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: Christian Science Monitor
May 9, 2007
SYDNEY -- To white Australians, the flocks of red-tailed black cockatoos which flap above tree canopies are a memorable highlight of any weekend hike. But to Aborigines, the parrots are living, squawking barometers.
"A month ago when the cockatoos were flocking and the wattle bushes were flowering, we saw that as signs of rain," says Jeremy Clark, chief executive of the Brambuk Aboriginal Cultural Centre in the Grampian Mountains of Victoria State. "Sure enough, we've
Source: Salisbury (Md.) Daily Times
May 8, 2007
GEORGETOWN, Del. -- The first historical monument to honor Delawareans who fought for the Confederacy will be unveiled Saturday in Georgetown.
The unveiling will be at noon on the grounds of the Nutter B. Marvel Museum on South Bedford Street, with ceremonies at the monument at 1 p.m.The ceremonies will include speeches, a 21-gun salute, cannon salutes, and re-enactors will walk the grounds afterward.
"We've invited quite a few people. We're e
Source: AP
May 8, 2007
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- A museum that tells the story of the 1914 assassination that sparked World War I reopened Tuesday after renovations to repair damage to the building from Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
The Museum of Sarajevo 1878-1918 catalogues the period of Austro-Hungarian rule and the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, widely regarded as the act that triggered World War I.
The downtown Sarajevo museum, located at the site of the assassination,
Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
May 8, 2007
The Russian Education Ministry's recent decision to review the country's history textbooks follows the recent ban of a book that had been popular with many Russian history teachers for its thought-provoking approach. This weekend, in yet another move, the Kremlin is due to receive a report on the "patriotic content" of textbooks. The trend has teachers worried about the temptation to revert to comfortable, Soviet-style "truths" -- and even some of the historians charged with
Source: AFP
May 8, 2007
BELFAST -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday that history would decide whether peace in Northern Ireland or the war in Iraq would be the outstanding part of his legacy.
Blair, who is expected to announce his resignation plans this week, hailed the restoration of self-rule in Northern Ireland, which the province hopes will finally bury the dark decades of sectarian violence.
Asked in Belfast whether Iraq would overshadow his achievements in Northern Irela
Source: USA Today
May 8, 2007
While working for the Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau in 1993, journalist Asra Nomani played volleyball on the National Mall, explored the city's club scene and got her "socialization to America" with friend and colleague Daniel Pearl by her side.
This fall, more than five years after Pearl was murdered while reporting in Pakistan, Nomani will lead a for-credit journalism seminar at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., that seeks to investigate the circumstan
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
May 8, 2007
The sea, a thing of infinite mystery, was up to its mysterious ways today on San Francisco's Ocean Beach.
At high noon, in the middle of low tide, two large pieces of a wrecked 19th century clipper ship decided to poke out above the sand and reveal their long-hidden selves to the world...The visible parts of the shipwreck were nothing more than two 10-foot-long arrangements of lumber in the shape of a V, poking about a foot or so above the shoreline near the end
Source: Asia Times (Hong Kong)
May 8, 2007
HONG KONG -- As China races into its capitalist future, it is also rediscovering its philosophical and religious past...
Chinese leaders...are enthusiastically supporting a revival of the ancient philosophical traditions of Confucianism and Taoism. Late last month, for example, the government sponsored a six-day forum dedicated to the interpretation and promotion of Tao Te Ching (or Dai De Jing, "The Book of the Way and Its Virtue"), the foundational text of Taoism, both a
Source: Discovery News
May 8, 2007
Ancient Romans built their towns using astronomically aligned grids, an Italian study has concluded.
Published recently on the physics Web site, http://www.arXiv.org, maintained at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the research examined the orientation of virtually all Roman towns in Italy.
"It emerged that these towns were not laid out at random. On the contrary, they were planned following strong symbolic aspects, all link
Source: Haaretz (Tel Aviv)
May 8, 2007
A recently deciphered ancient Greek stele (inscribed stone slab) is currently on display at the Israel Museum. The stele was produced in 178 B.C.E. in Israel at a time when the region was ruled by the Hellenistic Seleucid empire...
The inscription describes King Seleucus IV's appointment of senior Greek clerk Olympiodorus to oversee sanctuaries in Israel and surrounding areas. In the first letter, King Seleucus IV informs his deputy Heliodorus of the appointment and the second and t
Source: AP
May 8, 2007
MERRILLVILLE, Ind. -- A man found trapped unconscious beneath a 1,000-pound tombstone in a cemetery faces charges and might have to pay for damages, police said.
Michael David Schreiber's legs were broken by the stone, and the family name on the gravestone left the letter ''V'' imprinted on his thigh, Merrillville Officer Ray Smith said...
Schreiber, 22, of Merrillville faces charges of criminal trespassing, criminal mischief and public intoxication, police said. He als
Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
May 8, 2007
Russia has raised its estimate for the number of Soviet troops killed in World War II to 8.86 million.
The announced was made to the daily Gazeta by General Aleksandr Kirilin, director of the armed forces' commemorative center.
The paper says the figure represents an increase of 200,000 over an estimate issued by the Defense Ministry in 1993.
Estimates put at more than 25 million the total number of Soviet civilian and military war dead.
Source: New York Times
May 8, 2007
WASHINGTON —- Time magazine’s armored truck from the Balkans, pockmarked with bullet holes, has been hoisted into place. The laptop used by Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in Pakistan in 2002, has arrived. So has the vest that Bob Woodruff of ABC was wearing last year when he was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
These stark reminders of the hazards of newsgathering will be displayed at the new Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, scheduled to open on Oct. 15.
Source: ANI (Asian News International)
May 8, 2007
LAHORE, Pakistan -- A team of American, Pakistani and Japanese archaeologists has claimed the discovery of rare objects in the Cholistan Desert, raising hopes of the presence of ruins identical to the [ancient Indus Valley] civilizations of Mohenjodaro and Harappa.Archaeologists from Wisconsin, the Research Institute of Humanities and Nature, Tokyo and the Department of Archaeology, Punjab University, say they have discovered a rare copper seal, a terracotta block, three wed
Source: BBC News
May 8, 2007
Archaeological finds, possibly from the English Civil War, have delayed the development of one of Bristol's most well-known derelict sites.
The rare defence works on the Westmoreland House site will have to be recorded and removed if they are confirmed as genuine.
The finds have put back Comer Homes' plans for 200 flats and a complex for arts group Kumba on the site.
Source: Cambridge Evening News
May 8, 2007
Cambridge University is facing calls to hand back ancient skeletal remains.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal community wants the university to follow the lead of the Natural History Museum [in London] and return the specimens.
The museum has agreed to hand over four remains and is currently locked in talks with representatives from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) who are trying to stop them scientifically testing 13 others.
And while representatives are in En
Source: AP
May 8, 2007
TALLINN, Estonia -- Estonian government ministers laid flowers at a disputed Soviet statue on Tuesday, the first time the Baltic state has paid tribute to the Red Army while commemorating the Allied victory in World War II.
The government was hoping the gesture would begin a process of reconciliation between ethnic Estonians and Russian-speakers, 10 days after Estonia was hit by riots over the decision to move the Bronze Soldier statue from downtown Tallinn to a cemetery outside the city c
Source: AP
May 8, 2007
BERLIN -- Barbara Preusch vividly remembers the day the Nazis searched her Berlin home for hidden Jews -- and left without finding the mother and daughter her family was sheltering...
Sixty-two years after the end of World War II on May 8, 1945, people like Preusch -- a teenager when her grandmother began helping fugitive Jews -- are being honored with a museum in Berlin.
Israel recognized gentiles who helped Jews escape the Holocaust as early as 1963, and honored 443 G
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 8, 2007
Just before last Thanksgiving, Walter Kehowski decided to share some wishes with his colleagues at Glendale Community College. The tenured mathematics professor used a faculty announcement e-mail list to send George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789. The e-mail that Kehowski sent also indicated his source: the blog of Pat Buchanan.
That e-mail could end up costing Kehowski his job, according to documents released Monday by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Educati
Source: UPI
May 8, 2007
BOSTON -- Five years after Frank J. Goldsmith died his wife found a manuscript describing the sinking of the Titanic stored with his personal papers in their Ohio home.
That 1987 discovery ultimately resulted in a legal battle between Goldsmith's heirs and the Titanic Historical Society in Springfield, Mass. Goldsmith didn't write a fictional account. He was one of the survivors of the 1912 disaster that claimed 1,500 lives, including that of his own father.
Put on a li
