself "undisputed" His Majesty King David of the Isle of Man, after placing a notice in the London Gazette.
When the notice went
Source: AP
Dec 19, 2007
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has sold Carter's Grove Plantation - an 18th century mansion built by 1 of Virginia's founding families - for $15.3 million.
Halsey Minor purchased the property, which includes a Georgian style mansion and 400 acres that are subject to a conservation easement, as well as 76 acres adjoining the property.
Minor says he'll use the site as a residence and center for a thoroughbred horse breeding program.
Source: International Herald Tribune
Dec 19, 2007
Daria Schulha Kira recalls huddling, 75 years ago in a small village in eastern Ukraine, with her three siblings as Communist Party officials ransacked their home looking for grain.
"Your government needs your food," she remembers the armed men shouting. "Then they took iron bars and poked in the walls and the floors, looking for anything they could find."
But they didn't have any food. Kira, now 85 and living in an apartment in Manhattan, was living
Source: http://www.newsobserver.com
Dec 19, 2007
Drought provides advantages to scavengers and collectors who explore the expanded shorelines of the Triangle's shrinking reservoirs and lakes. The mud-encrusted fishing lures, waterlogged watches and other contemporary artifacts are theirs to keep.
But pocketing the shards of Native American pottery, spearheads and other remains from past cultures can get people in trouble.
Federal and state laws prohibit the removal of archaeological materials from public lands and car
