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: Civil War Courier
Jan 5, 2006
The University of the South will celebrate its 150th anniversary from 2007-2008.
If the current fight between traditionalists and administration officials over the university’s attempt to remake its image and allegedly distance itself from its storied Southern past is any indication, the party punch may turn sour.
Source: Times of London
Jan 5, 2006
STORMY waves cut short the voyage of the Chinese merchant vessel as it left a southern port laden with exquisite porcelain 800 years ago to sell its wares along the ancient trade route known as the Marine Silk Road.
Now Chinese scientists want to awaken the ship from its slumber in the silt 20 nautical miles off the coast of Guangdong, which British sailors have long known as Canton. The treasure on board is truly amazing and impossible to value. Initial excavations have revealed b
Source: cronaca.com
Jan 5, 2006
A U.S. treasure hunter's bid to scavenge a famed War of 1812-era shipwreck off the coast of Nova Scotia has met a storm of protest from underwater experts, who say the province's rich maritime history is being pillaged by modern-day pirates. HMS Fantome was laden with loot believed to have been stolen from Washington -- including from the White House and Capitol building -- when it ran aground on a treacherous shoal south of Halifax in November, 1814. The crew of the British
Source: AP
Jan 4, 2006
It's a glass ceiling no one else has even cracked, and Nancy Pelosi was crashing through it Thursday, preparing to be sworn in as the nation's first-ever female House speaker."This is an historic moment - for the Congress, and for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited more than 200 years," Pelosi planned to say in prepared remarks for the House. "Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights
Source: AP
Jan 4, 2006
Italian scientists believe they have uncovered a 400-year-old murder. Historians have long suspected that Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his second wife Bianca Cappello did not die of malaria but were poisoned — probably by Francesco's brother, Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, who was vying for the title.Now, forensic and toxicology experts at the University of Florence report evidence of arsenic poisoning in a new study published in the British Medical Jour
Source: electricpolitics.com
Jan 4, 2006
For several years Lieutenant General William E. Odom (ret.), formerly Director of the NSA (1985-88), has expressed the remarkable view that the US invasion of Iraq is "the greatest strategic mistake" in US history. In a podcast interview recorded on January 4, he elaborated on that proposition, and contended that an extended US debacle in Iraq could trigger the collapse of the current international system.He talks about a loosening of constraints upon rivalri
Source: WaPo
Jan 4, 2006
The Florida Supreme Court struck down a statewide voucher system Thursday that allowed children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense _ a program Gov. Jeb Bush considered one of his proudest achievements.It was the nation's first statewide voucher program.
In a 5-2 ruling, the high court said the program violates the Florida Constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public education.
About 700 children are attending privat
Source: Bloomberg News
Jan 4, 2006
French President Jacques Chirac said a law obliging schools to teach a ``positive'' version of the nation's conduct in colonial times should be revised after protests that it was a whitewash.
``It's not up to the law to write history,'' he said today in his annual address to journalists at the Elysee Palace in Paris. ``The current text is dividing French people. It must be re-written.'' After three weeks of violence in poor neighborhoods with large
Source: NYT
Jan 4, 2006
At 1401 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Willard is two blocks from the White House. It is where Julia Ward Howe wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," where President Ulysses S. Grant popularized the term lobbyist for the political-influence peddlers who pursued him there; where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. worked on his "I have a dream" speech.
But the Willard was closed in 1968 and scheduled for demolition. The celebration, "Willard 2006: A Hotel's Lega
Source: NYT
Jan 4, 2006
Frank Wilkinson, a Los Angeles housing official who lost his job in the Red Scare of the early 1950's and later became one of the last two people jailed for refusing to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee whether he was a Communist, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 91.Mr. Wilkinson, whose experiences inspired a half-century campaign against government spying, had been ill for several months and was recovering from surgery and a fall, said Donna Wilkinson, his w
Source: CNN
Jan 4, 2006
A Marine was being held at Camp Lejeune on a charge of desertion for not going to war in Vietnam 40 years ago, a military spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Pvt. Jerry Texiero, 65, was arrested in August in Tarpon Springs, Florida, and brought to Camp Lejeune on December 14, authorities said.Texiero was charged December 21 with desertion, but no date had been set for preliminary hearings in military court, base spokeswoman Lt. Col Annita Best said.
Source: Post-Star (Greenwich, NY)
Jan 4, 2006
The home where women's suffragist Susan B. Anthony spent part of her young adult life will be auctioned at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Washington County Municipal Center. Auctioning will begin at $202,000, according to the property's former owner, Michael Ramos. The home at 2835 county Route 29 was built in 1832. Local historians say it is important because of its connection to Anthony’s early life. She lived with her family in Greenwich from age 6 through 19.Several local activi
Source: The Daily News (Jacksonville, NC)
Jan 4, 2006
Archaeologists working with the Queen Anne's Revenge Project have found a coat button and some hardware that looks like it might be part of a set of shackles - both items that could have belonged to the pirate Blackbeard or one of his crew.The artifacts are buried in separate concretions of sand and shell raised from a shipwreck on the ocean floor.
"We're planning to work on the two concretions during January to extract the button and the possible shackles,
Source: Fox News
Jan 4, 2006
Organizers in Philadelphia are gearing up for the Jan. 17 celebration of Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday with pomp and pageantry. But there is just as much reason to party this Friday, Jan. 6, which was Franklin's birth date before time skipped ahead 11 days in 1752.This little-known ripple in American history was a result of the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, part of an ongoing struggle to realign the days with Earth's orbit.
Beca
Source: Newsfactor
Jan 4, 2006
In Peru's Andean foothills a group of archaeologists say they have found remnants of the oldest known irrigation canals in South America, which they hope will provide clues to the origin of the region's agriculturally based societies.
"There are four sites in the area that have canals that date minimally 5,300 years ago, maybe a little earlier," team leader Tom D. Dillehay, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told The Associated Press on Tues
Source: BBC
Jan 4, 2006
French President Jacques Chirac has said a controversial law on the teaching of France's colonial past will be overturned. The law requires teachers to stress positive aspects of French colonialism, especially in north Africa.
Mr Chirac, who plans to run for re-election in 2007, also announced the establishment of a slavery remembrance day in France - on a date to be announced later this year. "The question of slavery is a wound for a large number of our fellow citizens, in pa
Source: AP
Jan 4, 2006
Discovery of an ancient village just outside Jerusalem has brought into question one of the strongest images of biblical times - the wholesale flight of Jews running for their lives after the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
Just beneath the main road leading north from Jerusalem, archaeologists have found the walls of houses in a well-planned community that existed after the temple's destruction. It might lead to rewriting the history books if it was r
Source: BBC
Jan 4, 2006
Residents of the village of Nobber, north Meath, in the Republic of Ireland, stumbled upon archaeological treasure when they decided to clean up an old graveyard.
Now they are hoping that tombs in the shape of Celtic crosses, dating back 1100 years, will put them on the map, alongside such famous archaeological sites as Newgrange. In the course of cleaning up the wind-swept cemetery, they found small concrete tomb stones, like Celtic crosses, some less than a fo
Source: Peter Ford in the Christian Science Monitor
Jan 4, 2006
PARIS – Hardly had the fires died down in the Paris suburbs, as the November rioting by immigrant youths petered out, than the flames of another conflict fed by France's colonial past began to sweep through the political landscape here.
This time they are metaphorical. But the passionate debate under way over whether French history teachers should stress positive aspects of colonialism is generating almost as much heat. The argument reveals the same ambivalence among French politic
Source: Live Science
Jan 3, 2006
Researchers say their discovery of a 2,000-year-old toilet at one of the world's most important archaeological sites sheds new light on whether the ancient Essene community was home to the authors of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls.In a new study, three researchers say they have discovered the outdoor latrine used by the ancient residents of Qumran, on the barren banks of the Dead Sea. They say the find proves the people living here two millennia ago were Essenes, an ascetic Je
