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: People's Daily Online
Jun 5, 2006
Archaeologists have found two ancient engraved chessboards probably used by soldiers on the Great Wall more than 700 years ago at Qinhuangdao, North China's Hebei Province.
The two boards, one for Chinese chess and the other for the ancient game "Tiger Eats Sheep", were engraved on a stone in front of a Great Wall beacon tower possibly in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), said officials with the provincial department of cultural relics.
Archaeologists believe tha
Source: AP
Jun 5, 2006
Jim Donohue is trying to solve a mystery that has been building for about 12,000 years, but he has only a few days left to gather clues. Donohue, senior archaeologist with the state Archaeological Research Center in Rapid City, is supervising the excavation of a site occupied by generations of ancient hunters off S.D. Highway 79 near Buffalo Gap. He and his crew have found artifacts, bison bones and two ancient spear points, including a rare Folsom spear point found in
Source: CNN
Jun 5, 2006
A rock carving discovered in Arizona might depict an ancient star explosion seen by Native Americans a thousand years ago, scientists announced today.
If confirmed, the rock carving, or "petroglyph" would be the only known record in the Americas of the well-known supernova of the year 1006.
Source: AP
Jun 5, 2006
FORT EDWARD, N.Y. - A husband and wife team of amateur archaeologists have unearthed human skeletons, believed to be about 250 years old, at a burial site here on the Hudson River island that's considered the birthplace of today's U.S. Army Rangers.Richard and JoAnne Fuller said it's very likely the remains found on private property date back to the French and Indian War, when Rogers' Rangers earned a place in American military lore while operating out of Fort Edward. The co
Source: NYT
Jun 5, 2006
FOR war photography, Vietnam remains the bloody yardstick. During the Tet offensive, on Feb. 9, 1968, Time magazine ran a story that was accompanied by photos showing dozens of dead American soldiers stacked like cordwood. The images remind that the dead are both the most patient and affecting of all subjects. The Iraq war is a very different war, especially as rendered at home. While pictures of Iraqi dead are ubiquitous on television and in print, there are ver
Source: NYT
Jun 5, 2006
In the ballroom foyer of the Embassy Suites Hotel, the two-day International Education and Strategy Conference for 9/11 Truth was off to a rollicking start.
In Salon Four, there was a presentation under way on the attack in Oklahoma City, while in the room next door, the splintered factions of the movement were asked — for sake of unity — to seek a common goal.Such was the coming-out for the movement known as "9/11 Truth," a society of ske
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Jun 5, 2006
An independent panel has confirmed four instances of plagiarism in documents attributed to Scott D. Miller, the president of Wesley College, in Delaware. But the three-member panel, which was hired by the college's governing board, stopped short of blaming Mr. Miller for the plagiarism. "We are not comfortable reaching strong conclusions," the panel wrote in a 35-page report, released on Friday. "Indeed, the services of a skilled forensic scientist
Source: Broadcasting & Cable
Jun 5, 2006
As American television crews struggle to stay safe while reporting the news from Iraq, veterans of other war zones say this conflict is the most dangerous ever for journalists. Few know the perils of war reporting better than CBS News and 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer. A 42-year CBS veteran, Safer spent several years covering the Vietnam War and established the network’s Saigon bureau. After two of his colleagues were killed in a May 30 attack in Iraq and a third critically injur
Source: AP
Jun 5, 2006
SACRAMENTO - Frustrated that presidential candidates have spent so little time in California, lawmakers approved legislation yesterday to change how the state awards its electoral votes for president.
The bill, approved 49-31 mostly along party lines in the Assembly, would pledge California's 55 Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote, a system critics charged was an attempt to circumvent the U.S. Constitution.If the bill b
Source: Yahoo
Jun 5, 2006
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnia's mystery pyramid will now be probed and inspected by a team of experts from the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. "We shall send a UNESCO expert team to Visoko to determine exactly what it is all about," UNESCO Secretary General Koichiro Matsuura said in an interview published on Monday in Dnevni Avaz newspaper.
Amateur archaeologist Semir Osmanagic has caused a stir with his find, alth
Source: BBC
Jun 5, 2006
As part of a series marking 25 years since Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, BBC News speaks to four of the F-16 pilots involved.Had mission commander Col Zeev Raz's risk assessment been proven right, one pilot would have ejected over Baghdad and another would have been waiting out in the desert for helicopters to rescue him in the night.
Yet the loss of two planes would have been a price worth paying in the eyes of the pilots of the eigh
Source: LAT
Jun 5, 2006
ROME: The Colosseum and other treasures of the archeologically rich city need more funding and less abuse, or they may soon be history.The landmarks that define this legendary city are in serious disrepair, the victims of monumental neglect, shrinking budgets and the wear and tear of Mother Nature and heavy-heeled visitors.
Rome's troubles exceed those found in many other archeologically rich locations because its historic center is not a roped-off museum
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Jun 5, 2006
Historians could soon begin imagining a different man when they think of Abraham Lincoln as a young adult.
New artifacts and documents discovered this month at New Salem, a state historic site northeast of Springfield where Lincoln lived in his 20s, show that he may have owned property and one or more buildings, which indicates he was much more invested in the community than historians previously believed. Tom Schwartz, Illinois' state historian and interim dire
Source: BBC
Jun 4, 2006
The latest work on the recovery of a medieval ship uncovered in Newport is going on public display for the first time since last summer.
The ship was found buried in the banks of the River Usk as workers dug the foundations of the city's new arts centre in August 2002.
It has since been removed timber by timber, and experts are examining and recording the pieces.
Earlier this year a French silver coin was found inside one of the timbers.
Source: cronaca.com
Jun 4, 2006
Israeli scientists have discovered an ancient ecosystem containing eight previously unknown species in a lake inside a cave, where the creatures were completely sheltered from the outside world for millions of years. The newly discovered— all invertebrates— were found last month in a cave near the city of Ramle in central Israel . . .
The cave, located 328 feet below ground in a limestone quarry, includes tunnels that extend about a mile and a half. Inside lies the large underground
Source: CBS2 (Chicago)
Jun 4, 2006
A historian has discovered letters written by Abraham Lincoln's wife during her stay at a sanitarium years after her husband's assassination.It was believed Mary Todd Lincoln's son had burned the letters to hide details of mother's mental health.
But historian Jason Emerson came across photographed and handwritten copies of the letters in an attic last summer in Maryland. Eleven letters were from what have been called Mary Todd Lincoln's "insanity years.&qu
Source: NYT
Jun 4, 2006
WILMINGTON, N.C., June 3 — Nobody will ever be certain how many people died the night of Nov. 10, 1898, on the streets, in the marshes where some ran for safety, or in the swift, wide current of the river that has always defined this port city.
"The Cape Fear River could be dammed up with black bodies, but we have no way of knowing just how many," said Lottie Clinton, a retired state port supervisor and 1 of 13 members of a state-appointed panel that studied the night's ev
Source: NYT
Jun 4, 2006
With Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi set to retire in September, the battle in the governing Liberal Democratic Party over who will succeed him as party leader and prime minister is well under way. So far, the race is turning into a referendum on what to do about Japan's troubled relations with its Asian neighbors, especially China. Japan's relations with China and South Korea have chilled, particularly in the last year, because of several disputes over history, territory a
Source: MSNBC
Jun 4, 2006
HONG KONG - Tens of thousands of people waved candles, chanted slogans and sang songs in Hong Kong on Sunday evening to remember the victims of the crackdown in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square 17 years ago.
“Reverse the verdict on June 4th. The people will not forget. Long live democracy,” chanted the crowd, which organizers estimated to be 44,000 strong but police put at about 19,000. Such gatherings have been held annually since 1989.
Hong Kong and the former
Source: Free Lance-Star
Jun 3, 2006
The Central Virginia Battlefields Trust has made a major financial commitment in the effort to purchase a Spotsylvania County farm that played a key role in the Battle of Fredericksburg.
The local preservation group that has saved hundreds of acres of important Civil War land here over the past decade has pledged $1 million toward the $12 million purchase price, said Mike Stevens, CVBT president.
In March, the Washington-based Civil War Preservation Trust announced that
