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: Brussels Journal
Aug 31, 2006
The Belgian authorities have destroyed archives and records relating to the persecution and deportation of Jews in Belgium in the 1930s and 1940s. Some of this happened as recently as the late 1990s. This was revealed during hearings in the Belgian Senate last Spring.
Source: AP
Aug 31, 2006
President Bush on Thursday predicted victory in the war on terror at a time of increasing public anxiety at home, likening the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism with the fight against Nazis and communists.“As veterans you have seen this kind of enemy before,” Bush said. “They are successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be.
“This war will be difficult. This war will
Source: US State Department
Aug 31, 2006
The United States and Cyprus have agreed to extend a 2002 bilateral agreement and to continue imposing import restrictions on a range of Byzantine treasures, such as priceless frescoes and floor mosaics, to protect them from pillaging.Cypriot culture is among the oldest in the Mediterranean, according to a State Department Web page on the 2002 bilateral agreement, which adds: “There is a long history of documented pillage of archaeological sites in Cyprus, including evidence
Source: AP
Aug 31, 2006
Greek officials vowed to step up their fight to reclaim its plundered ancient heritage after taking delivery Thursday of two ancient sculptures returned by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.Presenting the artifacts in Athens, Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis said their repatriation was very important "both symbolically and practically."
"The days when foreign museums and private collectors were able to buy undocumented antiquities are ov
Source: NYT
Aug 30, 2006
SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 29 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that critics of the war in Iraq and the campaign against terror groups “seem not to have learned history’s lessons,” and he alluded to those in the 1930’s who advocated appeasing Nazi Germany.
In a speech to thousands of veterans at the American Legion’s annual convention here, Mr. Rumsfeld sharpened his rebuttal of critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy, some of whom have called for phased wi
Source: India Daily
Aug 29, 2006
Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher and Clement Attlee, whose post-war government presided over the partition of the sub-continent and India's independence, have been named the best British prime ministers of the 20th century. Sir Winston Churchill, who led Britain to victory in the second World War, only merits a fourth place in the list of 20 and the current incumbent Tony Blair struggles to finish mid-table. Thatcher's dramatic victory in her battle with the trade unions and her
Source: Stone Pages
Aug 27, 2006
Archaeologists working at the ancient settlement of Tavium located in Yozgat province in central Turkey have discovered more than 70 previously unknown ancient settlements. The central province, best known for the Chalcolithic Period discoveries at its Alisar Tumulus and the Hittite era artifacts at Kerkenes, is likely to hold much more archaeological wealth than previously believed, and archaeologists said the new findings would shed more light on history.
Source: Stone Page
Aug 27, 2006
The discovery of a neolithic complex of caves in Greece suggests not all cavemen were club-wielding, nomadic hunter-gatherers, but included some farmers and shepherds. They even had the Stone Age equivalent of a toolshed. Evidence of such homebody cave dwellers comes from a recent excavation of a cave complex dating from 5300-3900 BCE. The abode features plastered floors and evidence of crop-growing and an attached stable nearby.
Source: Independent Institute
Aug 27, 2006
Evidence of a building linked to the myth of King Arthur and the knights of the round table has been found at Windsor Castle.
The circular structure was built by Edward III in the 14th century to house the round table intended to seat the original 300 Knights of the Garter. Archaeological proof of the building was uncovered by members of Channel 4's Time Team in the castle's quadrangle.
Although the stones have been removed, rubble in-fill where they were originally located remained in place.
Source: cronaca
Aug 27, 2006
Canada's only major Arctic petroglyph site -- a 1,500-year-old gallery of mysterious faces carved into a soapstone ridge on a tiny island off of Quebec's northern coast -- has been ransacked by vandals in what the region's top archeologist suspects was a religiously motivated attack by devout Christians from a nearby Inuit community.
Source: BBC
Aug 27, 2006
British soldiers fighting the Zulus experienced appalling conditions similar to the muddy killing fields of World War I, it has emerged.
Archaeologists have revealed details of soldiers' battle for survival during a bloody siege in the Anglo-Zulu War.
The colonial war in 1879 was dramatised by Michael Caine in the film Zulu.
Historians lacked detailed evidence of the troops' daily lives, but a team of experts from Glasgow have now uncovered a forgotten B
Source: US News & World Report
Aug 27, 2006
Vice President Dick Cheney is finally getting the book-length biography treatment-and he's playing along. We hear that the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes is hot on the case and plans to publish a bio titled, naturally enough, Cheney as early as next spring. "I'm not a historian," Hayes fesses up. "I approached it like a long magazine article." A very long article, considering Cheney's been in the public eye for some five decades. "It's a pretty unique perspective of Ame
Source: Cliopatria (blog)
Aug 27, 2006
A roundup of women blogging history, under their own names and pseudonymously, by Ralph Luker.
Source: OneWorld US (website)
Aug 27, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 25 (OneWorld) - A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferencz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting"aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"Nuremberg d
Source: Daily Californian
Aug 25, 2006
The UC system announced Monday that it has launched a Web site offering free access to more than 150,000 images, documents and primary source materials relating to California's history and culture. The Web site Calisphere, which UC officials described as a "learning tool," doubles as both a database and a search engine. Internet users will be able to look at materials such as diary entries, artwork, cartoons and transcripts that have been gathered from cultural her
Source: News Standard (Syracuse)
Aug 25, 2006
In the wake of an activist’s death at the hands of FBI operatives, the agency’s revelation that it may have destroyed records on the independence movement in Puerto Rico has aggravated tensions over the government’s presence on the island.In a recent response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Chicago-based legal advocacy group People’s Law Office, the FBI admitted that it could not locate records relating to the activities of a prominent Puerto Rican nationalist
Source: American Scientist Online
Aug 25, 2006
Every year, thousands of tourists from around the world take a long flight across the South Pacific to see the famous stone statues of Easter Island. Since 1722, when the first Europeans arrived, these megalithic figures, or moai, have intrigued visitors. Interest in how these artifacts were built and moved led to another puzzling question: What happened to the people who created them?
In the prevailing account of the island's past, the native inhabitants—who refer to themselves as the
Source: CNN.com
Aug 25, 2006
A Louisiana school district suspended a white bus driver while it investigates complaints that she ordered nine black children to sit at the back of the bus.
...
Two mothers, both black, sparked the investigation with a complaint on Monday that their children and the other black children had been ordered to sit in two rows of seats in the rear of the bus."In all these years, I've never had a problem like this," said Janice Williams, whose four children ride publi
Source: Bruce Craig, writing in the newsletter of the Coalition for History
Aug 24, 2006
After over ten years of sometimes heated negotiation between the State Department and various governmental intelligence agencies, the Department of State History Office (HO) has released a new title in the FRUS series: "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Vol XXIX, PART 2, JAPAN," the penultimate volume to be published in the Johnson administration sub-series. What makes this volume unique is that it has been nearly ready for publication for over seven years, but owing t
Source: Guardian (London)
Aug 24, 2006
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," said Winston Churchill in praise of the pilots who took part in the Battle of Britain. But as the 66th anniversary of the firefight in the skies approaches, some of the country's top military historians have claimed it was the Royal Navy rather than the RAF that saved Britain from invasion by the Germans in the autumn of 1940.The three military historians who run the high comm
