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.sys-con.com
Jun 7, 2007
SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and the Computer History Museum (CHM), based in Silicon Valley, today announced that the museum has acquired a new collection of rare computers and related items, made possible by a $250,000 donation from SAP. Determined to be of high quality and historical importance, this collection was found in a remote warehouse in northwestern Germany and was scheduled for destruction before CHM intervened. The donation, managed by the Corporate Social Responsibility team within SAP Globa
Source: http://in.news.yahoo.com
Jun 7, 2007
Publishing houses cannot afford to forget anniversaries. Their dates with history are marked by glossy, sepia-tinted hardbounds and gala launches. The year 2007-that marks the 150th anniversary of the 1857 Uprising and the 60th year of independent India- is just the right time to package nationalism and sell history.The sexagenarian country has spawned quite a few books, including historian Ramachandra Guha's magnum opus India After Gandhi and India 60, an anthol
Source: KUTV News (SLC)
Jun 7, 2007
The remains of seven American Indians unearthed by a home builder show several were shot point-blank in the head by Mormon settlers seeking revenge during a period of pitched violence in 1853, say scientists who plan to release their findings on Friday.
The bones were discovered by contractors digging in Nephi, about 70 miles south of Salt Lake City, last summer for a house that now stands over the site.
The victims, all males about 13 to 35 years old, are believed to
Source: Reuters
Jun 7, 2007
The Acropolis in Athens and Mexico's Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza are among the leaders in a competition, ending in one month, to choose the New Seven Wonders of the World, the organizers said on Thursday.
The winners will be chosen through a global online and phone vote, organizers of the New 7 Wonders of the World (www.new7wonders.com) competition said, a far cry from the methods used by the Greeks who chose the original Seven Wonders more
Source: Inside Higher Ed (Click on SOURCE for embedded links.)
Jun 7, 2007
Opposition — much of it in the United States — is growing to the vote last week by Britain’s main faculty union, the University and College Union, to encourage a boycott of Israeli academics. An online petition by Wednesday had more than 1,300 scholars from around the world — including several Nobel laureates — pledging that as long as the boycott call remains in effect, they will consider themselves to be like Israeli academics and will refuse to attend any meeting from which Israeli professors
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jun 7, 2007
Google’s Library Project, which is in the process of digitizing millions of books at top university libraries around the world, announced a major expansion Wednesday: The 12 universities that make up the Committee on Institutional Cooperation have agreed to let Google digitize up to 10 million of their collective volumes — generally those from the most distinctive parts of their collections.
The announcement brings to 25 the number of universities involved in the Google project, whi
Source: AP
Jun 7, 2007
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Archaeologists unearthing the remains of George Washington's presidential home have discovered a hidden passageway used by his nine slaves, raising questions about whether the ruins should be incorporated into a new exhibit at the site.
The underground passageway is just steps from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. It was designed so Washington's guests would not see slaves as they slipped in and out of the main house.
"As you enter the heaven o
Source: Las Vegas Sun
Jun 7, 2007
Every time Bettye Kearse steps foot on former President James Madison's plantation, she feels like she's coming home. She has spent much of her adult life wondering about her family's saying, one passed down for generations: "Remember your name is Madison."
Kearse, a pediatrician, plans to join about 100 other descendants of Madison's slaves at Montpelier this weekend to share their stories and collect DNA samples that may piece together their history.
Source: WaPo
Jun 7, 2007
The National Archives announced today that it has uncovered in its stacks a hand-written note sent by Abraham Lincoln to one of his top generals four days after the battle of Gettysburg, at the height of the Civil War.
The note, dated July 7, 1863, was sent to Gen. Henry W. Halleck urging that the defeated Confederate Army commanded by Gen. Robert E. Lee be pursued in the hopes of quickly ending the war....
The contents of the note had been known to historians, archives
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jun 7, 2007
The National Archives on Thursday unveiled a handwritten note by Abraham Lincoln exhorting his generals to pursue Robert E. Lee's army after the battle of Gettysburg, underscoring one of the great missed opportunities for an early end to the Civil War.An archives Civil War specialist discovered the July 7, 1863, note three weeks ago in a batch of military papers stored among the billions of pages of historical documents at the mammoth building on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Source: Fox News
Jun 7, 2007
Satellites hovering above Egypt have zoomed in on a 1,600-year-old metropolis, archaeologists say.
Images captured from space pinpoint telltale signs of previous habitation in the swatch of land 200 miles south of Cairo, which digging recently confirmed as an ancient settlement dating from about 400 A.D.
The find is part of a larger project aiming to map as much of ancient Egypt's archaeological sites, or "tells," as possible before they are destroyed or cover
Source: BBC
Jun 7, 2007
The war diaries of a member of the King's Own Scottish Borders have been sold for 30,000 pounds to a mystery buyer.
Peter White's collection of drawings and notes was put together on the battlefields of World War II - a practice prohibited at the time.
A spokesman for auctioneer's Christie's said the material in the diaries was "very, very moving".
Source: NYT
Jun 7, 2007
President Bush has pardoned 113 people during his presidency, including a Tennessee bootlegger and a Mississippi odometer cheat.
But none has drawn the public scrutiny, nor posed the same political challenge, as the candidate that many conservatives hope will be Bush presidential pardon No. 114: I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who was convicted of lying to investigators in the C.I.A. leak case and sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in prison.
Source: NYT
Jun 7, 2007
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France, June 6 — Beside a churning sea and an ocean of white marble crosses, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that the United States and its European allies should honor the thousands of Americans buried here by strengthening the alliance that they died defending.
As light rain descended from a gray Normandy sky, Mr. Gates said that the allied invasion on D-Day was founded on “the belief that that blood of free men could wash away the stains of ty
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 7, 2007
Six sites in Britain and Ireland were added to a list of the world's 100 most endangered monuments yesterday.
One of them, Tara Hill, which is considered the ceremonial and mythical capital of Ireland and is threatened by a motorway for Dublin commuters, was described as "the biggest advocacy challenge" on the World Monuments Fund's watch list for 2008.
It is alongside buildings ruined by the conflict in Iraq, the Peruvian Inca city of Machu Picchu, which is t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 7, 2007
A Spanish court has issued a warrant for the capture and search of two American exploration ships suspected of removing sunken treasure from Spanish waters.
The ships, belonging to Odyssey Marine Exploration, which is based in Florida, are docked in Gibraltar and cannot leave because Spain controls the waters surrounding the British enclave.
A Spanish Culture Ministry spokeswoman said investigations by the Civil Guard, the Defence Ministry and Spanish prosecutors produc
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 7, 2007
He is credited with having coined the phrase "warts and all" while sitting for a portrait.
But yesterday, Oliver Cromwell's pimples did not seem to worry anyone as a four-by-three inch picture of him sold for £535,200.
It makes the Harcourt Miniature, which dates from 1657, the year before Cromwell died, one of the most expensive paintings of its type ever sold at auction.
The oval picture, by Samuel Cooper, Cromwell's favourite artist, is believe
Source: NYT
Jun 7, 2007
Jim Clark, the former sheriff in Selma, Ala., whose violent, highly public attempts to maintain the status quo there in the Jim Crow era are widely believed to have contributed, however inadvertently, to the success of the voting rights movement, died Monday in Elba, Ala. He was 84 and had been living in a nursing home there.
The death was confirmed by the Hayes Funeral Home in Elba.
From 1955 to 1966, Mr. Clark was the sheriff of Dallas County, Ala., which includes Sel
Source: http://www.tallahassee.com
Jun 6, 2007
It was appropriate that the NAACP's 29th annual Freedom Fund & Awards Banquet include a talk about Frenchtown.
Local historian Ann Roberts spoke of the history of the community that started in the 1700s as a 6-by-6-mile stretch of land that developed into a prominent black enclave, full of thriving business up until the end of segregation.
Later, the area became a magnet for crime, drugs and prostitution.
But don't despair, Roberts said. “The best is ye
Source: AP
Jun 6, 2007
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - About 100 descendants of slaves from Montpelier and other Orange County plantations plan to share their stories and collect DNA samples this week that may piece together their history.
President James Madison's Montpelier and the Orange County African American Historical Society are hosting the reunion Friday through Sunday at the central Virginia estate in Montpelier Station. It it meant to educate and celebrate the cultural history of the descendant community.
