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
Oct 26, 2007
The theater where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated will be renovated and made part of a six-building complex that includes multimedia educational displays on the legacy of the nation's 16th president, the Ford's Theatre Society said Friday.
A planned education center across the street from the working theater will include new exhibits aimed at providing a deeper look at the events leading up to and following the assassination, as well as a look at 1860s Washington.
The
Source: NYT
Oct 26, 2007
With backing from more than half of the House this summer, proponents of a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide were confident that they would finally prevail in their quest for Congressional recognition.
Adding to their optimism, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was a longtime backer of the resolution, which had been pushed mainly by her fellow Californians, and was committed to bringing it to a House vote.
But supporters of the measure were not prepared for the vehement op
Source: NYT
Oct 26, 2007
Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Britain, has agreed to sell his memoir for an advance of around $9 million, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations.
After a four-day auction, the book was bought by two divisions of Random House: Alfred A. Knopf in the United States and Canada, and Hutchinson in Britain. Sonny Mehta, chairman and editor in chief of Knopf, said that Mr. Blair intended to write a “serious and frank book” about his life and, in particular, his
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 26, 2007
David Lloyd George is regarded as one of the great prime ministers of the 20th century by many, but yesterday the unveiling of a new statue of the Liberal politician led to a row over his colonial war record.
The sculpture in Parliament Square, unveiled by the Prince of Wales, has outraged anti-war campaigners, including Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning writer, who described it as "utterly disgraceful".
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, Pinter, the jou
Source: International Herald Tribune
Oct 26, 2007
He had a job to do and he did it supremely well, under threat of death, within earshot of screams of torture: methodically photographing Khmer Rouge prisoners and producing a haunting collection of mug shots that has become the visual symbol of Cambodia's mass killings.
"I'm just a photographer; I don't know anything," he said he told the newly arrived prisoners as he removed their blindfolds and adjusted the angles of their heads. But he knew, as they did not, that every
Source: NYT
Oct 26, 2007
Where are the political smears of yesteryear? They’re right at hand in a graphic archive for voters who can’t wait for the election cycle to descend to maximum attack mode.
The nation’s neatly cataloged television ads are available for a nostalgic laugh or wince at the Museum of the Moving Image. The museum is worth a trip to Astoria, Queens, but the graphic history of presidential commercials is also just a mouse click away (livingroomcandidate.org). Once a modern visitor finally v
Source: Emory Wheel
Oct 26, 2007
Conservative commentator David Horowitz was forced to cut short his speech on “Islamo-Fascism” in the face of repeated interruptions, heckling and catcalls from some audience members in a packed lecture room in White Hall on Wednesday.
The event played out like a tug-of-war between two groups: protestors who shouted questions or anti-conservative taglines after every few sentences Horowitz spoke and another faction in the audience who became increasingly vocal about their desire to
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Oct 26, 2007
"The United States Intelligence Community (IC) has an obligation to
learn from its history and its performance and to document its
activities," Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell
wrote in a newly disclosed Intelligence Community Directive.
Towards that end,"each IC agency/organization shall establish and
maintain a professional historical capability... to document, analyze
and advance an understanding of the history of the agency or
organization and its predecesso
Source: AP
Oct 26, 2007
s the Watergate scandal enveloped U.S. President Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974, he was buoyed by a secret message of moral support from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, according to newly released U.S. State Department documents.
Brezhnev told Nixon he knew he would not" crack under the pressure."
The message, delivered to Nixon by Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, proposed"self-control and fortitude" in conducting foreign policy, Dobrynin wrote in a foreword to the documents.
At fir
Source: http://www.thestar.com
Oct 25, 2007
–South Korea's spy agency confessed yesterday to the most notorious kidnapping in the country's history, saying that in 1973 it snatched opposition leader and later Nobel laureate Kim Dae-jung in Tokyo.
A fact-finding panel of the National Intelligence Service also said it cannot rule out the possibility former president Park Chung-hee may have directly ordered the kidnapping of Kim, who was Park's main political rival at the time.
"It is judged that there was at l
Source: http://www.citizen-times.com/
Oct 25, 2007
Disagreement over whether a Civil War ancestor should lie beneath a Union or a Confederate headstone has led to the arrest of a Gaston County jailer, charged with desecrating the grave of the veteran.
A warrant was served Oct. 15 on Richard Hill, a detention officer with the Gaston County Sheriff's Department, Gaston County Chief Deputy Tim Farris said Monday.
The warrant was issued in Madison County, where the grave lies. It was taken out by Sheila Grindstaff of Mars H
Source: http://www.independentmail.com
Oct 25, 2007
It’s a sight that elicits a second glance, maybe a third. A black man marching along the S.C. 28 toward Walhalla dressed in Confederate butternut, carrying a Confederate battle flag.
To H.K. Edgerton, however, it’s a march for truth in history as critical as any march for civil rights. Mr. Edgerton’s march Thursday carried him to Oconee County.
When it comes to the role of blacks in the Confederacy, Mr. Edgerton is less than happy about the story.
“This fl
Source: History Today
Oct 25, 2007
19th-century newspaper reports ranging from the Battle of Trafalgar to the Jack the Ripper murders are now available online. The British Library has just launched a new site, featuring historic events from 1800 to 1900 and free for those in Further and Higher Education. New imaging techniques have allowed the digitisation of national and regional UK publications, previously only accessible in reading rooms. Reports on the Slavery Abolition Act, the Congress of Vienna and opening of the Suez Cana
Source: Reuters
Oct 25, 2007
The Catholic Church is preparing to beatify 498 of its members killed during the Spanish Civil War, putting them on the path to possible sainthood but reviving memories of a conflict that still divides Spain.
Most of those to be honored at Sunday's ceremony in Rome, the biggest mass beatification ever and to be attended by thousands of Spanish pilgrims, were priests or nuns killed by left-wing militias at the outbreak of the 1936-39 war.
Many Catholic clergy and Church
Source: AP
Oct 25, 2007
Sheiks, libraries and collectors around the world have ordered the Vatican's new €5,900 limited edition documentation of the heresy trial of the Knights Templar, officials said Thursday.
The leather-bound volume, which includes high-quality reprints of the original documents as well as clerical seals, is noteworthy because it contains a long ignored parchment showing that Pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval order of heresy.
The publishing house Scrinium, whic
Source: http://www.scoop.co.nz
Oct 25, 2007
Order of New Zealand recipient and New Zealand's most famous theologian Lloyd Geering is set to celebrate with colleagues, friends and interested members of the public 40 years since his landmark heresy trial began.
Lloyd Geering's heresy trial is being revisited at an all-day event in Wellington on November the 3rd, 40 years to the day since the trial began.
The trial of Geering who was then head of the Presbyterian Church's theological college shook New Zealand societ
Source: AP
Oct 25, 2007
Dallas | Anyone can get a "Che" T-shirt for a few bucks, but an actual relic from the revolutionary figure is likely to cost a bit more at an auction Thursday.
Bidding starts at $100,000 for a 3-inch lock of hair from Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Marxist whose iconic picture has become a popular, even sometimes fashionable commodity since he was killed in a Bolivian jungle 40 years ago this month.
Heritage Auction Galleries is putting the hair, alleged
Source: Prague Monitor
Oct 25, 2007
A number of German Nazi officials worked for the Czechoslovak communist secret services after World War Two, in exchange for not being punished for their crimes, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) reported Wednesday.
A number of Nazis who took part in the search and torture of Czechoslovak paratroopers who killed wartime Nazi Reichsprotector Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in 1942 went unpunished because they promised to cooperate with the communist secret services after the war, the paper wri
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 25, 2007
The graves of British soldiers killed in the Great War have been covered with Nazi symbols in an act condemned as "appalling desecration".
Vandals painted swastikas and SS insignias on the headstones of 32 Scottish soldiers who died during the Battle of the Somme.
The attack caused thousands of pounds worth of damage at the Peake Wood Cemetery near Contalmaison, France, just days before Remembrance Sunday.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 25, 2007
Emergency work has begun to save Europe's largest prehistoric man-made construction from collapse.
Tunnels built into the side of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire are to be filled with hundreds of tons of chalk to preserve the mysterious Neolithic monument for future generations.
The 4,400-year-old mound, which is older than Stonehenge, has been weakened by the excavations of archaeologists over many centuries.
Engineers working on the conservation project have r
