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
Feb 27, 2007
MEXICO CITY -- Archeologists said Monday that porcelain plates and other artifacts found along the Baja California coast could be from the wreckage of a Spanish galleon that sailed between the Philippines and Mexico hundreds of years ago.
Seals and other markings on some of the estimated 1,000 fragments of porcelain plates found at the site indicate they were made in China in the late 1500s, said archaeologist Luz Maria Mejia of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.
Source: AP
Feb 27, 2007
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A steady stream of visitors paid their respects at Taipei's Peace Park on Tuesday, a day before it becomes the focus of observances commemorating the 60th anniversary of an infamous communal massacre.
On Feb. 28, 1947, Chinese Nationalist soldiers beat a local Taiwanese woman for selling contraband cigarettes near the Taipei rail station. The episode set off rioting throughout the island which Nationalist reinforcements put down at the cost of thousands of lives.
Source: Telegraph
Feb 27, 2007
ROME -- The only Roman emperor's sceptre to have been found has gone on public display in Rome for the first time.
The sceptre, which is topped by a blue orb that represents the earth, was discovered at the end of last year and is believed to have been held by Emperor Maxentius, who ruled for six years until 312AD.
Maxentius, who was known for his vices and his incapacity, drowned in the Tiber while fighting forces loyal to his brother-in-law, Constantine, at the battle
Source: Guardian
Feb 27, 2007
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- With sad eyes Om Som sits in her shack in the Cambodian countryside waiting for answers. The shoeless 70-year-old has clung on for half a lifetime hoping to find out what happened to her beloved husband, and why...
Twenty-eight years after Pol Pot's brutal regime was toppled, the prospect of a long-awaited genocide trial of its senior leaders offers a faint glimmer of hope for Om Som. With her family she was evacuated from Phnom Penh when it was cleared by th
Source: Independent
Feb 27, 2007
HENGDIAN, China -- The story of how a young Englishman, George Hogg, took 60 orphans on a journey of hundreds of miles to safety across war-ravaged China in the winter of 1944 is one of the more remarkable tales of the Second World War.
In the town of Shandan, in Gansu province on the Mongolian border, Hogg and his friend and mentor, the New Zealand philanthropist Rewi Alley, are remembered with a statue and affection, but Hogg is little known outside China. This is all set to chang
Source: Telegraph (Calcutta, India)
Feb 27, 2007
RANCHI, Jharkhand, India -- Archaeologists might add a new chapter to the history of India, as certain remains of the stone-age civilisation have been discovered in the Damodar valley basin [in the new Indian state of Jharkhand, south of Bihar state].
The state art and culture department has already begun excavations [at two sites near Hazaribagh]...Several remains of the stone-age civilisation have been found in these places...Several Buddhist statues of the 12th century have also
Source: AP
Feb 26, 2007
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by the Oscar-winning director James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets."The Lost Tomb of Christ," which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries _ small caskets used to store bones _ discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus and his family, according to a press release issued by the Discovery Channel.
Source: NPR, All Things Considered
Feb 26, 2007
The revelation that an ancestor of Rev. Al Sharpton was a slave owned by an ancestor of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond has highlighted the growing field of genealogy. Tracing family history is a challenge for many African-Americans who are the descendants of slaves.
For his part, Sharpton has said that he was "shocked" and "surprised" to learn that his great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave owned by a woman named Julia Thurmond. Thurmond's grandfather was
Source: AP
Feb 26, 2007
VANCOUVER, Wash. -- Archaeologists are using broken pottery, bullets and buttons found over the past 60 years to piece together the history of a 19th century fort along the Columbia River. Some 2 million artifacts have been dug up at Fort Vancouver, which from 1829 to 1866 served as a hub for fur and mercantile trade and military activity in the West.
The salvaged pieces have been stored in a replica fur store on the southern edge of a replica fort. Scientists are cataloguing the it
Source: Live Science
Feb 26, 2007
Fabric swatches dug up from archaeological sites often look like dull brown rags, but archaeologists are putting crime lab techniques to work to uncover the colors, patterns and other revealing features of antiquated textiles.
The patterns, in particular, have helped researchers identify the dyes, paints, skills and trade routes of the Hopewell, a broad network of Native American groups who lived in the eastern part of North America about 2,000 years ago. The Hopewell in Ohio made e
Source: AP
Feb 26, 2007
ROME -- An Italian military court on Monday acquitted an 87-year-old former lieutenant in the German army of charges stemming from the 1944 World War II massacre of 48 civilians in a small town in Tuscany, Italian news agencies reported.
The tribunal in the northern port city of La Spezia ruled that there was no evidence to convict Herbert Hantschk, an Austrian who was tried in absentia, the ANSA news agency reported. He was the sole surviving defendant in the case, Italian media sa
Source: DPA (German Press Agency)
Feb 26, 2007
MAGDEBURG, Germany -- Seven far-right Germans in their 20s who flung a copy of Anne Frank's Diary into a bonfire amid cheers from beer-drinking neo-Nazis went on trial for sedition Monday.
The Summer Solstice Party last year in the small town of Pretzien, 130 kilometres west of Berlin, caused uproar in Germany last year after it was revealed that the town mayor and police were also
present and saw nothing wrong in the book and a US flag being burned...
Public pro
Source: AP
Feb 26, 2007
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The bones of victims from the Khmer Rouge's notorious "killing fields" should be preserved because they could serve as critical evidence in upcoming genocide trials, Cambodia's prime minister said Monday.
Human remains, particularly skulls, serve as the centerpieces of several memorials to the victims of the Khmer Rouge, who were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, overwork, medical neglect and executio
Source: AP
Feb 26, 2007
WARSAW, Poland -- A book released Monday has dredged up more painful allegations from Poland's Communist era, naming some 30 Roman Catholic priests, including several bishops, as registered informants with the secret police.
The author, the Rev. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, was twice brutally beaten by the secret police and is one of the leaders of a drive to expose clergy who supplied information to authorities. The church, he says, must confess and repent to heal wounds.
Source: National Geographic News
Feb 26, 2007
Milk wasn't on the Stone Age menu, says a new study which suggests the vast majority of adult Europeans were lactose intolerant as recently as 7,000 years ago.
While cow's milk is a mainstay in the diet of modern-day Europeans, their ancestors weren't able to digest the nutritious dairy product after childhood, according to DNA analysis of human skeletons from the Neolithic period.
The study was led by Joachim Burger of the Institute of Archaeology at Mainz University i
Source: New Orleans City Business
Feb 26, 2007
NEW ORLEANS -- A third contract has been awarded in the $300-million expansion of the National World War II Museum.
Bridge City-based Concrete Busters of Louisiana Inc. will soon begin the $481,827 demolition of the property bordered by Magazine Street, Andrew Higgins Boulevard and Camp and Calliope streets to make way for buildings that will quadruple the facility’s size in the next five years.
The facilities featuring battlefields and military services of World War II
Source: PR.com
Feb 26, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO -- As many newspaper publishers struggle with how to provide access to their printed archives without the content being exploited, small-market publishers are lining up to have their archives digitized and made online-accessible by SmallTownPapers, Inc. <http://www.smalltownpapers.com/>
The Seattle-based company is working with more than 300 publishers from across the US to create high-quality digital images of the
Source: CNN
Feb 26, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Lt. Col. Bruce Crandall's heroics in Vietnam were immortalized in a movie and a critically acclaimed book.
More than 40 years after Crandall repeatedly risked his life to rescue American soldiers fighting one of the toughest battles of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military officially recognized his heroism Monday, when he was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for military valor."For the soldiers rescued, for the men who came home, for the
Source: UPI
Feb 26, 2007
Researchers at Harvard Medical School said the disorder known as repressed memory has a cultural rather than a scientific basis.
In an unusual study conducted by a team of psychiatrists and literary scholars, the Harvard group was unable to uncover any examples of the phenomenon in Western writings that are more than 200 years old, The Washington Post reported.
Study leader Harrison Pope of Harvard Medical School says dissociative amnesia or repressed memory first a
Source: AP
Feb 26, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets, but the Oscar-winning director said the evidence was based on sound statistics."The Lost Tomb of Jesus," which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries —- small caskets used to store bones —- discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus and his family, ac
