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: Haaretz
Jan 25, 2006
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is a sacred institution in America, certainly in Jewish America, but it is not without controversy. Now its opponents are taking it to task for what they see as its failure to tackle Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism.The issue has heated up in recent weeks, thanks to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called for Israel to be wiped off the map, and simultaneously denied the Holocaust and declared a conference to be held in Iran on the subjec
Source: Australian
Jan 25, 2006
Prime Minister John Howard wants a coalition of the willing to overhaul the teaching of Australian history in the nation's schools. Mr. Howard said there was strong concern throughout the community about the way history was being taught, with a focus on themes rather than on when something happened and why.Answering questions at the National Press Club, Mr Howard said it was ridiculous to believe history could be taught without knowing when something occurred, such as the Ba
Source: Businessweek
Jan 25, 2006
The Peruvian government is threatening to sue Yale University for the return of all the artifacts found at Machu Picchu. There's no dispute that Peru gave Bingham permission to take the artifacts to Yale for further study. But Peruvian authorities say they have documents specifying that the material had to be returned within 18 months. It has now been more than 90 years. Yale says that Peruvian law in the 1900s "gave Yale title to the artifacts at the time of their excavation and ever since
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 25, 2006
As muddy holes go, they don't get much more romantic. Beneath four feet of heavy south London clay, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of Henry VII's lost chapel at Greenwich. The site is where he and a host of his Tudor successors - Henry VIII, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I - worshipped.The existence of the chapel, part of the Royal Palace of Placentia, a Tudor favourite but pulled down in the 17th century to be replaced by Greenwich Hospital - now the Old Naval College
Source: webwire.com
Jan 24, 2006
A Johns Hopkins University archaeological expedition in Luxor, Egypt, has unearthed a life-sized statue, dating back nearly 3,400 years, of one of the queens of the powerful king Amenhotep III. [The media are calling her Kingt Tut's grandmother.]The statue, which dates to between 1391 and 1352 B.C.E., was uncovered earlier this month by the expedition’s director, Betsy Bryan, Johns Hopkins professor of Egyptian art and archaeology. Bryan and a graduate student, Fatma T
Source: NYT
Jan 24, 2006
Within the next few weeks, Barbara Principe, a 73-year-old South Jersey woman who still lives near the chicken farm where she grew up, will begin receiving payments from millions of dollars in real estate in the former East Berlin. The land was lost to her family 67 years ago. It was then, when Ms. Principe was 6, that she and her brother were rushed out of Berlin in the dead of night by their mother and their father, a partner in the family-owned department store chain, A.
Source: National Geographic News
Jan 24, 2006
Pennsylvania hunters hoping to stalk deer with Stone Age spear- throwers may get their chance later this year. Today the state's game commission gave preliminary approval for hunting deer hunting using the atlatl and dart. The ancient weapon uses a throwing stick to propel spearlike projectiles farther and harder than hunters can with arm power alone.
Source: National Security Archive
Jan 24, 2006
The final report of East Timor's landmark Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) has found that U.S. "political and military support were fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation" of East Timor from 1975 to 1999, according to the "Responsibility" chapter of the report posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive, which assisted the Commission with extensive documentation.The Commission report, entitled &qu
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jan 24, 2006
A conservative alumni group at the University of California at Los Angeles on Monday withdrew its offer to pay students $100 to file tapes and notes on what professors say during courses.A statement from the group’s founder, Andrew Jones, said that debate over the offer had become “a distraction from the real problem, which is classroom indoctrination.” Professors at UCLA and elsewhere have criticized the tactic of paying students as unethical and a violation of professors’
Source: CBS
Jan 24, 2006
In the halls of Sacramento, a special commission is rewriting Indian history: debating whether Aryan invaders conquered the subcontinent, whether Brahman priests had more rights than untouchables, and even whether ancient Indians ate beef.That this seemingly arcane Indian debate has spilled over into California's board of education is a sign of the growing political muscle of Indian immigrants and the rising American interest in Asia.
The foes — who includ
Source: BBC
Jan 24, 2006
Archaeologists have discovered a huge medieval cemetery next to a "lost church" in the centre of Leicester, England. About 1,300 skeletons were uncovered in the burial ground of a medieval church torn down centuries ago. The discovery, thought to be the largest of its kind outside of London, was made during excavations for a £350m shopping centre extension.
The wall trenches of St Peter's Church were also found.
Peter Liddle, Heritage Ser
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Jan 23, 2006
RICHMOND, Va. - The ruins of a 17th century iron blast
furnace found in Chesterfield County is believed to be
the first ironworks in English North America and the
earliest known evidence of heavy industry in the New
World, county officials said Friday.
County public utilities employee Ralph Lovern, an
amateur archaeologist who often searches the area for
Indian artifacts, uncovered the furnace along the
banks of Falling Creek.
Source: BBC News
Jan 23, 2006
Evidence has emerged that British undercover forces were involved in fomenting the conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots ten years before the 1974 partition of Cyprus. The new evidence found by BBC Radio 4's programme Document centres on the mystery of Ted Macey, a British army major who was abducted, presumed killed by Greek Cypriot paramilitaries.
In 1964, Martin was a naval intelligence officer, sent to Cyprus to do an extraordinary job. Fighting
Source: NYT
Jan 23, 2006
Twenty-seven years after the Khmer Rouge leadership was driven from power, some of its top figures may soon be put on trial for causing the deaths of nearly one-fourth of the Cambodian population.Under an agreement between the United Nations and the government here, a special authority is preparing a courtroom and hiring staff and technical experts. In February, the head of a United Nations administrative team is expected to arrive and set up shop. Both Cambodia and th
Source: CNN
Jan 23, 2006
A Johns Hopkins University archaeological team has unearthed a statue of Queen Ti, one of the most important women in ancient Egypt and wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities announced Monday.The statue, mostly intact, was found under a statue of Amenhotep III in the sprawling Karnak Temple in Luxor, which was a royal city in ancient Egypt.
Ti was the first queen of Egypt to have her name appear on official acts alongside that of h
Source: BBC News
Jan 23, 2006
A £25m application has been made to the National Lottery in the hope of saving a clan chief's historic castle. John MacLeod of MacLeod, the 29th chief of his clan, is the owner of Dunvegan Castle and the Black Cuillin mountains on the Isle of Skye.
The dilapidated home could now be given the funding in return for Mr MacLeod giving the mountains up for community ownership.
The application is one of the largest bids ever submitted.
It
Source: China View
Jan 23, 2006
Archaeologists in northwest China's Shaanxi Province have discovered a large-scale relic site estimated to be 2,200 years old on the outskirts of the provincial capital Xi'an. The site is the biggest of its kind that has been excavated in the past three decades within the palace group of Changle Palace, the imperial residence palace of the imperial Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24), archaeologists said.
The unearthed ruins, which lies in the northwest part
Source: Live Science
Jan 23, 2006
Athens fell because a plague swept the empire. But scientists have debated what illness was responsible. A new DNA analysis of teeth from an ancient Greek burial pit indicates typhoid fever caused the epidemic. The plague began in Ethiopia and passed through Egypt and Libya to Greece in 430-426 B.C. It changed the balance of power between Athens and Sparta, ending the Golden Age of Pericles and Athenian dominance in the ancient world.
An estimated one-third of A
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jan 23, 2006
A secret underground military complex abandoned by the Nazis as allied forces stormed Normandy after D-day has been found by an English amateur historian.Gary Sterne came across the series of bunkers that had lain untouched for more than 60 years after buying a second world war map from an old American soldier. Armed with his map he visited the area near the Normandy beaches of Utah and Omaha, where he found the entrance to the military complex hidden under bramble bushes. H
Source: NYT
Jan 23, 2006
The New Leader, which is either the most influential of the little-known magazines or the least well known of the influential ones, is closing after 82 years of publication, first as a weekly, then a biweekly and, since 2000, a bimonthly.The executive editor, Myron Kolatch, said recently that he was still working on the January-February issue, which in characteristic New Leader fashion would probably come out a bit late, toward the end of next month, and would be a retrospec
