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: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 1, 2006
The Greek royal family in exile, stripped of almost all of its property after a coup in 1967, is to sell silverware and other heirlooms rescued from one of its palaces in the hope of raising at least £2 million.
The treasures will be auctioned in London in January, Christie's announced yesterday.
The property is formally described as coming from the collection of King George I of the Hellenes, modern Greece's first monarch, who reigned from 1863 to 1913. But the vendor,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 1, 2006
Those who believe that history is condemned to repeat itself need only examine newly-released files on the Suez affair showing how the government struggled to justify a legally dubious military operation.
Just as Lord Goldsmith, the current Attorney General, strove to put a legal gloss on Tony Blair's position on Iraq, so Lord Kilmuir, the Lord Chancellor in Sir Anthony Eden's cabinet in 1956, performed similar gymnastics.
Documents released at the National Archives 50
Source: NYT
Dec 1, 2006
For sale: history, with a view.
France is selling dozens of historic properties in Paris and the provinces, using the proceeds to move government bureaucrats into less expensive properties and to help pay off the national debt.
So far it has unloaded dozens of chateaus, villas and “hôtels particuliers,” the stone mansions of Paris’s golden age. Foreigners, primarily American pension funds and private equity firms, are the biggest buyers so far. For all their Gallic prid
Source: NYT
Dec 1, 2006
In new research on the great pyramids of Giza, a scientist says he has found more to their construction than cut natural limestone: some original parts of the massive structures appear to be made of concrete blocks.
If true, historians say, this would be the earliest known application of concrete technology, some 2,500 years before the Romans started using it widely in harbors, amphitheaters and other architecture.
Reporting the results of his study, Michel W. Barsoum,
Source: NYT
Dec 1, 2006
Just who was Mao Zedong?
In the English-language version of Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, he was a victorious military and political leader who founded China’s modern Communist state. But he was also a man whom many saw as “a mass murderer, holding his leadership accountable for the deaths of tens of millions of innocent Chinese.”
Switch to Wikipedia in Chinese, though, and you read about a very different man. There, Mao’s reputation is unsullied by mentio
Source: NYT
Dec 1, 2006
The stark insignia of civil defense — a C and D forming a red circle in a white triangle on a blue disk — died yesterday after a long eclipse. It was 67 years old and lived in the mind’s eye of anyone who remembers air-raid drills, fallout shelters and metal drums filled with what had to be the stalest biscuits in the world.
Its demise was announced by the National Emergency Management Association, the group that represents state emergency managers.
The CD insignia, whi
Source: NYT
Dec 1, 2006
The federal government rolled out a new citizenship test Thursday to replace an exam that critics say has encouraged prospective Americans simply to memorize facts, rather than fully understand the principles of a democracy.
The exam will be assessed in a pilot program in 10 cities beginning early next year.
Gone are these questions: “How many stripes are there in the flag?”; “What color are the stripes on the flag?”; “What do the stripes on the flag represent?”; and th
Source: AP
Dec 1, 2006
Anthropologists said they have pieced together Leonardo da Vinci's left index fingerprint — a discovery that could help provide information on such matters as the food the artist ate and whether his mother was of Arabic origin.
The reconstruction of the fingerprint was the result of three years of research and could help attribute disputed paintings or manuscripts, said Luigi Capasso, an anthropologist and director of the Anthropology Research Institute at Chieti University in centr
Source: Reuters
Dec 1, 2006
The discovery of an ancient Roman coffin in a part of London previously thought to have had no Roman settlements has forced a re-evaluation of the history of the city, experts said on Friday.
The headless skeleton in a limestone sarcophagus was found during excavations under St. Martin-in-the-Fields church on the eastern side of Trafalgar Square in central London.
Experts said the skeleton, whose head is believed to have been removed as a trophy by workmen building a se
Source: Reuters
Dec 1, 2006
A single, gigantic asteroid slammed into Earth 65
million years ago, dooming the dinosaurs and many other species,
scientists said on Thursday in a new study rebutting theories that
multiple impacts did the deed.
An examination of rock sediments drilled from five sites at the bottom of
the Atlantic Ocean strongly supports the notion that one massive hunk of
space rock caused the mass extinction, a research team led by University
of Missouri-Columbia geology professor Ken MacLeod foun
Source: Reuters
Dec 1, 2006
A German chain of shops has removed miniature wooden
Santa Claus figures from its shelves and destroyed them after customers
complained it looked like they were giving the stiff-armed Hitler salute
that is outlawed.
Josef Lange, a spokesman for the Rossmann chain that has 1,200 outlets,
told Reuters Friday the figures depicting Father Christmas with his right
arm stiffly upright toward the sky and holding a sack in his left hand
upset some customers."We were astonished by the reacti
Source: Reuters
Dec 1, 2006
NOUAKCHOTT - Born a slave, like his entire family, Matalla
Mbreik toiled from dawn to dusk selling water and tending his master's
flocks on the lonely fringes of the Saharan desert, until he could take no
more.
"I still have the scars from my beatings, like my mother and sisters,"
said the 32-year-old Mauritanian, staring at the floor, dressed in flowing
pale-blue embroidered robes."All they gave us to eat were leftovers."
After years spent dreaming of escape, Mbreik seized his c
Source: Atlantic Monthly
Dec 1, 2006
Who are the most influential figures in American history? The Atlantic recently asked ten eminent historians. The result was The Atlantic’s Top 100—and some insight into the nature of influence and the contingency of history. Was Walt Disney really more influential than Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Benjamin Spock than Richard Nixon? Elvis Presley than Lewis and Clark? John D. Rockefeller than Bill Gates? Babe Ruth than Frank Lloyd Wright? Let the debates begin.
Source: ABC.net.au
Nov 30, 2006
New genetic evidence suggests Australia may have been populated by two separate groups of humans - one arriving via Papua New Guinea, the other via Indonesia, a researcher says.
But more work is needed to confirm the idea. And not all scientists agree that these latest results shed new light on the long-standing debate on how humans colonised Australia.
Dr Sheila van Holst Pellekaan, a molecular anthropologist from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, will prese
Source: 24dash.com
Nov 30, 2006
An ancient curse aimed at a thief is one of a number of treasures to be unveiled to the public for the first time, following the largest archaeological excavation the city of Leicester has ever seen.
Over the past three years, a team of up to 60 archaeologists from University of Leicester Archaeological Services has been working on a number of sites in the city.
Almost 9% of Leicester's historic core has been subject to investigation in some form, giving new insights in
Source: http://www.apollon.uio.no
Nov 30, 2006
A new archaeological find in Botswana shows that our ancestors in Africa engaged in ritual practice 70,000 years ago — 30,000 years earlier than the oldest finds in Europe. This sensational discovery strengthens Africa’s position as the cradle of modern man.
Source: Washington Informer
Nov 30, 2006
Father of Black History Month Carter G. Woodson would probably be jumping for joy in his grave if he knew what Pamela Roberts was doing in a small buzzing metropolis north of London in England.
On the campus of Oxford University, a premier institution in the English-speaking world, Roberts leads a tour group regularly of people interested in uncovering Black scholarship.
Launched at the beginning of October in commemoration of Black History Month (BHM) in the United K
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 30, 2006
In the months immediately before his abdication, Edward VIII was hypnotised by a doctor who was fascinated by the occult and counted fascists among his patients, it was claimed last night.
A report from a country vicar that Dr Alexander Cannon, a qualified psychiatrist who used spirit mediums to "advise" hypnotised patients on how to counter alcoholism and other problems of addiction, reached the Archbishop of Canterbury on Dec 4, 1936.
So seriously did the ar
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 30, 2006
A senior American official has spoken of "the myth of the special relationship" between the United States and Britain, arguing that Tony Blair got "nothing, no payback" for supporting President George W Bush in Iraq.
Kendall Myers, a leading State Department adviser, suggested that Mr Blair should have been ditched by Labour but the party had lacked the "courage or audacity" to remove him.
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, was "s
Source: Boston Globe
Nov 30, 2006
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard is moving to the University of California at Los Angeles, along with its director, Gary Orfield, depriving the university of a prominent voice in the national debate about racial justice.
The 10-year-old center, which Orfield cofounded at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, has produced reams of influential research on inequality, particularly in education -- on the resegregation of schools, for example.
"I have been offered
