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: Willie Drye in National Geographic News
Jan 23, 2006
Archaeologists working in the rugged mountains of southwestern North Carolina are adding new details to the story of a tragedy that took place more than 160 years ago. The scientists are uncovering the remains of farms and homes belonging to the Cherokee Indians before they were forced to abandon their property and move to Oklahoma. About 16,000 Cherokee and hundreds of other Native Americans were forced out of North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama in t
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Jan 23, 2006
A drunk man climbed into a Vienna museum, stole possibly the world's most valuable sculpture on an impulse, and kept it hidden for nearly three years, police say. Their revelation today came after the famous Saliera by Benvenuto Cellini, worth $A81.13 million, was sensationally found buried in a snow-covered wood in northern Austria.Investigators had scoured the world for the statue since it disappeared in May 2003.
The slightly damaged statue was re
Source: The Independent
Jan 23, 2006
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum had languished below 200,000 on Amazon's top-seller list but stormed to 21 yesterday, with the online retailer struggling to meet demand.
After issuing new threats to attack the US and calls for President George Bush to withdraw American troops from Iraq, Bin Laden then found time to "plug" Mr Blum's book. "If Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, it would be useful for you to read th
Source: Network of Concerned Historians
Jan 23, 2006
The news that the Ministry of Justice decided yesterday that the trial against the world-famous Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk will not proceed is greeted with relief by International PEN members world wide. Yet it does little to assuage PEN's concerns that the right to freedom of expression in Turkey is severely curtailed by the existence of laws that penalise debate on "taboo" topics.During the past 12 months, PEN has monitored over 60 cases of writers, journal
Source: The Boston Globe
Jan 23, 2006
All Portsmouth set out to do was dig a manhole on a two-lane street of clapboard homes. Then a city backhoe hit a slat of white pine in the russet mud. It was a coffin, soft, brown, and six-sided, the first remnant of a buried chapter in New England history. About 200 coffins lay under the street near Choozy Shooz and the other shops that lend downtown Portsmouth a cosmopolitan air. No one knew much about this burial ground because the coffins held slaves, their unmarked graves paved over and mo
Source: James M. Boyden, chairman of the Tulane History Department
Jan 23, 2006
There seems to be some confusion abroad in the profession about the status of graduate study in history at Tulane. Tulane Ph.D. and M.A. programs in history will continue as before, and that there will be some enhancement in the value of the stipends of incoming and continuing doctoral students as soon as fall 2006. Because of communications difficulties in New Orleans (U. S. mail remains very slow, and applicants were understandably skeptical of our online applications pro
Source: NYT
Jan 23, 2006
A Turkish court dropped criminal charges against best-selling author Orhan Pamuk on Monday, a defense lawyer said, in a move which the European Union described as ``good news'' for freedom of speech in Turkey.The trial had cast a shadow over the Muslim country's drive to join the 25-nation EU bloc after it began membership talks last October.
``The court has decided to drop the case. There will not be a hearing... because there is no need for that,'' lawyer Halu
Source: National Geographic
Jan 22, 2006
For his movie The New World, which arrives in U.S. theaters nationwide today, director Terrence Malick wanted to accurately recreate the sights and sounds of a 17th-century English colony. The film depicts the clash between the native Algonquian Indians and English settlers at the founding of Jamestown in present-day Virginia. Malick therefore decided to have the Native American characters speak the indigenous language of the time—Virginia Algonquian. There was only one problem: No one had spoke
Source: Independent (UK)
Jan 22, 2006
Adolf Hitler intended to recreate the Vatican's St Peter's Square in the centre of Berlin to honour his ally Benito Mussolini, newly discovered documents have revealed.Albert Speer, the fuhrer's chief architect, was commissioned to draw up the plans, which have been discovered by historians examining his papers.
They had been stored in a secret room inside Moscow's Museum of Architecture after being taken to Russia at the end of the Second World War.
Source: Duluth News Tribune
Jan 22, 2006
The proud lineage of Abraham Lincoln has helped researchers at the University of Minnesota identify a genetic origin of ataxia, a disease that robs people of mobility and coordination.The discovery, announced Sunday, means that genetic screening can be used to identify people at risk for at least one form of this neurological disease. Perhaps a gene-specific treatment can be designed as well.
Genetics professor Laura Ranum started the hunt for the responsible ge
Source: NYT
Jan 22, 2006
JENIN, West Bank, Jan. 18 - The candidate's name is Jamal Abu Roub, but everyone here calls him Hitler because, well, that is the name he has answered to quite comfortably since he was a teenager.Mr. Roub, 40, is a leader of the militant Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades in this turbulent corner of the West Bank, and has spent the past five years leading his ragtag band of gunmen in frequent clashes with the Israeli military. Mr. Roub's deeds include hauling a Palestinian
Source: NYT
Jan 22, 2006
Christopher Cain is finishing a new movie about one of the darkest moments in Mormon history, the Mountain Meadows massacre of 1857, in which 137 pioneers from Arkansas were killed in Utah by a raiding party whose ties to the Mormon church are still in dispute.
Source: BBC News
Jan 22, 2006
They are known as the "Defenders of the Church" and this weekend the Vatican Swiss Guard celebrated 500 years of service. In that time they have protected 42 successive popes, although more recently the Vatican has been guarded by Italian security forces and plainclothes police. But personal safety of the pope is still the guards' full responsibility.
The guards first arrived in Rome on 22 January 1506. At that time, Helvetian soldiers wer
Source: zaman.com
Jan 22, 2006
It has been revealed that Turkey informed Italian officials about Mehmet Ali Agca's plan to assassinate Pope II Jean Paul one year before the incident. Turkish Interpol warned member countries by issuing a red bulletin after Agca escaped from prison in 1979 where he was sentenced to life for murdering Abdi Ipekci, editor of the moderate left-wing newspaper Milliyet; however, the countries did not pay much heed to "the red bulletin" at first. After Agca's assa
Source: Boston Globe
Jan 22, 2006
What color are the stars on our flag? How many representatives are in Congress? Who becomes president if the president and the vice president should die? Who wrote ''The Star-Spangled Banner?" The federal government has decided that these questions -- five of the 100 that could appear on the US citizenship test -- are trivial. They say the exam, which is supposed to gauge how well immigrants understand and embrace US institutions, instead tests only their ability to memorize answers. So the
Source: cronaca.com
Jan 21, 2006
The legendary 1965 DB5 model, complete with a host of high-tech gadgets, went under the hammer in Phoenix, Arizona. Driven by Sean Connery, the car boasts built-in Browning machine guns, tyre slashers, an oil slick ejector and a retractable rear bullet-proof screen. It was bought for $2,090,000 by a European collector. When last sold in 1970, it fetched £5,000.
Source: Metro News
Jan 21, 2006
A full-length portrait of George Washington by artist Charles Willson Peale sold for a record $21.3 million on Saturday at Christie's auction house.The 8-foot-tall oil painting was bought by dealer C.L. Prickett, presumably for a client, a Christie spokeswoman said.
The 1779 canvas depicts a portly and rosy-cheeked Washington as Commander of the Continental Army at Princeton, New Jersey. Washington later became the first U.S. president.
The sa
Source: Epoch Times
Jan 21, 2006
Precisely how long is the Great Wall of China? Because historical records and measurements differ, officials in China have decided to survey the length and orientation of the Great Wall, using the latest techniques and a budget of 200 million yuan (approximately US$ 25 million).
Source: Jerusalem Post/AP
Jan 21, 2006
Research commissioned by Germany's Dresdner Bank AG has found that the bank once held a major stake in a company that helped build the Auschwitz death camp, a spokesman said Saturday.The bank held a 26 percent stake in the company, Huta, spokesman Ulrich Porwollik said, confirming a report by the weekly Der Spiegel.
Historians also found that, starting in 1910, officials from the bank repeatedly headed Huta's supervisory board - "also at the relevant time,&
Source: CNN
Jan 21, 2006
By 1607, the civilized world knew the earth was not flat. Unfortunately, nobody passed that tidbit of information along to writer-director Terrence Malick. Malick's new film, "The New World" -- only his fourth in 32 years -- is as flat as a flapjack. This ponderous film -- about the settlement of the Jamestown colony by the British and the love story of Capt. John Smith and the Indian princess Pocahontas -- almost totally lacks exposition and offers colorless characters beyond the main
