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: Time
Aug 6, 2006
It's not hard to understand the vogue for spiritualism that developed in the late 19th century. With religion under serious challenge from science, the afterlife--which religion affirmed and science scoffed at--became a subject of nervous fascination. Respectable people held parlor séances. Celebrity spiritualists like D.D. Home even made house calls. In 1869 three witnesses in a London residence reported that Home levitated, floated out a window and drifted back in through the window of another
Source: The Age (Australia)
Aug 6, 2006
It's not quite the rumble in the jungle of Muhammad Ali fame, but the Australian History Summit set down for next week is shaping up as an academic prize fight of seemingly immense proportions.
With 23 of the biggest names in history (Geoffrey Blainey, Inge Clendinnen and Geoffrey Bolton, former NSW premier Bob Carr and social commentator Gerard Henderson are just some on the guest list) in the same room to settle once and for all what version of our nation's past schoolchildren sho
Source: NYT
Aug 6, 2006
A JAPANESE pagoda sits perpendicular to a Swiss chalet, and they share a 32-acre historic campus with a Dutch windmill, a Spanish mission-style home, an American bungalow and an Italian villa. In all, there are 12 architecturally distinct homes placed randomly around the historic National Park Seminary in this city just outside Washington.
Nestled at the tip of Rock Creek Park, the bucolic if overgrown campus in the neighborhood of Forest Glen has been the victim of neglect and vand
Source: BBC
Aug 6, 2006
A previously unseen photograph of Florence Nightingale is going on display to mark the 150th anniversary of her return from the Crimean War.
Taken by amateur photographer William Slater, the picture shows the "lady of the lamp" sitting reading outside her family home in Embley Park, Hampshire.
The newly discovered photograph will go on display until 7 November at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London.
She gained worldwide renown for her work as a nu
Source: LA Times
Aug 6, 2006
A once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.
Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam war crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to d
Source: US News
Aug 6, 2006
Four people in England, back in 1953, gazed at the mysterious image called Photo 51. It wasn't much--a grainy picture showing a black X. But three of these people won the Nobel Prize for figuring out what the photo really showed--the shape of DNA, the basic unit of life on Earth. The discovery brought fame and fortune to scientists James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins. The fourth, the one who actually made the picture, was left out.
Her name was Rosalind Franklin. "
Source: BBC
Aug 6, 2006
Archaeologists have discovered a precious golden dagger dated to about 3,000BC in a Thracian tomb in the centre of Bulgaria.It is the latest find from one of many tombs believed to have formed the cradle of Thracian civilisation.
The dagger, made of an alloy of gold and platinum, was found near the village of Dubovo.
Bozhidar Dimitrov, head of Bulgaria's National Museum, told Reuters news agency the discovery was "sensational".
Source: LAT
Aug 6, 2006
FIDEL CASTRO once famously acknowledged that his revolution required an "enemy," an "antithesis," a "counterrevolution" in order to develop. For nearly half a century, Cuban Americans have also largely defined themselves, socially and politically, in opposition to their enemy, Castro's regime.
Preferring to see themselves as exiles rather than as immigrants, Cubans in the United States cling to a powerful exodus story -- full of loss, longing and redemp
Source: The Hartford Courant
Aug 6, 2006
The Battle of Flamborough Head, as it came to be called, entered sailing history as one of the most epic single-ship actions ever, and made Jones a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic. The Bonhomme Richard and its opponent, the HMS Serapis, each lost half its crew in a battle so improbably fearsome it would seem lifted from a Patrick O'Brian novel. For more than an hour, the two ships fought hull-to-hull, firing and on fire at the same time. Bound together by grappling hooks and fallen masts
Source: NYT
Aug 6, 2006
AS the seasonal tide of film biographies begins to rise, Hollywood will soon be caught up in a favorite debate of recent years: Is it better to mimic or to transcend?In a simpler era the choice usually wasn’t difficult: movie stars were expected to outshine their subjects. Henry Fonda was among the handsomest leading men on the 20th Century Fox lot, but that didn’t stop him from portraying perhaps our homeliest president in John Ford’s “Young Mr. Lincoln,” or oth
Source: NYT
Aug 6, 2006
The independent federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks did not pursue a tough enough line of questioning with former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani during a hearing two years ago because its members feared public anger if they challenged him, according to a new book written by the panel’s leaders.
“It proved difficult, if not impossible, to raise hard questions about 9/11 in New York without it being perceived as criticism of the individual police and firefighters or of Ma
Source: NYT
Aug 5, 2006
"Despite talk of ‘culture wars’ and the high visibility of activist groups on both sides of the cultural divide, there has been no polarization of the public into liberal and conservative camps.”
That was the conclusion that researchers from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life drew from the latest in their periodic surveys of public opinion, conducted from July 6 to July 19 and released Thursday.
Source: NYT
Aug 5, 2006
Shinzo Abe, the front-runner in the race to become the next prime minister, visited the Yasukuni Shrine war memorial in April, according to Japanese news reports. Mr. Abe, the chief cabinet secretary and a right-wing nationalist who is expected to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when he retires next month, refused to confirm news of his visit, which was reported by all the major news media. The reports of the visit drew criticism from South Korean and Chinese officials, who regard the s
Source: ABC.net.au
Aug 4, 2006
An ancient temple system on the Hawaiian island of Maui is about 400 years older than previously thought, according to an extensive archaeological study.
The finding contradicts a prior theory that Maui's temples were built within a span of just a few decades around the year 1600.
Some researchers now think the temples were built over the course of 500 years, with construction cycles peaking during periods of significant political change.
"We see const
Source: AP
Aug 4, 2006
Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers.
Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works.
Source: WaPo
Aug 4, 2006
When Waskar Ari traveled to Bolivia last year, after completing a doctorate at Georgetown University, he meant to stay there for 10 days. The historian was due back last fall to start a professorship at the University of Nebraska. A year later, he is still waiting to return. Ari, an Aymara Indian, is one of a growing number of foreign scholars whose visas have been revoked or whose applications have been denied -- barred, according to civil rights and academic groups, for their ideological or po
Source: The Age )Australia)
Aug 4, 2006
The history wars are about to be reignited, thanks to a paper that argues that Australian history in schools focuses "excessively" on topics such as the Vietnam War and the Whitlam government while ignoring issues such as economic development.The paper, commissioned by the Federal Government for consideration at a national Australian history summit this month, also stresses the need to tackle the common perception that "Australian history is crap … 'cause noth
Source: WaPo
Aug 4, 2006
When Waskar Ari traveled to Bolivia last year, after completing a doctorate at Georgetown University, he meant to stay there for 10 days. The historian was due back last fall to start a professorship at the University of Nebraska. A year later, he is still waiting to return.
Ari, an Aymara Indian, is one of a growing number of foreign scholars whose visas have been revoked or whose applications have been denied -- barred, according to civil rights and academic groups, for their ideo
Source: BBC
Aug 3, 2006
Geologists have discovered a striking archaeological feature on a hillock in the Kutch district of the western Indian state of Gujarat.
This feature is shaped like the Roman numeral VI. Each arm of this feature is a trench that is about two metres wide, two metres deep and more than 100 metres long.
The feature has evoked the curiosity of archaeologists because such signs have mostly been observed so far in Peru.
The team, led by Dr RV Karanth, a form
Source: BBC
Aug 3, 2006
Evidence of a prehistoric causeway has been uncovered during flood defence work on the marshes of Suffolk.
Contractors working on the Environment Agency's excavation of a new dyke on Beccles town marshes found timber remains which had been hand-sculpted.
Archaeologists said the wooden causeway was used from the Bronze Age in about 1000BC, through the Iron Age to Roman times and the 4th century AD.
The site will now be analysed and dated with the results published
