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: Bloomberg News
Jul 18, 2007
Next to a mass grave in Malaga, Spain, Juliana Sanchez watches an archeologist scrape dirt from a broken skull and wonders if this might be her father.
``I can't leave,'' she says of the site, where investigators found the remains of children and babies among 220 bodies crammed into a pit by fascist dictator Francisco Franco's death squads. ``I'm too anxious to know if some paper, some trace could be found to show that one of them is my father.''
Sanchez, 76, visits the
Source: NYT
Jul 18, 2007
In a move that some coin collectors fear could eventually make it difficult to pursue their passion, the United States government has imposed import restrictions on ancient coins from Cyprus. It is the first time the United States has limited trade in a broad category of coins as part of an effort to guard the cultural heritage of another country.
The new rules, which were adopted last week and went into effect on Monday, would essentially bar the importation of any ancient coin fr
Source: LiveScience
Jul 18, 2007
The cultural rift between Britain and France endures as an amusing mystery for many, but the physical divide between them can now be blamed on two ancient floods.
About 450,000 years ago, a "megaflood" breached a giant natural dam near the Dover strait and began the formation of the English Channel , according to a study detailed in the July 19 issue of the journal Nature. Following this first disastrous flood, a second deluge finished the job.
"The first
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Jul 18, 2007
Does Congress have the constitutional authority to legislate limits on
the conduct of the war in Iraq?
The answer may seem obvious. But to resolve any lingering doubt, the
Congressional Research Service gave the topic a thorough analytic
treatment in a newly updated report and concluded that Congress does
have such authority.
"It has been suggested that the President's role as Commander in Chief
of the Armed Forces provides sufficient authority for his deployment of
troops, and
Source: Rick Anderson in the Seattle Weekly
Jul 18, 2007
On June 25, 1960, after four years as trusted employees of America's largest spy agency, [William Hamilton] Martin, then 29, and [Bernon] Mitchell, then 31, flew out of Washington, D.C., with one-way tickets to Mexico City. From there, they quietly slipped off to Havana and took a Russian freighter to the Soviet Union, following a plan that had evolved over a year. The case stunned politicians and intelligence officials alike. Looking back, some of the defectors' neighbors and co-workers told i
Source: http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk
Jul 18, 2007
US companies take their corporate history far more seriously than most of their UK counterparts, according to a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
American companies are more likely to draw attention to official published histories on their websites, more likely to invest in historically-orientated visitor attractions or museums, such as The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, and more likely to publish official histories.
By taking a more low-key appr
Source: AP
Jul 17, 2007
VENTURA, Calif. - The spot where a pair of outhouses stood 130 years ago is proving to be a treasure trove for archaeologists who braved the lingering smell in the dirt to uncover some 19th Century artifacts — and a mystery.
The one-time site of privies for men and women has been built upon repeatedly. Recently, crews demolished a former school bus barn on the 3.5-acre downtown site in order to build a condominium complex and a parking garage.
But first, archaeologists
Source: AFP
Jul 17, 2007
BROOKHAVEN, NY, USA -- In his little office at Stony Brook University east of New York City, the former director of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad has hung a maxim of Martin Luther King: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that."
For seven months, Donny George and his family have tried to rebuild their life in the United States. Even as the radio plays American country music, their thoughts are always on Iraq.
George and his family,
Source: Jennifer Hunter in the Chicago Sun-Times
Jul 17, 2007
ven in colonial days, chicanery and corruption were endemic among American politicians. It's become part of the American electoral tradition.
Can it ever be fixed? Barack Obama has been a champion of improving government ethics at both the state and federal level, but he faces a long history of improbity among our elected officials.
Benjamin Fletcher, governor of New York from 1692 to 1698, took protection money from pirates, stole from the public funds and cheated on c
Source: China Daily
Jul 17, 2007
Marshal Lin Biao, who was handpicked by Chairman Mao Zedong to succeed him as China's leader but who died a traitor, has been resurrected as an army hero in a new exhibition in Beijing's Military Museum.
Lin's portrait is included among the 10 marshals who are honored as the founders of the Chinese armed forces in an exhibition celebrating the 80th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army on August 1.
Lin, denounced for his "treacherous" plot to overthrow M
Source: AP
Jul 17, 2007
A Jewish cemetery has been desecrated in a northeastern Czech town, an official said Tuesday.
Jirina Garajova, head of the Jewish community in Ostrava, 350 kilometers east of Prague, said that 25 tombstones were overturned at the Jewish cemetery in the nearby town of Bohumin over the weekend. Two of the tombstones were broken, she said.
The cemetery, dating back to the 19th century, is no longer used for burials and opened to public on July 1 after renovations.
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Jul 17, 2007
More than 250 years after the British expelled Acadians from the area now known as the Maritimes, the residence of the Queen's representative in New Brunswick played host to the launch of a new textbook that celebrates Acadian history.Educators and members of New Brunswick's Francophone community gathered at the home of Lieutenant-Governor Herménégilde Chiasson Tuesday for the release of Histoire des Acadiens et des Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick.
The glossy, 1
Source: Der Spiegel
Jul 17, 2007
A leading historian wants 'Mein Kampf' to be republished in Germany. Copyright issues have kept it off the shelves since World War II, but in 2015 it will enter the public domain. Then, anyone will be allowed to print it -- including neo-Nazis.A Munich historian has called for it to be republished in Germany -- as a pre-emptive strike against any neo-Nazis who might want to abuse the text for their own fell purposes.
Horst Möller, director of the Institute for C
Source: Pittsburg Post-Gazette
Jul 17, 2007
Files, which were collected by the Red Cross from concentration camps, hospitals and other parts of the Nazi regime after World War II and stretch out over 17 miles of shelves in the tiny German town of Bad Arolsen, have been nearly impossible to access. But now, Bad Arolsen has opened its doors to survivors. Digital copies of the archive will be circulated around the world, and one of the copies will be made available at the Holocaust Museum in Washington later this year or early in 2008.
Source: WHSV4, Harrisonburg VA
Jul 17, 2007
About 250 people who believe they are descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings learned more about their heritage and each other at a reunion in Charlottesville.At the first Monticello Community Gathering over the weekend, attendees discussed family ties and toured downtown Charlottesville and Monticello.
Organizer Diana Redman calls the gathering "an opportunity to get beyond the racial issues." Redman is a descendant of Madison He
Source: Baltimore Sun
Jul 17, 2007
FREDERICK, MD A bronze bust of Roger Brooke Taney stares sternly ahead, as if he were watching the two cherubs frolicking in the fountain in front of City Hall. Author of the inflammatory Dred Scott decision affirming slavery, Taney has been immortalized here for 75 years, largely ignored by passers-by.
But as Frederick has grown and become more diverse, a small band of residents is looking to move, or remove, this tribute to the Supreme Court chief justice who once resided in the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 17, 2007
America's first Muslim congressman has provoked outrage by apparently comparing President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler and hinting that he might have been responsible for the September 11 attacks.
Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergenc
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 17, 2007
How can a man who pays $400 a time for a haircut be the champion of America's working poor?
The Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards hopes to prove this week that wealth and privilege are no obstacle to campaigning against poverty as he sets out on a three-day tour of some of the poorest parts of the US....
In a push to get the poverty issue back on the national agenda, Mr Edwards, says he is taking a break from his campaign to bring attention to poverty and dep
Source: Guardian
Jul 17, 2007
Hundreds of elderly Germans are being confronted with the revelation that they were recruited into the Nazi party during the second world war.
Historians researching Nazi party archives in Frankfurt have discovered that a string of prominent Germans were among those automatically granted membership to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday.
Writers, a cabaret artist, scientists, journalists and politicians, including former cabinet ministers, are among those whose names are
Source: http://www.news-antique.com
Jul 16, 2007
A letter handwritten by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to Gen. Robert E. Lee on April 10, 1865, discussing terms of surrender of the Confederate Army and originally penned at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, will be sold the weekend of August 4-5 by Gallery 63. The letter was consigned by a Texas woman and was authenticated by the late Civil War historian Shelby Foote.
“This may very well be the most important document to come on the market in the last fifty years,” said Paul Brown of
