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: ABC News
Aug 10, 2007
He's preached to every president since Harry Truman. It is one of the most unique series of friendships in modern politics, counseling these leaders under the tremendous stresses of war, politics and personal scandals. But evangelist Billy Graham simply refers to the last 11 presidents as his "friends."
"Each one I've known long before they ever became president, been in their homes many times, always called them by their first names, until they became president,"
Source: National Security Archive
Aug 10, 2007
The Central Intelligence Agency has lost documents concerning its investigation of the mysterious 1948 murder of CBS reporter George Polk, and destroyed its file on FOIA requests for Polk documents, according to a letter from Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein. In June 2006, the Archive asked the CIA and the National Archives to investigate the possibility that the CIA had lost or destroyed records on the Polk case.Polk, a CBS reporter based in Greece at t
Source: History Today
Aug 10, 2007
A giant statue of the Emperor Hadrian has been discovered in southern Turkey. A colossal head, foot and part of the statue's leg have been unearthed at the site of the ancient mountain town of Sagalassos.
Source: LiveScience
Aug 10, 2007
Erosion on the floor of the English Channel is
revealing the remains of a busy Stone Age settlement,
from a time when Europe and Britain were still linked
by land, a team of archaeologists says.
The site, just off the Isle of Wight, dates back 8,000
years, not long before melting glaciers filled in the
Channel and likely drove the settlement's last
occupants north to higher ground.
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Aug 10, 2007
On August 3, 2007, the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent passed the “OPEN Government Act of 2007? (S. 849), a bill mandating major reforms in the operation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Similar legislation (H.R. 1309) overwhelmingly passed the House earlier this year by a vote of 308-117. It is unclear at this time whether a conference committee will be needed to iron out any differences between the two bills or whether the House will simply adopt the Senate bill as passed.
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Aug 10, 2007
In a story broken this week by the Washington Post, it was revealed that a senior Smithsonian Institution official has resigned amid allegations that he destroyed minutes from a Smithsonian Board of Regents meeting in January at which former-Secretary Lawrence M. Small’s compensation and expenses were scrutinized. James M. Hobbins, executive assistant to the secretary of the Smithsonian, allegedly destroyed transcripts of the meeting despite orders from the Smithsonian’s general counsel that suc
Source: Bloomberg News
Aug 10, 2007
Big Ben, the bell in the clock tower above Britain's Parliament in London, will fall silent tomorrow until the end of September to accommodate repairs.
The clock will strike for the last time this month at 8 a.m. Saturday. An hour later, a team of specialists will scale down the tower's south side to clean the iconic face, an event which takes place every five years.
Quarter bells, which play a tune every 15 minutes, also will stop for maintenance. The 13.8-ton hour bel
Source: Guardian
Aug 10, 2007
Thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Iraq's national library and archive, one of the country's most important cultural institutions, are in peril after the occupation of the building by Iraqi security forces, the library's director said yesterday.
Saad Eskander, a respected Kurdish historian who has run the library since 2003, told the Guardian that up to 20 Iraqi troops had seized the building at gunpoint yesterday, threatening staff and guards.
"They have t
Source: Guardian (UK)
Aug 10, 2007
Thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Iraq's national library and archive, one of the country's most important cultural institutions, are in peril after the occupation of the building by Iraqi security forces, the library's director said yesterday.Saad Eskander, a respected Kurdish historian who has run the library since 2003, told the Guardian that up to 20 Iraqi troops had seized the building at gunpoint yesterday, threatening staff and guards.
"They
Source: Science Daily
Aug 10, 2007
Approximately 250 million years ago, vast numbers of species disappeared from Earth. This mass-extinction event may hold clues to current global carbon cycle changes, according to Jonathan Payne, assistant professor of geological and environmental sciences. Payne, a paleobiologist who joined the Stanford faculty in 2005, studies the Permian-Triassic extinction and the following 4 million years of instability in the global carbon cycle.
In the July issue of the Geological Society of
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 10, 2007
The Koran should be banned as a “fascist book” alongside Mein Kampf because it urges Muslims to kill non-believers, says Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders.
The leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which holds nine of the Dutch parliament's 150 seats has called for the ban after an alleged Islam inspired attack on a Labour councillor who had renounced the Muslim faith.
Mr Wilders claims that the Koran “calls on Muslims to oppress, persecute or kill Christians, Jews, diss
Source: thisisexeter.com
Aug 9, 2007
A devon archaeologist believes he has found the Lost City of Apollo.Dennis Price, who shot to prominence after finding a missing altar stone from Stonehenge, is the man behind what could be an amazing discovery.
Mr Price, a father-of-two who lives in Broadclyst, has undertaken years of research on the stone circle.
With the help of language experts from Exeter University, Mr Price has translated the early works of the Greek mariner Pytheas of Massilia, who was one of th
Source: Houston Chronicle
Aug 9, 2007
President Bush tries to set an example for Americans
whenever he can, in terms of physical fitness, faith,
optimism and a certain overall moral rectitude. He
also sets an excellent example on taking vacation.
On Thursday, Bush left for a weekend in Kennebunkport,
Maine, and his family's summer compound, Walker's
Point. On Monday, he heads to his Crawford retreat,
where he has spent all or part of 418 days of his
presidency, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS News
White House correspo
Source: AHA Blog
Aug 9, 2007
The reliability of the information contained in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is a contentious topic in academia, as well as on this blog (see Wikipedia Banned by Middlebury College for History Students and Wikipedia: Valuable Resource or Abyss of Misinformation? for example). But recently, computer engineers at the University of California at Santa Cruz came up with a new method which may help separate fact from fiction at Wikipedia: measuring the reliability of those wielding the digital r
Source: LiveScience
Aug 9, 2007
New discoveries at dig sites in Middle Asia are rocking the archeological world and redefining the origins of modern civilization.
Numerous sites in modern-day Iran and the surrounding region suggest that a vast network of societies together constituted the first cities, whose residents traded goods across hundreds of miles and forged parallel but strikingly independent cultures.
Archaeologists have thought that modern civilization began in Mesopotamia, where the large
Source: WaPo
Aug 9, 2007
Battlefield historians say it will bring a clearer understanding and vision of the Battle of Second Manassas. Environmentalists say it will reduce an already diminished amount of hickory-oak forest in Northern Virginia and further degrade the surrounding environment.
Nevertheless, the National Parks Service plans to cut down approximately 140 acres of timber in the western end of the Manassas National Battlefield Park beginning this month.
"The National Park Servic
Source: Time Magazine
Aug 9, 2007
At a time when the country was bitterly debating the role of religion in public life, we thought Graham's 50-year courtship of--and courtship by--11 Presidents was a story that needed to be told. Perhaps more than anyone else, he had shaped the contours of American public religion and had seen close up how the Oval Office affects people. We wondered what the world's most powerful men wanted from the world's most famous preacher. What worried them, and what calmed them? "Their personal lives
Source: Press Release--Israel Government
Aug 9, 2007
In excavations carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority in Tiberias impressive and unique finds were uncovered that shed light on the history of the ancient city.
The excavations were conducted over the course of the last three months at the request of Mekorot, as part of a project that involves the installation of a sewage pipeline and the transfer of the waste water treatment facility from Tiberias to the southern part of the Sea of Galilee.
The finds that were
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 9, 2007
Time travel, reckons Cambridge University's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Stephen Hawking, is not possible "for if it was, they would already be here telling us about it".
Yet, for more than a century, the possibility has captivated both boffins and fiction writers - since H.G. Wells introduced the idea of a time machine in The Chronic Argonauts in 1888, and since Einstein's theories gave the notion an awful lot of academic clout early last century.
Films
Source: Boston Globe
Aug 9, 2007
Mauritania has passed a law promising jail time for slave-holders, an important step in the northwest African country's push to eliminate a practice that has quietly persisted despite a 25-year-old ban.
The law, adopted unanimously late Wednesday by the legislature, calls for prison sentences of up to 10 years for people found keeping slaves, along with fines for slave-holders and reparations for those who have been enslaved.
Human rights campaigners praised the law as
