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: National Geographic News
Jul 11, 2007
Rock face drawings and etchings recently rediscovered in southern Egypt are similar in age and style to the iconic Stone Age cave paintings in Lascaux, France, and Altamira, Spain, archaeologists say.
"It is not at all an exaggeration to call it 'Lascaux on the Nile,'" said expedition leader Dirk Huyge, curator of the Egyptian Collection at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels, Belgium.
"The style is riveting," added Salima Ikram of the A
Source: BBC
Jul 11, 2007
Campaigners fighting to preserve a 4,000-year-old archaeological find in Herefordshire say they are facing a race against time.
Experts have said the newly-uncovered Rotherwas Ribbon could be as important as Stonehenge.
The Ribbon [of stones] is thought to be about 4,000 years old
However, the site is in the path of a controversial planned relief road.
Herefordshire Council said a protective shield will be built over the site to save it for future ge
Source: NYT
Jul 11, 2007
After two decades of fear and silence, an architect has come forward to say that at least three bodies that may belong to student protesters killed in a 1968 massacre are buried under a hospital near the massacre site.
The architect, Rosa María Alvarado Martínez, said late Monday that she was forced to keep quiet about the grisly discovery after men identifying themselves as police officers said they would kidnap and kill her son if she went public.
The three bodies wer
Source: AP
Jul 11, 2007
President Nixon and his 1972 re-election campaign tried to tie Democrats to the mob, gay liberation and even slavery, according to newly released papers and tapes betraying bare-knuckle tactics from the dawn of the Watergate scandal.
Still, even as Nixon's lieutenants explored every avenue for defeating Democrat George McGovern and nullifying critics of all stripes — "hit them" was a favorite phrase — the president brooded over his reputation as a hard man whose gentle si
Source: AP
Jul 11, 2007
Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady who championed conservation and worked tenaciously for the political career of her husband, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, died Wednesday, a family spokeswoman said. She was 94.
Lady Bird Johnson returned home late last month after a week at Seton Medical Center, where she'd been admitted for a low-grade fever. Her husband died in 1973.
She died at her Austin home of natural causes about 4:18 p.m. CDT, said Elizabeth Christi
Source: Nixon Library
Jul 11, 2007
Today the National Archives and Records Administration opened the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. The new Library joins eleven other federally-operated libraries for Presidents from Herbert Hoover onward. Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein made the announcement at an 8 a.m. (PDT) ceremony for staff and friends at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA.
By agreement between the private Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation and the National Archives, control ov
Source: Herald (Australia)
Jul 11, 2007
The Vietcong are as distant a memory as the ‘Grunts’ of the US forces who fought them during the Vietnam War – except in the pitches of the country’s bizarre tourist trade....
The Cu Chi Tunnel complex is one of Asia's stranger holiday fantasies, with its firing range of Vietnam War weaponry, displays of booby-trap bamboo spikes, tunnels to crawl through and dioramas of waxwork GIs setting fire to villages.
It amounts to a Vietnam War theme park on the site of one of th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 11, 2007
The world's oldest working car is set to go under the hammer - and it is expected to fetch up to 1 million pounds.
The four-wheeled car, called La Marquise, was built in 1884 for the Count De Dion, one of the founders of the automobile manufacturers De Dion-Bouton et Trepardoux. It has only had two other owners since, according to Gooding & Company, the auction house selling it.
The four-seater, fuelled by coal, wood and paper, takes about half an hour to work up en
Source: New York Sun
Jul 11, 2007
A federal appeals court is expressing skepticism about the CIA's claim that its technique for briefing presidents is so sensitive that it must be protected from public scrutiny, even 40 years after the fact.
Two judges considering a lawsuit seeking access to so-called Presidential Daily Briefs provided to President Johnson during the Vietnam War era cast doubt yesterday on the spy agency's assertion that the way it updates the nation's chief executive is itself an intelligence metho
Source: NYT
Jul 11, 2007
Pope Benedict XVI restated Tuesday what he said were the “defects” of Christian faiths other than Roman Catholicism, prompting anger from Protestants who questioned the Vatican’s respect for other beliefs.
“It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity,” the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which represents Protestants in more than 100 countries, said in a statement. The Vatican document repeated many of the contentious claims of a document issu
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 11, 2007
The sound of unbridled joy seldom breaks the quiet of the British Museum's great Arched Room, which holds its collection of 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets, dating back 5,000 years.
But Michael Jursa, a visiting professor from Vienna, let out such a cry last Thursday. He had made what has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, a discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact.
Searc
Source: AP
Jul 11, 2007
A 41-foot raft made of reeds and wooden planks set out Wednesday on voyage from New York to Spain, a daring and perhaps foolhardy attempt to prove people in the Stone Age could have crossed the Atlantic.
The fragile-looking craft was towed down the harbor past the Statue of Liberty, to be cut loose once it passed into the open sea. At the helm was Dominique Gorlitz, 41, a German botanist and ex-teacher who has spent years preparing for the expedition."We are trying to retrace the ancient wate
Source: http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk
Jul 10, 2007
STONE Age Britons from across the North-East flocked to a prehistoric "Glastonbury festival" marked by mysterious rituals, a major archaeological discovery suggests.
Experts believe tools, pottery and timber stakes unearthed near Durham City show a site within view of Durham Cathedral was a place of mass worship as far back as 3,000 BC.
What the Neolithic-era North-Easterners did during the meetings is still buried in history, but possible activities include c
Source: Columbian
Jul 10, 2007
A woman who sold her accordion during World War II to pay for lessons so she could fly airplanes in the war effort made her last flight into Vancouver Tuesday.
Then she gave her favorite airplane to Pearson Air Museum.
It wasn’t just any airplane, either. It was the 1953 model Cessna that in 1956 and 1957 she flew solo around the world.
“I’m not crying out loud — not yet,” said pilot Jan Wood, 85, of Reseda, Calif. She was a little unsteady on her legs in t
Source: CBC News
Jul 10, 2007
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ordered a fine of $4,000 against an Ottawa man who operated a website and internet forum called the Canadian Nazi Party.
Bobby James Wilkinson has also been ordered to "cease and desist" from communicating or helping to communicate messages that would likely expose people to hatred or contempt for being part of an identifiable group protected by law against discrimination, tribunal member Athanasios D. Hadjis ruled Tuesday following a
Source: http://www.radio.cz
Jul 10, 2007
In recent months, there have been increasingly frequent reports of Czechs trying to pass themselves off as veterans of the Second World War. And real veterans are far from impressed - groups such as the Czech Freedom Fighters' Assocation have spoken out against such behaviour, and even raised the question of whether such a practice should be outlawed.
Source: AP
Jul 10, 2007
rench President Nicolas Sarkozy, embarking on a trip to former colonies in North Africa on Tuesday, said France should recognize its colonial history but not repent it.
"I am for a recognition of facts, not for repentance, which is a religious notion and has no place in state-to-state relations," Sarkozy said in an interview with the Algerian newspapers El Watan and El Khabar published Tuesday.
"The younger generations, on both sides of the Mediterranean,
Source: BBC
Jul 10, 2007
Archaeologists excavating the site of a Roman villa say artefacts have been stolen and damage caused by thieves using metal detectors.
The team arrived at the site just north of Lincoln on Thursday morning to find 31 holes had been dug there overnight.
The four-week dig is a joint venture between Lindum Heritage and Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln.
Zoe Tomlinson, from Lindum Heritage, said the damage caused would have a lasting impact.
Source: BBC
Jul 10, 2007
A six-year-old has unearthed 120 million-year-old pterosaur bones while hunting for dinosaur relics during a day out at a beach with his father.
Owain Lewis discovered the extremely rare fossil, part of a flying reptile called a pterosaur, at Compton Bay near Freshwater on the Isle of Wight.
The find comprises delicate wing bones of the extinct flying reptile.
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Jul 10, 2007
On July 10, the Senate Financial Services and General Government Appropriations’ Subcommittee approved its fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill. The bill includes $313.9 million ($1.1 million above the President’s request, $1.1 million less than the House recently approved in its bill (H.R. 2829) and $34.6 million above fiscal year 2007 budget) for operating expenses of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
As approved, the bill also includes $10 million for the N
