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: ESPN
Jun 10, 2007
Millions of people have marveled at the view of Bridalveil Fall since John Muir first spotted it from a mile away when he entered Yosemite Valley in the spring of 1868. Not nearly as many see the "dainty little fall'' quite the way Muir did.
Now, a Santa Cruz, Calif., couple are hoping to restore some popularity to one of the classic early views of Yosemite, reopening a 19th-century door on what Muir came to regard as a holy vista — the "sanctum sanctorum of the Sierra.''
Source: AP
Jun 10, 2007
Born Mildred Jeter, she's known mostly by the name she took when she--a black woman living in segregated Virginia--dared break the rules by marrying a white man named Richard Loving.
The union landed the Lovings in jail, and then before the U.S. Supreme Court, and finally in the history books; 40 years ago Tuesday, the court ruled in favor of the couple, overturning laws prohibiting interracial unions and changing the face of America.
Mildred Loving is a matriarch to
Source: http://www.register-herald.com
Jun 9, 2007
LEWISBURG , WV — Although historical Lewisburg’s abundant landscape of Civil War tales has been well documented, there is one chapter in its war-torn past that’s shrouded in mystery and continues to be embroiled in debate.
Unnoticed by many who live here is a white oval, approximately 6 feet in diameter, high upon the right-hand side wall of the two-story brick building located at 124 W. Washington St. And inside the oval is a red flag with criss-crossed blue bars flying from a post
Source: NYT
Jun 9, 2007
In the months before the 1967 Middle East war, Israel was in a spiral of self-doubt, the 19-year experiment of an independent Jewish state looking shaky.
There were existential worries about destruction by Arab armies, fierce denunciations of the political leadership and deep anxiety about a sinking economy.
Forty years later, Israel is rich and its army one of the best in the world, yet the public mood is oddly similar. There is a quiet panic about a potentially nucle
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 8, 2007
Fully one-third of those who survived the ghettos and concentration camps, or hid from the Nazis in forests and attics, before fleeing to modern-day Israel are now living below the official poverty line of about £200 per month, struggling to pay for medication and treatment for ailments resulting from so many years of starvation and torture. Most are now octogenarians.
The Israeli government had proposed a new state Holocaust survivors’ benefit of 83 shekels a month, or about £10, o
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Jun 8, 2007
On June 7, the House Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education cleared its fiscal year (FY) 2008 budget for the programs under its jurisdiction.
The subcommittee approved $120 million for the Teaching American History grants program at the U.S. Department of Education. While this reflects level funding from FY 2007, the subcommittee rejected the Bush administration’s request that the program be cut by nearly 60 percent, to a level of $50 million.
Source: Romensko
Jun 8, 2007
Charlie Savage, Washington correspondent for The Boston Globe has won the twentieth annual Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. The $5,000 award recognizes journalists whose high standards for accuracy and substance help foster a better public understanding of the Presidency. This year, the award will be presented by Jack Ford, son of President Ford and chairman of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, at a National Press Club luncheon on June 11th.
In selecting Cha
Source: http://www.interfax
Jun 8, 2007
German psychologist Gunter Kruse, who in recent years has been engaged in drawing up Lenin's family tree, maintains that one of the world proletariat leader's great-grandmothers was burnt at the stake as a witch.
"I went as far back as the middle ages and discovered one of Lenin's ancestor who lived in the 13th century", Kruse reported after spending several years in archives, drawing up the Western European branch of Lenin's family tree.
According to Kruse, t
Source: http://www.djournal.com/
Jun 8, 2007
A strip of the past runs not far from the southern corporate limits of this northern Lee County city.
The 300 feet or so left of the first concrete road built in Mississippi, stands as a reminder of the work that has pushed Lee County forward in so many ways.
Bobby Smith, District 2 supervisor, knew that when he had to pave most of what is now known as County Road 681. But he left the strip for posterity, notified the state Department of Archives and History and wants
Source: http://www.thepresstribune.com (Roseville, CA)
Jun 8, 2007
A Cirby School third-grade teacher is proving books and documentaries aren't the only ways to learn about the history of Roseville.
Students in Lisa Wegsteen's class last week staged several performances of an original play shedding light on the city's history. But in a unique twist, students' hands did all the acting.
Using specially decorated hand puppets, actors played a group of contemporary Cirby School students who want to learn more about their area's past.
Source: NYT
Jun 8, 2007
The history of the American spacesuit may be missing a chapter if NASA doesn’t change its plans.
While all the previous iterations of the suit — from John Glenn’s to Gene Cernan’s — are on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, the model used in the most recent spacewalks is not for a number of reasons, according to CollectSpace, a website about preserving the history of space exploration.First, it’s a fashion issue. NASA splurged on c
Source: http://www.sonomanews.com
Jun 8, 2007
For those with a keen knowledge of Sonoma history, Gen. Mariano Vallejo's tombstone in Mountain Cemetery has been a long-standing point of contention. The reason: The general's birth date is incorrect on the large slab of marble.
Now a collection of interested citizens is working with the living descendants of Vallejo to attempt to get this error fixed.
"We can actually set the date straight," said Martha McGettigan, great-great-granddaughter of Vallejo. "I thi
Source: http://www.dailypress.com
Jun 8, 2007
NORFOLK, Va. -- Their lightly armed spy ship was cruising the Mediterranean off the coast of Egypt, watching and eavesdropping during the Six-Day War in 1967 between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
The sky was clear and the sea calm. Suddenly, Israeli war planes swooped down and ships approached, firing at the deck as sailors aboard the Liberty struggled to save the Norfolk-based ship. The assault--40 years ago Friday--lasted as long as 75 minutes, k
Source: Buffalo News
Jun 8, 2007
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s sale of the prized bronze statue “Artemis and the Stag” earned $25.5 million Thursday at Sotheby’s auction house in New York City, setting records as the most expensive sculpture and antiquity sold through auctions.
Final sales from Thursday’s auction of 25 antiquities from the gallery’s permanent collection totaled $35.8 million, bringing profits from the gallery’s recent series of auctions to more than $64 million, not including Sotheby’s commission
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 8, 2007
She was a beautiful young Chinese nurse, fresh from a Hong Kong training college. He was the epitome of glamour in war-wracked China, an American "Flying Tiger", one of the select group of fighter pilots who defended the supply chain across the Himalayas for the troops fighting the Japanese.
Amid the carnage, they fell in love, and the pilot - known to this day only by his nickname, Panny - promised to return after the war was over to find her.
It took 60 year
Source: NYT
Jun 8, 2007
BUTOVO, Russia — Barbed wire still lines the perimeter of the secret police compound here on the southern edge of Moscow where more, perhaps far more, than 20,000 people were shot and buried from August 1937 through October 1938, at the height of Stalin’s purges.
Now, gradually, Butovsky poligon — literally, the Butovo shooting range — is becoming a shrine to all of the victims of Stalin’s murderous campaigns. Grass-covered mounds holding the victims’ bones crisscross the pastoral f
Source: HNN Staff
Jun 8, 2007
The chief counsel to the Navy's Court of Inquiry into Israel's attack on the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in 1967 repeats in today's edition of the San Diego Union a charge he first made in 2004 that Lyndon Johnson ordered a cover-up of the truth.
The Liberty was attacked on June 8, 1967 during the Six-Day War. 34 died and 171 were injured. Israel claimed it was an accident. But in an op ed today Ward Boston Jr. says "I know from personal conversations with the l
Source: NYT Editorial
Jun 8, 2007
Many members of Congress were rightly outraged by the Cherokee Nation’s decision earlier this year to revoke the tribal citizenship of about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by the tribe. The tribe’s leaders have since tried to avoid any punishment by restoring partial rights to some black members. Congress should disregard that ruse and move ahead with legislation that would force the Cherokee to comply with their treaty obligations and court decisions that guarantee black members full ci
Source: NYT
Jun 7, 2007
When it comes to high-profile presidential pardons, the big one, of course, was President Gerald R. Ford’s pardon of Richard M. Nixon.
Ford issued the pardon on Sept. 8, 1974, pre-empting the possibility of a trial for Nixon, who had resigned on Aug. 9 because of the Watergate scandal without being charged with any crimes.
Explaining his decision, Ford described the Nixon family’s situation as “an American tragedy in which we all have played a part.”
“It co
Source: NYT Editorial
Jun 7, 2007
Appearing last month before the state’s highest court, a lawyer representing eight same-sex couples led a spirited attack on Connecticut’s refusal to grant gay couples the freedom to marry. He also challenged the notion that civil union laws — like those enacted in Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and most recently New Hampshire — are a constitutionally adequate alternative.
The plaintiffs’ argument was laced with references to Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court’s notorious
