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: Peninsula (Qatar)
Jul 26, 2006
AMSTERDAM • Dutch police have handed to Iraq three archaeological pieces that had been stolen in post-war looting, Iraq's ambassador to the Netherlands said yesterday.
Siamand Banaa said the stolen pieces-three ancient clay tablets-were probably taken from a museum in Iraq. Known as cuneiforms, the tablets belong to one of the earliest known forms of written expression.
They were among many valuable pieces stolen from the country before and after the war in 2003. "
Source: NYT
Jul 26, 2006
One of the most important treasures looted in the ransacking of Iraq’s national museum three years ago has been recovered in a clandestine operation involving the United States government and was turned over to Iraqi officials in Washington yesterday.
The piece, a headless stone statue of the Sumerian king Entemena of Lagash, was stolen in the days after the fall of Baghdad. In the wake of the looting, American officials came under sharp criticism from archaeologists and others for
Source: NYT
Jul 26, 2006
“Walter Cronkite: Witness to History,” an American Masters special on PBS tonight, tries to recapture that early sense of awe and skates serenely across the surface. Mr. Cronkite, 89, interviewed at the helm of his sailboat, still looks hale and disarmingly good-humored, and his many colleagues and friends make the point that he was a real newsman schooled in radio and wire-service work during World War II who became the kindly “Uncle Walter” of unconditional trust.
“He never let hi
Source: Asahi Herald Tribune (Japan)
Jul 26, 2006
Records of an interview given by Emperor Hirohito immediately after Japan's surrender in World War II show him naming wartime military leader Hideki Tojo as responsible for the sneak 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Historians had long speculated about who actually gave the order for the attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii that brought U.S. forces into World War II. Until now, no documents had been found in Japan that named Tojo, the wartime prime minister, as responsible.
Source: Ralph Luker at HNN blog Cliopatria
Jul 26, 2006
A group, calling itself Academics against Israeli Aggression on Lebanon and Gaza, has put up an on-line petition. You can read the text of and/or sign it at the link. Among the more than 750 signatures so far: Joel Beinin of Stanford, Judith Butler of UC-Berkeley, Noam Chomsky of MIT, Norman Finkelstein of DePaul, and Andrew Ross of NYU.
Source: Boston Globe
Jul 25, 2006
A National Park Service advisory panel will recommend today that the agency be given the power to designate National Heritage Areas without congressional approval, a move that could give the green light to long-delayed plans for a Heritage Area west of Boston.
Recognition as a National Heritage Area -- a geographic area of national historical significance that qualifies for millions of dollars in federal grants -- requires an act of Congress, a process that preservation groups say i
Source: Willie Dry in National Georgraphic News
Jul 25, 2006
An unsealed hatch on the U.S. Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley could have been a factor in the Confederate vessel's sinking, says a team of archaeologists in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Hunley was the first submarine to successfully down an enemy ship, during an attack in Charleston Harbor in 1864. But it sank while still in the harbor, a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.
The researchers, working for the Hunley Commission, found that a locking mechanism had
Source: Federal Register
Jul 25, 2006
The NARA plans to eliminate Saturday hours and change the research room hours to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays in the National Archives Building and National Archives at College Park facility. The NARA plan seeks to lower operating costs during low-use periods, "more closely reflecting NARA official business hours in those facilities."This interim final rule also modifies the hours the exhibit areas in the National Archives Building, Washington, DC, are open
Source: CBS News
Jul 25, 2006
After the Titanic, the sinking of the Andrea Doria was the most dramatic peacetime sea disaster of the 20th century. Fifty years ago, on July 25, 1956, a collision with another ship doomed the Italian passenger liner — and triggered a frantic rescue effort for the more than 1,700 people on board.
For her time, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Schlesinger, the Andrea Doria was top of the line. She was the pride of the Italian fleet — and the way to America for Antonio De Girol
Source: NYT
Jul 25, 2006
Three vertebrae, removed from the body of President James A. Garfield, sit on a stretch of blue satin. A red plastic probe running through them marks the path of his assassin’s bullet, fired on July 2, 1881.
The vertebrae form the centerpiece of a new exhibit, commemorating the 125th anniversary of Garfield’s assassination. The exhibit also features photographs and other images that tell the story of the shooting and its aftermath, in which Garfield lingered on his deathbed for 80 d
Source: AP
Jul 25, 2006
Irish archaeologists Tuesday heralded the discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker who spotted something while driving the shovel of his backhoe into a bog.
The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries. "This is really a miracle find," said Pat Wallace, director of the Nat
Source: NYT
Jul 25, 2006
A major survey of American museums has found that many have not yet done significant research to determine whether works in their collections were looted during the Nazi era, despite a collective agreement seven years ago to make such work a priority.
The survey of 332 museums, to be released today, was conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, known as the Claims Conference, a New York-based organization created after World War II to help restore Jewish
Source: Blogenspiel (blog)
Jul 25, 2006
Carnivalesque, the monthly carnival of pre-modern history (alternating between Early Modern and Ancient/Medieval editions) is up at xoom.
Source: BBC
Jul 24, 2006
The Times pronounced not only on Anthony Eden's life when he died in 1977 but on the life of Britain when it wrote of him: "He was the last prime minister to believe Britain was a great power and the first to confront a crisis which proved she was not."
The conventional verdict on the Suez operation is given by historian Corelli Barnett, who wrote about Suez in his book, The Collapse of British Power.
"It was the last thrash of empire," he to
Source: American Council of Trustees and Alumni
Jul 24, 2006
Arizona’s legislature recently earned national attention by requiring the American flag in all public classrooms. But according to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, Arizona’s leaders left a much bigger problem unsolved: None of the state’s major public universities requires the study of American history.
“The Arizona legislature’s desire to protect our national heritage is commendable,” ACTA president Anne D. Neal said. “But symbols of America are only valuable when stude
Source: Wa Po
Jul 24, 2006
CAIRO, Egypt -- A giant statue of Pharaoh Ramses II will be moved next month from a congested square in downtown Cairo to a more serene home near the Great Pyramids in a bid to save it from corrosive pollution, Egypt's antiquities chief said Monday.
Exhaust fumes from trains, cars and buses, as well as subway vibrations, are damaging the more than 3,200-year-old granite statue at Ramses Square, its home since the early 1950s, when it was taken from a temple at the site of the ancien
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jul 24, 2006
A group of professors — many of them brought together somewhat ironically by David Horowitz — have joined forces to say that the officer’s motives do matter, and may matter more than the speeding. And they are organizing a petition drive, drawing support from some big-name academics, against Churchill’s dismissal. The group is called Teachers for a Democratic Society and its original members were all among those included in Horowitz’s The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Jul 24, 2006
While most scholarly books are reviewed by a few carefully chosen experts before publication, McKenzie Wark's latest monograph is getting line-by-line critiques from hundreds of strangers in cyberspace, many of whom know absolutely nothing about his academic field.
Mr. Wark, a professor of media and cultural studies at New School University, has put the draft of his latest book online in an experimental format inspired by academic blogs and the free-for-all spirit of Wikipedia, the
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Jul 24, 2006
Dale Pontius made headlines for years saying things he felt needed to be said.
In 1952, when he was a Roosevelt University political science professor, Pontius was arrested for heckling U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy while the communist-hunter was giving a televised speech at the Palmer House.
Ten years later, Pontius made news worldwide -- including the front page of the New York Times -- for criticizing Soviet policy while giving a speech at a conference in Moscow.
Source: NYT
Jul 24, 2006
The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed.
In a comprehensive report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Mr. Bush had used such “signing statements” far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on hi
