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: Philadelphia Inquirer
Dec 10, 2007
Somewhere in the ground overlooking the Delaware River, amid the trees and brush at a Paulsboro oil-storage terminal, is a long-forgotten piece of American history. Identified on a British map 230 years ago as a "rebel fort," the site was the nation's first federal land purchase, made the day after the Declaration of Independence.
It's the "birthplace of homeland security," says a group of local historians, preservationists and municipal officials who hope to res
Source: ABC News
Dec 10, 2007
A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.
In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds....
Source: BBC
Dec 10, 2007
The former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, has made a fiery outburst in court a few hours into the first day of his murder and kidnapping trial. Mr Fujimori shouted angrily: "I reject the charges entirely. I'm innocent."
The former president, who could receive up to 30 years in prison if convicted, was told by a judge to calm down.
He is accused of authorising two death squad massacres in the early 1990s in which 25 people were killed. He denies the charg
Source: AP
Dec 10, 2007
Las Vegas is building a museum about some of its founding fathers and most influential figures — guys with names like Bugsy, Lefty and Lansky.
The mob museum will stand as frank acknowledgment of the major role mobsters played in developing Las Vegas into the gambling capital of America and giving the city its rakish glamour during the 1940s and '50s.
"Let's be brutally honest, warts and all. This is more than legend. It's fact," said Mayor Oscar Goodman, a f
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Dec 10, 2007
During the Battle of Iwo Jima in March 1945, as American soldiers went cave to cave looking for enemy soldiers, a Japanese soldier emerged, wearing nothing but a loin cloth.
The Americans took him into custody. They fed him and clothed him, and took him to a foxhole with them. A short time later, he asked if anyone spoke French.
One soldier did, and all of a sudden, the Americans realized they had captured a high-ranking man -- with a lot of knowledge of Japanese plans
Source: AP
Dec 10, 2007
The new Polish prime minister suggested that a World War II museum be set up in Poland, presenting it in remarks published Monday as an alternative to German plans to commemorate people displaced during and after the war.
Donald Tusk made the proposal for a museum in Gdansk a day before his first visit to Germany since taking office — a trip meant to help improve relations that cooled under his nationalist predecessor, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Tusk argued that Gdansk, a port
Source: Independent (UK)
Dec 10, 2007
A Nobel Prize-winning scientist who provoked a public outcry by claiming black Africans were less intelligent than whites has a DNA profile with up to 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European.
An analysis of the genome of James Watson showed that 16 per cent of his genes were likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1 per cent.
"This level is what yo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 10, 2007
Dressed in black and wrapped in silent contemplation, Baroness Thatcher wiped away a tear at the Cenotaph as she remembered the dead of the Falklands War at the Battle Day ceremony.
Some in the 70-strong crowd of old soldiers and expatriate islanders had wondered whether, at the age of 82, the former prime minister would be strong enough to attend the ceremony organised by the Falkland Islands Association.
As always, the Iron Lady would not be deterred. Flanked by Admir
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 10, 2007
An ancient doctor's surgery unearthed by Italian archaeologists has cast new light on what a trip to the doctor would have been like in Roman times. Far from crude, the medical implements discovered show that doctors, their surgeries and the ailments they treated have changed surprisingly little in 1,800 years.
Sore joints were common, patients were often told to change their diets, and the good doctor of the seaside town of Rimini even performed house calls.
Archaeolog
Source: Charleston Gazette
Dec 9, 2007
Seven months after the Civil War ended and one week before ratification of the 13th Amendment made slavery unconstitutional, two West Virginia companies of an all-black Union Army regiment gathered near Philadelphia to receive their final pay and discharge papers.
The date was Dec. 13, 1865, and the place was Camp Cadwalader, an Army base a few miles from Camp William Penn, where the men of the 45th U.S. Colored Infantry began their basic training in June 1864.
Among th
Source: Boston Globe
Dec 9, 2007
Since its founding in 1830 by Joseph Smith, a young self-proclaimed prophet from upstate New York, the Mormon church has become one of the most influential religious groups in the United States. Officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), it claims nearly 7 million adherents nationwide, and even the lowest outside estimates - about 3 million American Mormons - suggest there are now more Mormons in the US than there are Congregationalists.
Mormons contr
Source: http://www.thetimes.co.za
Dec 9, 2007
SA Indians could lose priceless treasures because of neglect at Durban documentation centre.
The future of the Durban Cultural and Documentation Centre, which houses valuable pieces of Indian history, hangs in the balance.
The centre, home to artefacts, musical instruments, traditional clothing, important documents, books and photographs, some dating back to the 1800s, was opened in 1996.
It was once a hive of activity and regarded as a tourist attraction,
Source: Earth Times
Dec 9, 2007
Excited archaeologists are raising part of a Roman barge that sank near the wharf nearly 2,000 years ago in the German riverside city of Cologne. Cologne, which derives its modern name from the town's Latin name, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, is full of Roman remains including a largely intact aqueduct.
But the oaken boat, found 12 metres below the surface during excavations a few days ago for an underground mass-transit line, is something special, offering scientists a new wi
Source: International Herald Tribune
Dec 9, 2007
When Kosovo recently held a contest to design a flag, the organizers insisted that it reflect the multi-ethnic population, shunning the nationalist symbols of the past.
But dozens of artists chose to ignore that edict. They submitted variations of the red and black Albanian flag, whose two-headed eagle has for decades been proudly displayed at weddings and on the battlefield, while being equally reviled by many Serbs, who make up a minority in this breakaway province of Serbia.
Source: http://www.topnews.in
Dec 9, 2007
Archaeologists in Romania have discovered 3,000-years-old well-preserved wood and ropes at Beclean in the country’s northern Bistrita-Nasaud County.
Valeriu Kavruk, curator of the Museum of the Eastern Carpathians based in Sfantu Gheorghe, central Romania, said that the objects, found in the bed of a vastly salted river near Baile Figa, have been well conserved due to the salted mud.
Lab tests with Carbon 14 revealed that the articles dated from 1000 B. C, Kavruk said.
Source: Mara Farrell, co-founder of Fishkill Historical Focus, a historic preservation group, in the NYT
Dec 9, 2007
IT’S a beautiful thing to have a Revolutionary War site like the Fishkill Encampment and Supply Depot, a nationally registered landmark, in your town. But when the military camp — where thousands of George Washington’s troops were stationed to keep the British from moving past New York City and capturing the Hudson River — is also home to the heavily trafficked Route 9 corridor, pleading for its survival can sometimes feel like a never-ending battle.
You see, the problem is that in
Source: NYT
Dec 9, 2007
For the second time in a decade, fungus is threatening France’s most celebrated prehistoric paintings, the mysterious animal images that line the Lascaux cave in the Dordogne region of southwest France, scientists say.
No consensus has emerged among experts over whether the invading patches of gray and black mold are the result of climate change, a defective temperature control system, the light used by researchers or the carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors.
But after i
Source: WaPo
Dec 9, 2007
Back then, chicken a la cheese won recipe contests, and an Amana Free-o-Frost was the answer to every woman's problems. Hugh Rodham woke up each morning in his thick-walled suburban dream home in Park Ridge, Ill., bellowing the songs of Mitch Miller and the Gang (Singalong favorites! "Ain't We Got Fun"!), and sat down each night to dinner served exactly at 6 p.m., over which he issued loud pronouncements about American self-reliance, as opposed to communists and deadbeats seeking hando
Source: AP
Dec 8, 2007
An independent pollution-control agency has rejected environmentalists' claims that a planned landfill could desecrate possible burial grounds near the ruins of a once-thriving prehistoric city.
The Illinois Sierra Club and American Bottom Conservancy failed to show that Madison's approval process for a landfill near the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site was "fundamentally unfair," the Illinois Pollution Control Board ruled Thursday.
The St. Louis suburb, whi
Source: AP
Dec 8, 2007
Printed part way down page 3 of the Troy Sentinel on Dec. 23, 1823, it was easy to miss.
Between beekeeping tips and a wedding announcement was a seasonal poem. Submitted anonymously, the poem charmed editors who published it anyway. It started like this:
"'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house ..."
The rest is Christmas history.
"Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" spread beyond this bustling, bloomin
