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: International Herald Tribune
Nov 17, 2006
Britain's Natural History Museum said Friday that it will return the remains of 17 Tasmanians and the skull of an Australian Aborigine to the Australian government.The museum's trustees announced the decision to return the remains by March a day after an independent panel presented an ethics review and guidelines for dealing with future claims.
The Australian government had filed a formal request in November 2005 on behalf of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center for
Source: NYT
Nov 17, 2006
During the presidential campaign in 2000, George W. Bush, who served out the Vietnam War in the Texas Air National Guard, was asked whether he ever considered volunteering to fight when he graduated from Yale in 1968.
“Did I think about going to the Army post and saying ‘Send me to Vietnam?’ ” Mr. Bush asked, describing his own outlook in 1968. “Not really. I wanted to fly, and that was the adventure I was seeking.”
Thirty-eight years later, at age 60, Mr. Bush finally
Source: Independent (UK)
Nov 16, 2006
Can young people learn anything new by visiting Auschwitz in a world where TV is full of documentaries about history's definitive atrocity, where Holocaust literature is everywhere, and where the curriculum groans under the weight of Nazi Germany and its crimes?
Gordon Brown and the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) certainly think so. The Chancellor of the Exchequer recently received an award from the trust for his personal commitment to Holocaust education in the UK. >From Feb
Source: AP
Nov 16, 2006
Mexican archeologists say they have found signs that the tomb of an Aztec emperor could lie beneath a recently excavated stone monolith showing a fearsome, blood-drinking god.
It would be the first burial site ever found of a leader of the 1427-1521 Aztec empire, said archaeologist Eduardo Matos, who leads the excavation project at the Templo Mayor ruins around Mexico City's main square.
"We think this could be a gravestone covering the place where this ruler wa
Source: AP
Nov 16, 2006
Parliament's lower house approved legislation Thursday requiring schools to instill patriotism in Japan's children.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the New Komeito, want to revise Japan's post-World War II education law to boost patriotism among the young. With the bloc dominating both legislative chambers, Thursday's passage makes the bill's amendment almost certain.
The revision, a centerpiece of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conservativ
Source: AP
Nov 16, 2006
A once-secret program that enabled thousands of U.S. military pilots to practice dogfighting against Soviet-designed MiG fighter jets was detailed Thursday by the Air Force as part of the first public acknowledgment of the program's existence.
The classified air combat training program ran from 1977 to 1988 at the Tonopah Test Range in remote desert scrubland near Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base.
"I guess the mouse is out of the pocket," said Gail Peck,
Source: NYT
Nov 16, 2006
... “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl” by Timothy Egan was the surprise winner of the top prize for nonfiction.
In the book, Mr. Egan, a former New York Times reporter who remains a frequent contributor to the newspaper, gives an account of the dust storms that descended on the Great Plains during the Depression.
“Abraham Lincoln said we cannot escape history, but this history of the Dust Bowl nearly escaped us,” M
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Nov 16, 2006
To gain American citizenship, immigrants must be able to answer such questions as: What was the 49th state added to our Union? What color are the stars on our flag? And who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?
Sound trivial? The US government thinks so, and plans to roll out a new pilot test this winter.
It will continue to be an oral test, conducted in English, and will have 10 questions. Six correct answers will earn a passing grade. But the content, which is tightly under
Source: AP
Nov 16, 2006
France's Defense Ministry said Thursday there was no immediate impact from Turkey's announced suspension of military ties in a dispute over the mass killing of Armenians in the early 20th century.
Turkey's land forces commander, Gen. Ilker Basbug, announced the cut Wednesday amid a debate over whether 1915 killings of Armenians constitutes genocide. France's lower house of parliament has passed a bill outlawing denials that genocide occurred, angering Turkey.
Defense Mi
Source: Times Online (UK)
Nov 16, 2006
RUSSIA took a step closer to rehabilitating its Royal Family yesterday after prosecutors were ordered to review the murder of Tsar Nicholas II.
A court in Moscow granted an appeal by a descendant of the Romanov dynasty against a refusal to declare the Royal Family victims of political repression.
Tverskoi district court ordered the Prosecutor General’s Office to reconsider the case, ruling that its rejection of an application to exonerate the Tsar was illegal. The app
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Nov 16, 2006
The image of Stone Age man as a heartless brute will have to be revised after the discovery of an ancient grave where babies had been carefully buried and ritually decorated.
Although childhood mortality may well have been high more than 20 millennia ago, the use of red ochre, as well as the grave gifts — a chain of ivory beads — shows that babies were even then considered full members of society.
Source: Independent Institute
Nov 16, 2006
An obscure short play by George Bernard Shaw directly influenced the handling of Britain's abdication crisis, research shows.
The playlet, written 70 years ago, is said to have been brought to the attention of Edward VIII by Winston Churchill who suggested the King emulate the actions of the Shaw's fictitious monarch.
In Shaw's drama The King, the Constitution and the Lady, a king takes on the twin establishments of church and polity to marry his twice-divorced America
Source: Nicholas Wade in the NYT
Nov 16, 2006
The archaic human species that dominated Europe until 30,000 years ago is about to emerge from the shadows. With the help of a new DNA sequencing machine that operates with firefly light, the bones of the Neanderthals have begun to tell their story to geneticists.
One million units of Neanderthal DNA have already been analyzed, and a draft version of the entire genome, 3.2 billion units in length, should be ready in two years, said Dr. Svante Paabo, the leader of the research projec
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Nov 16, 2006
Racism and ignorance churn on college campuses as surely as they do in society at large, with a number of high-profile incidents each year serving as a ready reminder lest anyone forget. In fact, experts say, some of the incidents stem from a type of cultural forgetfulness — and a sense among certain students, sometimes willful, sometimes not, that they live in a world wherein it is no longer relevant to remember.
“Some of it is deliberately hostile, from the stories that I’ve read,
Source: Salon
Nov 16, 2006
Three dozen antique maps worth about $1
million are still missing from the Boston Public Library from books and
atlases used by a dealer convicted of stealing rare maps from libraries in
five cities. Thirty-four of the library's maps have already been
recovered.
Library officials released a detailed list of the missing documents to map
dealers Wednesday, in case they show up on the market."We'll shine the bright light and see if some of these things out there
can find their way home,
Source: Reuters
Nov 16, 2006
Milton Friedman, one of the most influential
economists of the past century and winner of a 1976 Nobel Prize, died on
Thursday morning of heart failure at a San Francisco area hospital, a
spokeswoman for his family said. He was 94.
A free-market economist, Friedman preached free enterprise in the face of
government regulation and advocated a monetary policy that called for
steady growth in money supplies.
His ideas played a pivotal role in informing the governing philosophies of
Source: Guardian (UK)
Nov 16, 2006
The Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers today agreed to a joint study on the nations' different interpretations of history - particularly the second world war - that have bedevilled bilateral relations.A Japanese official said Taro Aso and his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, had taken the decision at a meeting in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.
The two countries will each set up a team of 10 historians to study ancient, wartime and modern history, with the r
Source: Scientific American
Nov 15, 2006
Researchers have unearthed the graves of three Stone Age infants that may ultimately bear on the question of whether humans interbred with Neandertals. The rare find, from a 27,000-year-old site in Austria, includes two bodies that might be twins sheltered under a mammoth's shoulder blade.
The team discovered the skeletons in two separate burial pits: One uncovered last year contained two infants side by side--twins, apparently. A second pit containing a single body was found this y
Source: AP
Nov 15, 2006
Lee "Shorty" Gordon, believed to be the first American prisoner of war to escape from a German camp during World War II, has died. He was 84.
Gordon died Tuesday of complications from recent stomach and kidney surgery at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Menlo Park, according to his daughter, Cherie Gordon.
Gordon, who made two failed escape attempts from Stalag VIIA -- including one on a bicycle while yelling the only German he knew, "Heil,
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Nov 15, 2006
Twenty-five Bay Area historic sites will share $1 million in cash grants as the result of an unusual electronic vote and a review by a panel of experts....
The final decision about how much money each site got was made by a panel of experts who considered historical significance and need along with the number of votes. ...
The online election, which National Trust Vice President David Brown said was inspired by the television show "American Idol," ran from mid
