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: BBC
Sep 6, 2006
Scientists think they can now write a reasonably comprehensive history of the occupation of the British Isles.
It stretches from 700,000 years ago and the first known settlers at Pakefield in Suffolk, through to the most recent incomers just 12,000 years or so ago. The evidence comes from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project.
This five-year undertaking by some of the UK's leading palaeo-experts has reassessed a mass of scientific data and
Source: NYT
Sep 6, 2006
The present has a way of changing the way that historians think about the past. The trauma of Sept. 11, 2001, is likely to be no exception: Five years after the attacks on New York and Washington, many historians say 9/11 and its aftermath are leaving their mark on how American history is written and taught.American history is being studied less as the story of a neatly packaged nation state and more in a global context, as part of something much larger, many historians say.
Source: Hartford Courant
Sep 5, 2006
Watered down and designed to offend no one, critics say, high school textbooks' treatment of Sept. 11, 2001, show all too well the difficulties of depicting an event teetering between history and the news.
The rule of thumb among educators is that most editions of history textbooks last five to 10 years before a school system replaces them. By that formula, it's reasonable to assume that plenty of students are studying from books that deal with the events of 9/11 and its five-year a
Source: NYT
Sep 5, 2006
No one would ever have mistaken Thomas Starr King for a Democrat. A fiery Republican clergyman with an oratorical flair, King stood shoulder to shoulder with Lincoln during the Civil War, barnstorming California to preach the gospel of unity when the nation had split apart and secessionist feeling here was high as well.
Politicians, however, are nothing if not fickle in their affections. So it was that last week the California Legislature, at the behest of a Republican lawmaker, dec
Source: AP
Sep 5, 2006
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is drawing a parallel between the Iraq war and the Civil War. Both had their critics but both were justified, she says.In both cases, it was the right decision to fight and see the wars through, Rice, who is black and is from Alabama, said in an interview with Essence Magazine.
Asked if she still thought the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was right, considering the cost in lives and treasure, Rice said, "Absolutely
Source: USA Today
Sep 4, 2006
As the devout among the ancients knew well, nothing spices up a boring sermon like having your own sacrifice pit parked in front of your church. Throw in a secret tunnel to the death chamber, and you've got a churchgoing experience that no suburban mega-church, no matter how many good parking spots it offers, could ever match.
An ancient Temple of Apollo located amid the ruins of Hierapolis, the "sacred city," in Western Turkey suggests such attractions may have been something o
Source: WaPo
Sep 4, 2006
German spies hid messages in drawings of models wearing the latest fashions in an attempt to outwit Allied censors during World War II, according to British security service files.Nazi agents relayed sensitive military information using the dots and dashes of Morse code incorporated in the drawings. But British secret service officials were aware of the ruse and issued censors with a code-breaking guide to intercept them.
The book -- part of a batch of British s
Source: Cafe 227 (blog)
Sep 3, 2006
Check out the new presidential action figure on sale at Target.com. In case they've already discovered and corrected their error, here's a screen shot from approximately 10pm EST...
Source: Time Magazine
Sep 3, 2006
A Scripps-Howard poll of 1,010 adults last month found that 36% of Americans consider it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that government officials either allowed the attacks to be carried out or carried out the attacks themselves. Thirty-six percent adds up to a lot of people. This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality.
Although the 9/11 Truth Movement, as many conspiracy believers refer to their passion, has been largely ignored by
Source: Wa Po
Sep 3, 2006
JAMESTOWN -- They were known as the "20 and odd," the first African slaves to set foot in North America at the English colony settled in 1607.
For nearly 400 years, historians believed they were transported to Virginia from the West Indies on a Dutch warship. Little else was known of the Africans, who left no trace.
Now, new scholarship and transatlantic detective work have solved the puzzle of who they were and where their forced journey across the Atlantic O
Source: Reuters
Sep 3, 2006
German spies hid secret messages in drawings of models wearing the latest fashions in an attempt to outwit Allied censors during World War Two, according to British security service files released on Monday.
Nazi agents relayed sensitive military information using the dots and dashes of Morse code incorporated in the drawings.
They posted the letters to their handlers, hoping that counterespionage experts would be fooled by the seemingly innocent pictures.
Source: Washington Post
Sep 3, 2006
They were known as the "20 and odd," the first African slaves to set foot in North America at the English colony settled in 1607. For nearly 400 years, historians believed they were transported to Virginia from the West Indies on a Dutch warship. Little else was known of the Africans, who left no trace.
Now, new scholarship and transatlantic detective work have solved the puzzle of who they were and where their forced journey across the Atlantic Ocean began.
Source: NYT
Sep 3, 2006
A 20th century pejorative worked its way into 21st century politics last week. Appeasement as an attack phrase was back in vogue.
Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld invoked the term in speeches to veterans, a not-so-subliminal effort to liken critics of President Bush’s Iraq policy to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who disastrously tried to reason with Hitler in Munich in 1938.
In Mr. Rumsfeld’s words, Mr. Bush’s crit
Source: David Greenberg in the NYT
Sep 3, 2006
IT was 1946. President Harry S. Truman was having a bad year. Never able to fill the shoes of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he endured ridicule in the press for his rough manners and political blunders. There were new economic worries: 10 million returning servicemen seeking jobs and homes; shortages of meat, coffee and tires; some 4.5 million autoworkers, steelworkers and others on strike. Republicans began to charge Democrats with having coddled Communists. Truman’s approval ratings barely cleared 30
Source: AP
Sep 2, 2006
As a boy, Farrow Allen, Jr., heard stories about the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 from his mother, whose father was hustled out of town to safety at the height of the four-day melee where 10,000 blacks and whites clashed in the streets.
Allen said he recalls little of the stories he was told as a child about his grandfather Luther Price, a fair-skinned black postmaster who ran a general store in a black neighborhood at the turn of the last century. But he remembers being scared to deat
Source: AP
Sep 2, 2006
Oscar the Grouch probably won't be happy about his next home: a cold, dark box that is far from "Sesame Street" and his beloved trash can.
The furry puppet, created by Jim Henson and used on television in the 1970s and 1980s, is among tens of thousands of exhibits and artifacts that will be carefully stored as the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History prepares for a massive, two-year renovation.The museum closes Tuesday, and it has been buz
Source: Perspectives, the newsmagazine of the AHA
Sep 1, 2006
The 121st annual meeting of the American Historical Association will be held January 4–7, 2007, in Atlanta at the Hilton Atlanta, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Hyatt Regency Atlanta, and the Westin Peachtree Plaza Atlanta hotels. Download the Hotel reservation and meeting preregistration forms; both forms will also be included in the annual meeting Program (which will be mailed to members in October), and will be posted on the Association's web site.
Many of the profession's most distin
Source: LA Times
Sep 1, 2006
Linda Farnsworth picked her way across a field of loose rocks, down a steep slope under the overhang of sandstone cliffs. The archaeologist stopped at the remains of a low stone retaining wall and searched briefly until she found the series of backfilled holes — where looters had rooted around a remote kiva site for highly prized black and white Anasazi pots, tools and other prehistoric objects.Although Farnsworth and other officials of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, wh
Source: History Carnival (blog)
Sep 1, 2006
The 38th edition of the History Carnival, the leading roundup of history blogging, is at Frog in a Well: Japan. The twice-monthly History Carnival is a always looking for new material, and is also looking for hosts from November 1st on.
Source: NYT
Sep 1, 2006
BEIJING, Aug. 31 — When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.
Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence
