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: AP
Mar 15, 2007
WARSAW -- Authorities are working on plans to mark a little-known Nazi concentration camp and nearby military installation.
The Pustkow labor camp, where 15,000 inmates died, was dismantled before the end of the war, and local official Andrzej Regula said Thursday it needs to be recognized before its existence is forgotten with the passage of time.
"If 15,000 people were killed here, the world should know about this," Regula said in a telephone interview from
Source: WorldNetDaily (Medford, Ore.)
Mar 15, 2007
Tour guides at the American birthplace of Jamestown, Va., are being prevented from explaining Christian history and are under orders to refer to items such as the Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer only as"religious" in nature.
That according to California pastor and researcher Todd DuBord [of Lake Almanor Community Church] who says he was stunned on a recent tour of the historic town when"our guide responded to our inquiry by saying that she was 'unable to speak about the plaques. We are
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mar 15, 2007
A bill that would permanently establish April as Confederate History and Heritage month in Georgia sailed through a Senate committee on Thursday without any opposition.
Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga), the sponsor of Senate Bill 283, told the Senate Rules Committee that the proposal would help promote tourism in the state and preserve an important part of the state and nation's history.
"I'm not doing this for controversial reasons, but to commemorate a struggle t
Source: AP
Mar 15, 2007
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The military collection of the man who pulled a lever dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is coming to the North Carolina Museum of History.
Colonel Thomas W. Ferebee scrupulously saved souvenirs of his military service, including notes written on August 6, 1945 —- the day the bomb was dropped from the Enola Gay during World War II.
The museum has acquired maps, Ferebee's dress uniform, desk nameplate, reunion pins and mugs and paperwork documenting h
Source: National Geographic News
Mar 15, 2007
FOWLER'S BLUFF, Fla. -- Treasure hunters digging on a remote bluff overlooking Florida's Suwannee River claim they have found tantalizing evidence that pirate gold might be at the bottom of a muddy, 13-foot (4-meter) hole.
"We've found mahogany wood samples, flecks of gold, and gold all over the diver's dive suit [after diving in the hole]," said Tommy Todd, a St. Petersburg landscaper who owns the property being excavated.
Workers drilling at the site said th
Source: Live Science
Mar 15, 2007
Archaeologists working on the Pacific islands of Vanuatu have found the region's oldest cemetery, and it's filled with a slew of headless bodies.
The peculiar 3,000-year-old skeletons belong to the Lapita people, the earliest known inhabitants of the Pacific Islands. Their DNA could shed light on how the many remote island specks surrounding Vanuatu were colonized, the researchers say.
"Both Vanuatu and Western Polynesia were first settled by the Lapita culture but
Source: New York Times
Mar 15, 2007
LOS ANGELES -— Shortly after moving here last year to take over as director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Michael Govan started looking at houses — not as a place for him to live but as potential museum pieces.
His idea —- one that has rarely, if ever, been tried on a large scale by a major museum —- is to collect significant pieces of midcentury residential architecture, including houses by Rudolf M. Schindler, Richard Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright and his son Lloyd Wright,
Source: AP
Mar 15, 2007
More than 1 million pages of historical government documents — a stack taller than the U.S. Capitol — have been removed from public view since the September 2001 terror attacks, according to records obtained by the Associated Press. Some of the papers are more than a century old.
In some cases, entire file boxes were removed without significant review because the government's central record-keeping agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, did not have time for a more thor
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Mar 15, 2007
The House of Representatives yesterday adopted a slate of open
government bills by large, veto-proof majorities in the face of
sharp opposition from the Bush White House.
"Today, Congress took an important step towards restoring openness
and transparency in government," said Rep. Henry Waxman, who
expeditiously moved the bills through his Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform.
"Over the past six years, the Bush Administration has done
everything it can to operate in secret,
Source: Las Vegas Sun
Mar 15, 2007
A lawmaker in China has called for a national "Humiliation Day" on Sept. 18 to mark the start of Japan's 1931 invasion and remind the Chinese public of foreign attacks, state media reported Thursday.Chinese nationalism, especially among the young, has surged recently along with the country's economy and international influence, stoked by a Communist government that regards Japan as its rival for regional superpower status.
"An outstanding nation i
Source: Salon
Mar 15, 2007
While there may not be armies massing near the Yalu River at present, in the context of ancient Northeast Asian history, a border war is being fought, a conflict in which archaeologists are the infantry and ancient inscriptions on stone monuments the ammunition. The "history war" between China and Korea has been raging for at least a decade, and the skating incident is just one of the most recent skirmishes. Fronts in this war include government-sponsored research institutions, televis
Source: AHN
Mar 15, 2007
Next week, Japanese and Chinese historians are scheduled to gather for the second round of a joint history study that will also touch on war-related issues. The new round of talks comes amidst worldwide anger over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's claim that there was no evidence of Asian women being forced into Japanese military brothels during WWII.Ten historians from each country will hold talks in Tokyo on Monday and Tuesday as part of the second round of discussions.
Source: ABC
Mar 15, 2007
Lucie Aubrac, a hero of the French Resistance who helped free her husband from the Gestapo and whose dramatic life story became a hit film, has died. She was 94.In 1943, Aubrac helped orchestrate her husband's escape from a Lyon prison after his arrest. She persuaded the local Gestapo leader, Klaus Barbie, to let her meet with him. During the visit, they planned his escape.
Aubrac led the armed commando that rescued her husband and Resistance leader Jean Moulin
Source: Reuters
Mar 15, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Brushing aside a veto threat, the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to overturn a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep their papers secret indefinitely.
The measure, which drew bipartisan support and passed by a veto-busting 333-93 margin, was among White House-opposed bills the House passed that would widen access to government information and protect government whistleblowers...
The presidential papers bill nu
Source: Independent
Mar 15, 2007
PARIS -- An immense treasure trove of medieval wall paintings, concealed by whitewash for 300 years, has been found in a small church in south-eastern France.
Experts believe that up to 600 square metres of the upper walls of the nave of the church in Vif, near Grenoble, are decorated with frescoes painted in the last part of the 14th century.
Only small sections of the paintings have been uncovered so far, but restorers and art historians are convinced that the whitewa
Source: Telegraph
Mar 15, 2007
BEIJING -- A group of students [in] Taiwan has caused uproar by founding an avowedly Nazi organisation and boasting that it is inspired by Adolf Hitler.
The National Socialism Association was set up by Lahn Chao, a master's student from the National Chengchi University in the capital, Taipei, and 19 others.
Its website is a call to arms to rejuvenate the island's politics, end democracy and retake mainland China for the nationalist cause, and bears a symbol in black, re
Source: Telegraph
Mar 15, 2007
One of Britain's greatest secret treasures -- a collection of the first English paintings of North America -- go on public display at the British Museum today for the first time in almost 50 years.
The watercolours, painted in 1585 during an unsuccessful mission to establish England's first colony in America, are so fragile and sensitive to light that they can only be shown once a generation.
Painted just 20 years after the death of Michelangelo and more than 30 years before the Mayflowe
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Mar 15, 2007
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- Paris has the Eiffel Tower. New York has the Empire State Building. Both are symbols of global cities, recognizable currency of power and prestige.
Now the master builders of Vietnam's commercial showcase are racing to put their stamp on tomorrow's skyline. Glass and steel buildings are already sprouting across the city and by 2009, a 68-story skyscraper, designed to invoke the lotus flower and the ao dai worn by Vietnamese women, promises to be this cit
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mar 15, 2007
A week after civil rights groups called on the General Assembly and Gov. Sonny Perdue to apologize for slavery, a key Senate committee will consider a bill today that would designate April as Confederate History and Heritage Month.
Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga) is the main sponsor of Senate Bill 283, which would encourage Georgians each April to honor the Confederacy, its history, soldiers and the people who "contributed to the cause of Southern Independence."
Source: Times (of London)
Mar 15, 2007
The University of Leeds was accused of infringing free speech last night when it cancelled a lecture on “Islamic anti-Semitism” by a German academic.
Matthias Köntzel arrived at the university yesterday morning to begin a three-day programme of lectures and seminars, but was told that it had been called off on “security grounds”.
Dr Köntzel, a political scientist who has lectured around the world on the antiSemitic ideology of Islamist groups, told The Times there were
