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: ABC Science online
Jun 8, 2006
Researchers say they have found "compelling" new evidence of the earliest known forms of life on Earth in ancient rock in Australia.
Australian and Canadian scientists say they have found new varieties of stromatolites, rock formations left 3.43 billion years ago in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
If the researchers are right, and the stromatolites represent the fossilised remains of early microbes, this could cause scientists to revise estimates of w
Source: NYT
Jun 8, 2006
BUDAPEST — It was opening night at the Operetta Theater here in beautiful Budapest, and the evening was resplendent with a sense of the radiant past.
The show was "Rudolf," a musical based on the famous story of Crown Prince Rudolf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his double suicide at the Mayerling hunting estate in 1889 in the company of the Baroness Maria Vetsera, literally a femme fatale.Not everybody feels nostalgic about the
Source: Nartional Coalition for History
Jun 8, 2006
$500,000 is what the Smithsonian will receive first year, but the guaranteed annual minimum increases each year so that at the end of the 30 year contract period $99 million is guaranteed.
Source: cronaca.com
Jun 8, 2006
The world's largest Charles Darwin book collection has been bought by the Natural History Museum for nearly £1m. The Kohler Darwin Collection includes almost everything the naturalist published from 1829 onwards.
Antiquarians Chris and Michele Kohler amassed about 3,500 items, filling four rooms in their house, over 20 years.
Source: Ananova
Jun 8, 2006
The reusable condom dates back to 1640 and is completely intact, as is its original users' manual, written in Latin. The manual suggests that users immerse the condom in warm milk prior to its use to avoid diseases.
Source: Cultural Heritage News Agency
Jun 8, 2006
Tehran, 8 June 2006 (CHN) -- Discovery of some Mithraism symbols such as cypress, a goat and an inscription in Sassanid-Pahlavi language and Mithraism architectural style in Kangelou Fortress all have strengthened the theory that this historical monument was used as a worship place during the ancient times.
“In Avesta, Zoroastrian’s holly book, Mithra means promise and faith. Mehr (literary meaning love or sun) was one of the creators of Ahura Mazda, God in Zoroastrianism. He was t
Source: Houston Chronicle
Jun 8, 2006
A Berlin-based history society Thursday unveiled an information sign at the site of Hitler's underground bunker, marking for the first time exactly where the Nazi leader took his life at the end of World War II.
Until now, Berlin had resisted giving an indication as to the location of the bunker for fear that it could become a symbolic gathering point for neo-Nazi groups.Just 200 yards away from Germany's memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the Berl
Source: WCBS (New York)
Jun 8, 2006
For years, Sotheby's auction house has tried to sell the papers, manuscripts and personal library of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But previous negotiations with various institutions came to naught, including a private sale in 2003 that was called off. Now, on June 30, Sotheby's will auction the King collection, hoping that an institution will step forward and pay from $15 million to $30 million for the lot of more than 10,000 items.``It does set a challenge for American i
Source: AP
Jun 8, 2006
BERLIN - The newly elected leader of Germany’s main Jewish organization called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “second Hitler” who should be barred from attending the World Cup in Germany, according to comments published Thursday.
Ahmadinejad should not be allowed to set foot on German soil, Charlotte Knobloch said in remarks published in Bild newspaper. The Holocaust survivor was elected the first woman president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews on Wednesday.
Source: Caleb McDaniel at HNN blog Cliopatria
Jun 7, 2006
Early in 2005, as you may recall, there was a ripple of press interest in nineteenth-century author Emma Dunham Kelley Hawkins.
For years, Hawkins had been considered an African American author, and her novels were spotlighted in the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. But on February 20, 2005, Holly Jackson, a graduate student at Brandeis University, published an article in the Boston Globe revealing that Hawkins never iden
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists
Jun 7, 2006
Some 27,000 pages of Central Intelligence Agency records regarding operational relationships between the CIA and former Nazis following World War II were disclosed yesterday at the National Archives.
The release was announced by the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Nazi War Crimes, which was created by a 1998 law. The IWG, which has previously overseen the declassification of eight million war crimes-related records, is chaired by former Information Security Oversight Office Dire
Source: Channel 19 News (ABC affiliate) Indiana
Jun 7, 2006
BLOOMINGTON -- A new home owner in Bloomington was shocked to find over the weekend her home had 30 skulls in the attic.
Kathleen Hollonbeck of Rochelle, Illinois bought the Bloomington home in November.
She was cleaning out her attic over the weekend when she made the discovery.
Police saod the previous owner was a dentist who collected Native American artifacts.
The discovery was made at this home at the 500 block of Florence Avenue.
Source: NYT
Jun 7, 2006
A court in Toulouse ordered the state and the national railroad company SNCF to pay $80,000 to a Jewish family whose members were delivered to the World War II transit camp at Drancy, outside Paris, that sent Jews off to Nazi concentration camps. It was the first time that the state and the railway had been found liable for their role in the wartime deportation of thousands of French Jews. The suit was brought by two brothers in 2001. They were arrested by the Gestapo and transported to Drancy i
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Jun 7, 2006
The Senate Judiciary Committee quizzed Federal Bureau of Investigation officials about their interest in the papers of the late muckraking journalist Jack Anderson, which are now held at George Washington University, at a hearing on Tuesday. The session had its share of fireworks, with senators butting heads with a Department of Justice official.
But, to borrow from the parlance of journalism, the lede was buried. An intriguing nugget of information could be found in the written te
Source: CNN
Jun 7, 2006
Odd-shaped mounds of dirt in Australia turn out to be fossils of the oldest life on Earth, created by billions of microbes more than 3 billion years ago, scientists say in a new report.
And these mounds are exactly the type of life astrobiologists are looking for on Mars and elsewhere.
A study published Thursday in the journal Nature gives the strongest evidence yet that the mounds dotting a large swath of western Australia are Earth's oldest fossils. The theory is that
Source: NYT
Jun 7, 2006
NEWTON, Iowa, June 2 — In the cool, echoey halls of the history museum in this company town, the display cases are full of washing machines.
Here sits the Maytag Pastime, the 1907 wooden model. Over there, a later model that also served as an ice cream maker, a meat grinder and a butter churn. From 1982, the 25-millionth washer that Maytag made, still gleaming and pristine, and on and on.
In many ways, said Leland Smith, who guided a visitor through the exhibit halls,
Source: Washington Times
Jun 7, 2006
Hawaii Sen. Daniel K. Akaka thinks Hawaiians should be allowed to govern themselves as Native Americans and Alaskans do, and after seven years of pushing a bill to start the process, the Senate is expected to take it up this week.
Mr. Akaka says the bill is a way to give "indigenous" Hawaiians a sense of pride and a chance for sovereignty for the first time since 1893, when Queen Liliuokalani was deposed and lands were illegally seized by U.S. Marines and a cadre of sugar-p
Source: Montgomery Advertiser
Jun 7, 2006
Alabama may not have been the site of any major Civil War battles, but its place in history is secured as the birthplace of the Confederacy.
The spot where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the first and only president of the Confederate States of America is one of many important locations in a new brochure that will be unveiled today by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel.
Other attractions in the brochure include the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Fort
Source: Delaware News Journal
Jun 7, 2006
A national education think tank has given Delaware a "D" in world history, but despite the low grade, the First State fared no worse than most others.Most states aren't doing nearly enough to give students a grounding in world history, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute said in a report released Tuesday that grades states on their world history standards. The standards outline what students are expected to know in the subject.
Delaware's
Source: Cox News Service
Jun 7, 2006
Despite growing ties to the southern hemisphere, two-thirds of U.S. states have weak or non-existent standards for teaching the history and culture of Latin America and Mexico, a study released Tuesday found.The study was conducted by the Thomas B. Fordham?Institute, a Washington-based non-profit organization dedicated to improving elementary and secondary education.
Renowned historian and foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead, who conducted the study,
