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: AP
Dec 10, 2005
Building for the future at the U.S. Army's Fort Drum is helping unveil the past. The newest discovery at the northern New York Army post is a prehistoric boat-building site near what would have been the shoreline of Glacial Lake Iroquois.
A team of Fort Drum archaeologists surveying a wooded hillside near where the Army is putting a new National Guard training site unearthed an unusual looking stone tool. With the help of a U.S. Marine archaeologist, the team was able to identify it
Source: BBC News
Dec 10, 2005
A petition was handed to the German government this week asking for the former East German parliament building to be saved from demolition.
The fate of the building has raised questions about German identity.It's hard to overlook the Palace of the Republic: a squat, brown building on a vast expanse of empty concrete in the heart of Berlin.
It sits like an angry proletarian opposite the fake Italian Renaissance of the city's cathedral - which holds
Source: NYT
Dec 10, 2005
President Bush suggested Friday that history will vindicate his decision to invade Iraq, saying he believed that a half century from now, it will be regarded as important a transition for the world as the democratization of Japan was after World War II.
"I'm absolutely convinced that some day, 50 or 60 years from now, an American president will be speaking to an audience saying, 'Thank goodness a generation of Americans rose to the challenge and helped people be liberated from
Source: Ottawa Citizen
Dec 10, 2005
If pilgrims worshipping in the Church of the Nativity look up at the roof, they will see a battlefield threatening the future of one of Christendom's most holy sites. Squabbling over crucial roof repairs between the three Christian communities that share custodianship of Jesus's birthplace is endangering the 1,500-year-old basilica.
Large holes in the 500-year-old lead roof have let rainwater flood inside for years. It streams down the walls and threatens to was
Source: David Honigmann in the Financial Times (London, England)
Dec 10, 2005
Appropriately, the subject to which historians returned time after time this year was the troubled relationship between Europe and the east.
Bettany Hughes's Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore (Jonathan Cape Pounds 20) traces the cultural ripples left by Helen: a villain to medieval moralists, rehabilitated by Eleanor of Aquitaine, traduced by Hollywood.Greeks and Trojans clashed in deadly earnest centuries later. As Tom Holland recounts in Persian F
Source: Courier Mail (Queensland, Australia)
Dec 10, 2005
ACCORDING to historians, Queensland Aborigines had up to $500 million in wages "stolen" by the State Government and its agents during the 20th century.
The ramifications of that claim remain unresolved, as does the fate of money left in a four-year-old government reparation fund which closes at the end of the month.ome suggest the real amount now owed could run to $3 billion with financial interest, plus proper compensation, and they argue this p
Source: Australian
Dec 10, 2005
THE credibility of expert witnesses in native title claims came under renewed attack yesterday after the National Native Title Tribunal revealed that it discounts the evidence of anthropologists who are too close to Aboriginal groups.
Tribunal president Graeme Neate said it had criticised some anthropologists for conducting themselves as advocates for Aborigines instead of impartial experts. "That means the court ultimately gives less weight to their
Source: LAT
Dec 10, 2005
For nearly 140 years, any child born on U.S. soil, even to an illegal immigrant, has been given American citizenship. Now, some conservatives in Congress are determined to change that.
A group of 92 lawmakers in the House will attempt next week to force a vote on legislation that would revoke the principle of "birthright citizenship," part of a broader effort to discourage illegal immigration.The push to change the citizenship policy is backed by
Source: Xinhuanet
Dec 9, 2005
French President Jacques Chirac intervened Friday by a radio-televisioned speech to try to calm down controversy over France colonization history.
He announced the creation of a mission to "evaluate the actions of parliament in the fields of memory and history" and issue a report within three months, as the French government faces mounting pressure to revoke a law that casts a positive light on the country 's colonial past."Like all na
Source: National Security Archive
Dec 9, 2005
More than three years before the 9/11 attack on the United States, U.S. officials warned Saudi Arabia that Osama bin Laden "might take the course of least resistance and turn to a civilian [aircraft] target," according to a declassified cable released by the National Security Archive today. The warning was made by the U.S. regional security officer and a civil aviation official in Riyadh based on a public threat bin Laden made against "military passenger aircraft" and his sta
Source: Wa Po
Dec 9, 2005
With a glut of memorials, monuments and museums waiting to be built, and other champions for other causes in the wings, the question of whether the Mall should be considered "a finished piece of civic art" gained new momentum this week during a meeting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
Rick Harlan Schneider is one of a growing number of planners whose solution is rethinking the Mall itself, reconfiguring and expanding the space, the way a Senate commission did about 100 year
Source: Perspecitves (American Historical Association)
Dec 9, 2005
For the first time in six years, the Department of Education (DoE) reported both a real increase in the number of undergraduate history degrees awarded as well as a relative improvement in comparison to other fields—critical measures in drawing institutional resources to history departments. At the same time, the number of new history PhDs conferred declined for the third year, providing some hope to those looking for signs that the tight academic job market could loosen up a bit.
Source: Perspecitves (American Historical Association)
Dec 9, 2005
The number of history books published in North America dipped slightly in 2004, but still remains near record highs. The data has to be read with caution as it contains a number of evident flaws and ambiguities. Not all history books are equal, after all, in the eyes of the history profession. Nevertheless, the vital importance of books and monographs to the health of the discipline and profession of history makes even an impressionistic picture of the state of the industry helpful. Perhaps most
Source: Email to HNN and Tulane Website
Dec 9, 2005
Tulane University's History Department will apparently not be facing lay-offs, though other departments will. Not until next week will department chairs meet with the acting dean. But James Boyden, chairman of the History Department, told HNN in an email, "my assumption is that the layoffs will not affect the history department directly. And the department's Ph.D. and M.A. programs are among those that will be continued." He added: "Good news for us on that score, but the bad
Source: USA Today
Dec 9, 2005
For Smithsonian Institution curator David Shayt, ordinary objects - a chunk of concrete from a collapsed floodwall, a piece from a broken garden gate and a vintage 1930s clarinet that a local jazz musician rescued from the mud - help chronicle the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
Shayt will take these and other artifacts from one of the nation's worst natural disasters to the National Mall in Washington, where someday they will go on display. Shayt want
Source: AP
Dec 9, 2005
Cape Cod was the backdrop for the most iconic images of President John F. Kennedy: a robust leader at the helm of a sailboat, with hair tousled and sunlight splashed on his face.
Now, 42 years after Kennedy's assassination, the place he called home may finally erect a statue to honor the 35th president. A sculptor has nearly completed what would be Cape Cod's first Kennedy statue. The 6-foot, 400-pound bronze cast will be walking barefoot on a mound of real sand accented with live e
Source: KSTP-TV
Dec 9, 2005
Possibly the most recognizable pair of shoes in movie history - the sequined ruby slippers Dorothy wore in "The Wizard of Oz" - were reported stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn. on Sunday.
The slippers are one of four remaining pair of the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the filming of the 1939 classic movie. The famous shoes are owned by Hollywood memorabilia collector Michael Shaw and were on loan to the museum for the su
Source: Science Daily
Dec 9, 2005
A University of Calgary archaeologist and her international team of researchers have discovered the earliest known portrait of a woman that the Maya carved into stone, demonstrating that women held positions of authority very early in Maya history – either as queens or patron deities.
The discovery was made earlier this year in Guatemala at the site of Naachtun, a Maya city located some 90 kilometres through dense jungle north of the more famous Maya city of Tikal. The woman's face,
Source: NYT
Dec 8, 2005
Fans of London's double-decker Routemaster buses were out early on a foggy morning Friday hoping to catch a ride on the last day of regular service after half a century. The red Routemasters, with their conductors and hop-on, hop-off open platforms, were scheduled to make their last regular trip at midday.
''It's a sad day. The buses have all been overhauled and they were OK for several more years,'' said Rustom Battiwalla, 37, a former bus driver who came to London on Friday from t
Source: USA Today
Dec 8, 2005
For Smithsonian Institution curator David Shayt, ordinary objects — a chunk of concrete from a collapsed floodwall, a piece from a broken garden gate and a vintage 1930s clarinet that a local jazz musician rescued from the mud — help chronicle the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
Shayt will take these and other artifacts from one of the nation's worst natural disasters to the National Mall in Washington, where someday they will go on display.
Shayt wants objec
