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: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn
Nov 23, 2007
A Chinese former "comfort woman" flew to Canada Thursday to place pressure on the Canadian parliament to pass a bill urging Japan to formally apologize to women forced into sexual slavery during World War II. The Dutch parliament endorsed a similar resolution this week.
Liu Mianhuan, 80, from Shanxi Province, was joined by three other comfort women from South Korea, the Netherlands and the Philippines, and is scheduled to take part in a series of events in Toronto and Otta
Source: http://www.independent.ie
Nov 23, 2007
IT is the first written indication of what would become an intense rivalry between Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, ultimately splitting the nation.
It is expected to fetch up to €50,000 at auction next week.
A letter, written by Collins on the first anniversary of the Easter Rising in April 1917 to fellow Rising leader Thomas Ashe, gives his views of the incredibly tense political affairs of the time.
Written in code -- as Ashe was still in prison -- i
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 23, 2007
The 1,800-year-old skeleton of one of Roman Britain's "social elite" has been discovered by two men with metal detectors who had already unearthed a £1 million Viking treasure.
The father and son team, David and Andrew Whelan discovered the skeleton buried in a six-foot lead-lined coffin near the Roman town of Aldborough in north Yorks.
The find has excited archaeologists who believe the skeleton is probably that of a woman of British descent and that the styl
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Nov 22, 2007
History came to life recently at Eagle Bay Elementary's annual Wax Museum as visitors strolled past fifth-graders posed as some of the nation's most-influential historical figures.
Among the individuals depicted: Bill Gates working on his laptop; Rosa Parks sitting at the front of a cardboard bus; and Paul Revere riding his horse - a rocking horse at this occasion - to herald the news of the British invasion.
What started four years ago at the Farmington schoo
Source: AFP
Nov 22, 2007
The world's biggest diamond company De Beers said Thursday it was selling its historic Cullinan Diamond Mine in South Africa, where the largest ever diamond was found.
It said it was selling the mine for one billion rand (147 million US dollars, 99 million euros).
Source: International Herald Tribune
Nov 22, 2007
For nearly seven years, Jan Longone, an antiquarian cookbook collector, has been haunted by a ghost. The spirit came into her life as thousands of other vintage volumes from book dealers had before: in a plain brown wrapper. But as soon as she held Malinda Russell's "Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen," she could see its author and her world - the small, seldom-discussed society of free blacks in the 19th century - coming to life befor
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 22, 2007
The elderly widow of a renowned Oxford don is the unlikely recipient of a European arrest warrant alleging that she sent a war hero to his death during the Stalinist era show trials more than half a century ago.
Helena Wolinska, 88, a former Polish prosecutor who has lived in England since 1972, is accused of fabricating evidence against Gen Emil Fieldorf, a member of the Polish resistance during the Second World War.
Mrs Wolinska, well known in the cosy academic circle
Source: Daily Mail
Nov 21, 2007
Italy's ex-royals are demanding £260 million in damages - and the return of confiscated property, including the presidential palace - for being sent into exile after World War II.
The Savoy dynasty, with a lineage dating back to the 10th century, unified Italy in the 1800s and ruled the country as a kingdom until Italians voted in a 1946 referendum to become a republic.
Two years later, Italy's new Constitution barred the last king, Umberto II, and his male descendants
Source: http://solomontimes.com
Nov 21, 2007
News on sale of World War II relics in Shortlands and having them removed from their resting places has caused public protest.
According to One News, government has agreed to the arrangement for the sale of all World War II relics at the community of Balalae in Shortlands to an international group.
It was reported that among the group on the island was the Minister for Tourism, Samuel Bentley.
Source: National Security Archive
Nov 21, 2007
Washington D.C., November 22, 2007 - The first comprehensive U.S. nuclear war plan, produced in 1960, was controversial within the U.S. government because top commanders and White House scientists objected to its massive destructiveness--the "high level of damage and population casualties"--according to newly declassified histories published today by the National Security Archive. The war plan also appalled Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who wanted to find ways to curb its overk
Source: Korea Times
Nov 21, 2007
A clepsydra, a water clock that was made on King Sejong's orders in 1434, has been fully recreated and will be on view to the public from Nov. 28.
The water clock is regarded as one of the greatest inventions in Korean science history. It is a standard self-striking water clock system, which uses the flow of water.
A team, led by Professor Nam Moon-hyeon of Konkuk University, recreated the water clock based on the remaining parts of a clepsydra known as the Jagyeongnu,
Source: http://hunews.huji.ac.il
Nov 21, 2007
Remains of an ancient synagogue from the Roman-Byzantine era have been revealed in excavations carried out in the Arbel National Park in the Galilee under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The excavations, in the Khirbet Wadi Hamam, were led by Dr. Uzi Leibner of the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology and Scholion – Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies.
Dr. Leibner said that the synagogue’s design is a good example of the easte
Source: AFP
Nov 21, 2007
When Americans sit down on Thursday to eat stuffed Thanksgiving turkey, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, followed by a slice of pumpkin pie, many think they are upholding a 400-year-old tradition.
They aren't.
The meal which settlers from England shared with native Americans in 1621, which has come to be known as the first Thanksgiving, probably didn't feature many of the culinary favorites that grace tables at present day Thanksgivings, and almost definitely did no
Source: WaPo
Nov 21, 2007
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up for a little Thanksgiving tale. You think you've heard it before, but never quite like this.
Yes, it starts the same as it does every year.
Yesterday morning in the Rose Garden, surrounded by gourd-and-corn-husk decor best described as "harvest plenty," President Bush promised May the turkey that he would not be served with a side of yams on Thanksgiving. Nor would May's pal Flower.
These names w
Source: NYT
Nov 21, 2007
John Edwards, accepting his party’s nomination for vice president, roused a cheering crowd at the 2004 Democratic convention with the kind of buoyant refrain that had become his trademark: “Hope is on the way.”
The next night, wanting to give the American people something more tangible, John Kerry offered his own pledge, one intended as the ticket’s new slogan: “Help is on the way.”
But Mr. Edwards did not want to say it.
So the running mates set off across
Source: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
Nov 20, 2007
BELLS from ships lost during the Great War have seen daylight for the first time in nearly 90 years after Yorkshire sub aqua club members struck lucky while exploring wrecks this summer.
National diving experts say there has been a glut in recent finds aboard lost vessels around the country because the summer rain prevented diving earlier in the year and now enthusiasts are making up for last time.
Seven bells have been recovered off the Yorkshire Coast this summer by a
Source: http://www.news-antique.com
Nov 20, 2007
While not well known for his watercolors, the failed dictator of Germany, Adolf Hilter, was quite a gifted artist. The esoteric fact Hitler aspired to artistic endeavor, preceding the atrocities for which he is remembered today, is an idiosyncratic component of WWII history.
Understandably, a gallery visit is unlikely to yield any of his work, but occasionally his pieces are bought and sold. Two such paintings have recently surfaced on Manion’s International Auction House -
Source: http://www.anpost.ie
Nov 20, 2007
Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ is just one of more than 6,500 hymns composed by Charles Wesley, younger brother of John Wesley, founder of Methodism. An Post’s new 78c stamp marks the 300th anniversary of Charles Wesley’s birth in Lincolnshire, England in 1707.
Despite his closeness to his brother, Charles was not always in agreement with John in matters relating to their beliefs. Charles was strongly opposed to the idea of a breach with the Church of England into which they had be
Source: International Herald Tribune
Nov 20, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS: Around a table at Ingebretsen's, an 86-year-old market stocked with Norwegian staples like lutefisk, meatballs and fruit soup, the women of the Monday knitting club were upset.
"This is a bit of a slap in the face," Janet Rog, 74, said of Norway's recent announcement that it would shut its career consulate here next year and send the diplomats home.
The consulate - opened in 1906 and upgraded in 1946 to its current status as consulate general - is
Source: NYT
Nov 20, 2007
This year, as Jamestown, Va., splashily celebrated the 400th anniversary of its founding as the nation’s first permanent English settlement, the home of Plymouth Rock found itself on the defensive.
Virginians have relished trumpeting that Jamestown came first, even vowing to get it “out from under Plymouth Rock.”
Their strategy has worked, to an extent: Jamestown’s tourism figures rivaled Plymouth’s this year, and even Queen Elizabeth II paid a visit. In a speech near J
