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: Sydney Morning Herald
Oct 26, 2006
It is the kind of letter that momentarily stops the hearts of manuscript experts. A moving three-page plea by Catherine of Aragon for help in trying to uphold her marriage to Henry VIII will be auctioned by Sotheby's.Arguably, the letter played a part in changing English history - the split from Rome. The queen - Henry's first wife - miserable and at her wit's end, asks for help from her nephew Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor.
"There is no need for my rel
Source: RIA Novosti (Russia)
Oct 26, 2006
The Latvian parliament voted Thursday to disclose the contents of KGB files containing the names of former secret police agents on March 1, 2007, a parliament spokesman said.On October 18, the legal affairs commission of the parliament finalized amendments to a draft law on the disclosure of information about former KGB agents, and decided to postpone the release of declassified data from November 1, 2006 until March 1, 2007.
The commission said it intends to pu
Source: AFP
Oct 26, 2006
On the 50th anniversary of the Franco-British airborne invasion of Egypt that is known as the Suez crisis, French veterans of the campaign are still pushing for official recognition from the state which they say has airbrushed them out of the history books.Some 17,000 French servicemen were involved -- mostly at a distance -- in the failed offensive to seize the Suez canal back from Gamal Abdel Nasser, according to the Association of Veterans of Suez and Cyprus, but th
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 25, 2006
Christopher Columbus was born in Cuba - at least that's what they say in the village of that name south-east of Lisbon in the heart of Portugal's Alentejo region. Portugal's first statue of the explorer is to be unveiled in Cuba's central square on Saturday, the 514th anniversary of Columbus's landfall on the Caribbean island later named after his supposed birthplace.
The 7ft bronze monument, showing the Admiralbestriding the globe, rolled map in one hand, shading his eyes with the
Source: Times Online (UK)
Oct 25, 2006
JEWISH residents are being “expelled” from the second oldest Jewish ghetto in Europe by wealthy VIPs buying up property, according to Italian Jewish leaders.
Riccardo Pacifici, the deputy head of the Jewish community association in Rome, said that flats in the ghetto area were being snapped up at low prices by figures from show business, politics and finance. “The effect is that our poorest elderly Jewish residents are being expelled from places they have lived all their lives,” he
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Oct 25, 2006
If Todd Letimore ever thought the founding documents of the United States of America were simply pieces of history, he's long since left that notion behind.
At the "Constitutional Convention" for Philadelphia's new Constitution High School, Todd and the rest of the inaugural ninth-grade class argued passionately as they set up the school's government. ("The only stipulation was they could not vote me out of office," Principal Thomas Davidson says with a laugh.)
Source: Reuters
Oct 25, 2006
Showman P.T. Barnum never said"There's a sucker
born every minute" although he wished he had. And Civil War Admiral David
Farragut probably never said"Damn the Torpedoes! Full Speed Ahead" --
words that have inspired generations of fighting men.
To make things even more complicated, it is doubtful that Paul Revere
warned that"The British are coming" when he would have at the time of the
American Revolution thought himself British, although a revolting one. He
probably would have said
Source: Reuters
Oct 25, 2006
China has banned partying, stunts and
other"inappropriate behavior" on the Great Wall to protect one of its top
tourist attractions from erosion.
The Great Wall, which snakes its way across more than 6,400 km (4,000
miles), receives an estimated 10 million visitors a year, mostly to the
mere 10 km opened to tourists at Badaling, the nearest stretch to Beijing.
More adventurous visitors climb wilder, crumblier sections that are not
officially open to the public and stretches near
Source: AP
Oct 25, 2006
The famous fossil of Lucy is scheduled to tour the United States, but one place it won't be on display is the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
"Not only is it not going to come to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, it is our position that we don't think it should leave Ethiopia," museum spokesman Randall Kremer said Wednesday.
Smithsonian scientists feel certain objects, such as Lucy, are too valuable to travel and should remain in their
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Oct 25, 2006
Former President Ronald Reagan, namesake of an airport, roads, highways, schools, a mountain, a ship and a presidential library, is slated to receive yet another tribute -- to replace Thomas Starr King as one of two notable figures to represent California in Washington's National Statuary Hall.
Established in 1864, the hall at the U.S. Capitol houses statues of 100 influential individuals in American history, with each state contributing two statues. California has been represented
Source: Bruce Craig in the newsletter of the National Coalition for History
Oct 25, 2006
On 28 September 2006 the House of Representatives passed a bill"to
authorize grants for contributions toward the establishment of the Woodrow
Wilson Presidential Library" -- legislation (H.R. 4846) introduced by
Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and co-sponsored by eleven of his
colleagues.
The bill in essence authorizes a future Congressional appropriation that
directs the Archivist of the United States to contribute funds toward the
establishment of a private presidential m
Source: Bruce Craig in the newsletter of the National Coalition for History
Oct 25, 2006
Last week we reported that Library of Congress (LC) officials had decided to move, effective December 2006, the African and Middle Eastern Reading Room (AMED) from its present location to make room for a new permanent exhibition gallery of the Jay I. Kislak Collection of early Americana ("Library of Congress to Consolidate African and Middle Eastern Reading Rooms" in NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE; Vol 12, #40; 19 October 2006). News of the proposed closure resulted in a flurry of protests to t
Source: science.monstersandcritics.com
Oct 25, 2006
Athens - A recently-discovered bust of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle has been described by archaeologists as the best-preserved likeness ever found, reports said Wednesday.
Discovered under the Acropolis, the Roman-era marble bust of the famous philosopher had probably occupied the nearby villa of a wealthy Roman citizen, senior archaeologist Alcestis Horemi was quoted by the Greek newspaper Kathimerini as saying.
The 46-centimetre bust, which dates to the 1st
Source: Reuters
Oct 25, 2006
Fifty years after Dick Clark first hosted the popular television show that came to be called ''American Bandstand,'' he's ready to let go of some of the rock'n'roll items he's collected.
Thousands of pieces in Clark's memorabilia collection are set to be auctioned on December 5 and 6 by Guernsey's Auction House in New York.
One of the top items is the microphone Clark used for 31 years while hosting the live music and dance show featuring artists from Jerry Lee Lewis t
Source: NYT
Oct 25, 2006
LONDON, Oct. 24 — For the last week, scores of scholars, museum curators and collectors have been discreetly filing into a well-guarded gallery of the Bonhams auction house here to admire 14 richly decorated silver objects that lay buried for 1,500 years in a forgotten corner of what was once the Roman Empire.
The excitement is palpable. Only once before — for one brief morning in 1990 in New York — has the so-called Sevso Treasure been displayed in public. Now the solid silver plat
Source: Times Online (UK)
Oct 25, 2006
THE cultural treasures of Iraq — the birthplace of writing, codified law, mathematics, medicine and astronomy — are being obliterated as looters take advantage of the country’s bloody chaos.
Fourteen of the world’s leading archaeologists have written to the President and Prime Minister of the country demanding immediate action to stem the vandalism after seeing photographs of sites left pockmarked by enormous craters.
Among examples in the letter, seen yesterday by Th
Source: Independent (UK)
Oct 24, 2006
For more than 70 years, Australians have been convinced American gangsters murdered their champion racehorse, Phar Lap, who died suddenly and agonisingly at the peak of his career while preparing to take on the US racing scene.
Now their suspicions of foul play appear to have been backed by science, with medical tests suggesting the five-year-old chestnut gelding was poisoned with arsenic.
Phar Lap, who triumphed in 37 of his 51 races, including the 1930 Melbourne C
Source: WaPo
Oct 24, 2006
One of the Watergate offices that was burglarized 34 years ago, setting off the scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, is available for lease as new owners plan a renovation of the office building and shops.
The office, Suite 610, was one of four suites occupied by the Democratic National Committee in 1972, which Republican operatives entered to plant eavesdropping equipment.
"It's a very recognizable building," said Andrew T. Felbe
Source: WaPo
Oct 24, 2006
Bill Clinton used to claim that Al Gore was the most influential vice president ever, seemingly for Gore's role in breaking an ashtray on "Late Show With David Letterman." That judgment now looks laughable. Dick Cheney has unarguably eclipsed Gore to become the most powerful vice president in U.S. history. His role in helping to formulate the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will ensure that he survives in history as more than the answer to a trivia question: the
Source: NYT
Oct 24, 2006
For years, there had been talk of building a civil rights museum in Atlanta, but no decisions had been made as to where it would be, what it would include and how much it would cost.
One of those questions was answered today when the chairman and chief executive officer of the Coca-Cola Company, Neville Isdell, said it would donate 2.5 acres of land for the project in the heart of the downtown tourist district.
The land, which Mr. Isdell said was valued at $8 million to
