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.army.mil
Oct 23, 2007
WUERZBURG, Germany (Army News Service, Oct. 23, 2007) - Wuerzburg's Faulenberg Kaserne, a military installation since 1877 and home to U.S. Soldiers since 1947, has been returned to the German government.
In its early days, the kaserne was a German army headquarters and stable. When the Americans moved in after World War II, Faulenberg Kaserne became home to U.S. Army, Europe's quartermaster laundry service and to a number of regional command headquarters, including the 98th Area Su
Source: AFP
Oct 23, 2007
Deep in the heart of northern Syria, close to the banks of the Euphrates River, archaeologists have uncovered a series of startling 11,000-year-old wall paintings and artefacts.
"The wall paintings date back to the 9th millennium BC. They were discovered last month on the wall of a house standing two metres (6.6 feet) high at Dja'de," said Frenchman Eric Coqueugniot, who has been leading the excavations on the west bank of the river at Dja'de, in an area famous for its ric
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 23, 2007
A chilling insight into the working life of Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's most famous hangman, has come to light in a set of instructions he was given when he became an assistant executioner in 1932.
Pierrepoint, who is thought to have executed more than 600 prisoners, was told that he should never draw attention to himself.
The joining orders also set Pierrepoint's pay at £1 11s 6d (about £1.58) per execution, plus the same amount again "if his conduct and behavio
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 23, 2007
A born-again Christian and devoted husband died days after a freak accident during a jousting re-enactment, which was being filmed for the Channel Four television series Time Team.
Paul Allen was struck by a splinter from a balsa wood lance, which flew through the eye slit on his helmet after impact with his shield and went into his eye socket. The historical performer underwent emergency surgery in hospital in Coventry but died a week later.
Mr Allen, a member of the r
Source: http://www.thetimes.co.za
Oct 23, 2007
Apartheid is history. So too are Pik Botha, Zapiro cartoons and Laugh It Off T-shirts.
These are just some of the notable additions to school textbooks ahead of next year’s new matric history syllabus — the first time a detailed apartheid history will be taught to Grade 12 pupils throughout the country .
South African matrics studying history will, in addition to the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, discuss Eugene de Kock and Vlakplaas, violence and reconc
Source: http://www.earthtimes.org
Oct 22, 2007
Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday backed establishing a memorial in Berlin to the millions of Germans expelled from Eastern Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Speaking in Berlin at the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Federation of Expellees (BdV), Merkel said her government would soon put forward a concept.
Given the sensitivities in Poland and the Czech Republic in particular, she pledged that the memorial would be established in dialogue with Germany's eastern neighbou
Source: BBC
Oct 22, 2007
Plans for a former tourist attraction to be handed a permanent home on the banks of the Mersey have been given the go-ahead.
Wirral council has approved Merseytravel's proposal to house a German World War II U-boat at the Woodside Ferry Terminal.
The submarine was formerly an attraction at the Historic Warships Museum at Seacombe docks.
Plans include the provision of a visitor exhibition centre at the site.
Source: AP
Oct 22, 2007
Jerusalem's tiny Armenian community held banners and flags at a protest Monday to demand that Israel recognize the mass killings of ethnic Armenians in Turkey nearly a century ago as genocide.
About 100 people stood outside Israel's Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, singing songs in Armenian and holding banners. A group of teenage girls stood in school uniforms alongside an elderly woman holding a sign that read, "I am a survivor," in English and Hebrew, and others waved colo
Source: Times (UK)
Oct 22, 2007
The mystery thief of some of the rarest maps in the world has been unmasked after a worldwide investigation by Spanish police that led them to Britain, Australia, America and Argentina.
Spanish detectives flew this weekend to Buenos Aires after a man there admitted to stealing up to 19 valuable maps from a collection held at the Spanish National Library, some more than 500 years old.
The discovery in August that the cream of the Spanish cartographic collection had been
Source: NYT
Oct 22, 2007
Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections.
The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available.
Libraries that agree to work with Google must agr
Source: AP
Oct 22, 2007
Webster Hall, an East Village concert hall that was a venue for union rallies and lavish masquerade balls where gays were welcomed in the early 1900s, may soon become a New York City landmark.
The Romanesque Revival-style building, with its terra cotta ornamentation, is the city's "most historically and culturally significant 19th century assembly hall," the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission said in recommending the designation.
The commission
Source: http://www.army.mil
Oct 22, 2007
A wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of the first U.S. service member to die in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam Conflict was conducted Sunday at West Point Cemetery.
Capt. Harry G. Cramer Jr. died Oct. 21, 1957 near Nha Trang, South Vietnam, from an explosion.
In 1957, Capt. Cramer was placed in command of a Mobile Training Team with the mission of organizing and training the cadre of the South Vietnamese Special Forces. A graduat
Source: Spiegel
Oct 22, 2007
Historians dispute the claim by a British journalist that Nazi fanatics attending a party near the Austro-Hungarian border in March 1945 killed 200 Hungarian Jews as an "additional entertainment" laid on by the hosts. The massacre did happen, though, and the circumstances surrounding it remain unclear....
A row has broken out among historians about one of the most spectacular Nazi crimes committed in Austria. On the night of March 24 to March 25, 1945, some 200 Hungarian J
Source: AP
Oct 22, 2007
Nobel laureate Doris Lessing said the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States were "not that terrible" when compared to attacks by the IRA in Britain.
"September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible," the Nobel Literature Prize winner told the leading Spanish daily El Pais.
"Some Americans will think I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it w
Source: State Department Transcript
Oct 22, 2007
SECRETARY RICE: What brings us together today is a truly remarkable achievement, both in the history of diplomacy and the diplomacy of history. Only two decades ago, the United States and the Soviet Union stood as enemies, separated by mystery and misunderstanding and prepared for war. Today, Americans and Russians are opening our archives, sharing old secrets, and trying to build newfound trust. I want to commend Mark and all the dedicated men and women of our Historian’s office, as well as th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 22, 2007
A new history A-level will see lessons focus on 'concepts' rather than on periods in time such as the World Wars, the Victorians and the Tudors, it emerged yesterday.
The alternative A-level, developed by the exam board OCR and heading for English secondary schools next year, breaks the convention of teaching history based on events in a particular era.
Pupils will instead study how and why totally unrelated events occurred and consider general themes, such as belief, c
Source: http://www.beaufortgazette.com
Oct 22, 2007
In the midst of the Civil War centennial in 1962, the South Carolina legislature voted the Confederate flag up to the dome of the Statehouse, adding to a long list of indelicately handled commemorations across the nation highlighting racial divides and old resentments.
With about three and a half years until the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, state history buffs are gearing up for the bevy of historic milestones from 2011 to 2015 tied to the bloody four-year co
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 22, 2007
The true face of Tutankhamun, the boy king who ruled Egypt 3,500 years ago, is to be revealed to the public for the first time.
To coincide with the opening of the exhibition of the treasures of Tutankhamun in London next month, Egyptian archaeologists are to put his mummified body on display in Luxor.
Only a handful of experts have ever seen the 19-year-old pharaoh's true likeness.
Though not the most important of Egypt's ancient rulers, Tutankhamun has ex
Source: Reuters
Oct 22, 2007
A plan by President Nicolas Sarkozy to commemorate a Communist resistance hero who was slain as a teenager by France’s wartime Nazi occupiers has stirred controversy and prompted accusations of manipulation by the government.
Just after his election in May, Mr. Sarkozy ordered that the farewell letter of the teenager, Guy Moquet, should be read aloud in French schools on Oct. 22, the anniversary of his death.
Mr. Moquet, a 17-year-old member of the Young Communists, was
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Oct 22, 2007
Within a week, the Director of National Intelligence will formally
disclose the size of the National Intelligence Program budget for
fiscal year 2007, an ODNI spokeswoman said.
The anticipated disclosure marks the culmination of decades of
advocacy, debate and litigation.
Last July Congress enacted an intelligence budget disclosure
requirement over White House objections as part of a bill to implement
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission."The Administration strongly oppose
