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: CBS News
Sep 18, 2005
President Bush's declining poll numbers may not be so surprising. Throughout American history, reelected presidents have run into difficulties during their second terms.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 17, 2005
With a cry of "Mazeltov" and a Rabbi's congratulatory handshake, hundreds of tribal people from India's north-east were formally converted to Judaism this week after being recognised as descendants of the 10 Lost Tribes exiled from Israel 2,700 years ago.
A rabbinical court, dispatched with the blessing of Israel's Chief Rabbi, travelled 3,500 miles to Mizoram on India's border with Burma to perform the conversions using a Mikvah - ritual bath - built specially for the pur
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 17, 2005
A criminal investigation into forgeries smuggled into the National Archives began last night, two months after The Daily Telegraph revealed that historical documents relating to Nazi Germany had been tampered with.
In an unprecedented inquiry, Scotland Yard detectives will gather evidence for a prosecution of the forger behind at least 17 documents drawn to the attention of the archives by this newspaper since last July.The first batch of counterfeit papers unco
Source: NYT
Sep 16, 2005
Twenty-five months after a blackout darkened cities from New York to Toronto and Detroit, the Energy Department and its Canadian counterpart held their first public technical discussion on the episode Thursday to talk about one factor widely considered to have been behind it: the deregulation of the electric system.
Engineers, government officials and executives said at the meeting that amid its restructuring the industry needed further changes to reduce the frequency of blackouts a
Source: Boston Globe
Sep 16, 2005
The boards of the Provincetown Theatre Company, a 40-year-old community troupe, and the Provincetown Repertory Theatre, a 10-year-old Equity theater, voted in late August to merge this fall and start putting on shows beginning early next year using the name of the famous Provincetown Players--that's causing concern. The proposed name spurred immediate controversy in theater circles. The legendary playwright Eugene O'Neill, who is considered the father of American drama, wrot
Source: Reuters
Sep 16, 2005
The personal notebooks of Vasily Grossman, the Soviet author best known for his World War Two masterpiece "Life and Fate," offer a harrowing and sometimes surprising insight into life along the Nazis' eastern front. Published in English in a new book by British historian Antony Beevor, the accounts include details which the Soviet censors would never have allowed the public to see.
They include Grossman's implicit criticism of the Soviets' lack of readiness for the Nazi on
Source: San Jose Mercury News
Sep 16, 2005
San Jose's darkest hour -- the 1933 lynching of two kidnapping suspects in St. James Park -- has sparked sudden interest in Hollywood. Three films about the city's macabre episode are in various stages of development, including one by former San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery and another that has just finished filming primarily in Oakland. But this may be two too many for the people involved, who are jostling over which treatment of the event is best suited for the screen.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.
Sep 16, 2005
On September 8, President Bush issued a proclamation suspending the minimum wage requirements for relief workers engaged in Katrina recovery operations. But in order to do so, he relied upon a statutory authority that has been dormant for thirty years and that appears to be legally inoperative."I find that the conditions caused by Hurricane Katrina constitute a 'national emergency' within the meaning of section 3147 of title 40, United States Code," President
Source: Balt Sun
Sep 16, 2005
Americans know more about TV shows like Desperate Housewives than they know about the U.S. Constitution, according to Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat. That is why he wrote a federal law into the Education Department budget. It requires students to observe the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, Sept. 17, 1787.
Tomorrow is Constitution Day - the 218th anniversary - and because it falls on a weekend, schools across the nation will e
Source: Independent (UK)
Sep 16, 2005
Opportunities to study history at postgraduate level have never been more copious. The growth of taught Masters programmes offered by UK universities over the past few years is graphically demonstrated by the annual surveys in History Today magazine.
The 2000 survey noted that "the range of choices... continues to grow exponentially". It listed 156 courses. By 2004 there were 289 on offer, while this year the magazine - evidently feeling that too much valuable space was be
Source: NYT
Sep 16, 2005
Senator Robert C. Byrd, the Democrat from West Virginia who keeps a copy of the Constitution in his pocket, finds the nation's historical amnesia frustrating. In December he inserted into a giant spending bill a passage requiring every American school receiving federal money to teach about the Constitution on Sept. 17, the date it was signed in 1787.
Saturday is the first annual Constitution Day, and Mr. Byrd's law is focusing considerable attention on the document.
Source: Times-Picayune
Sep 15, 2005
Jake Staples, the museum's assistant director of facilities, depended on the darkness and labyrinthlike exhibit spaces to hide him during his harried days alone in the museum, when police protection in the Warehouse District evaporated and looters marauded through the museum's ground floor amid the vintage landing craft and tanks. Before the flood, Staples spent his days seeing to the maintenance of the museum he loves. He understands the workings of the building and e
Source: Washington Post
Sep 15, 2005
A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.
The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to name the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
Sep 15, 2005
As relief and recovery efforts continue along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, work is concentrating on assessments of damage to museums, libraries, archives, historic structures, and sites of historic interest.As reports continue to be logged in by the American Association of Museums (see http://www.aam-us.org/aamlatest/news/HurricaneFirstReports.cfm ) it appears that in
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
Sep 15, 2005
Another document has now come to light that reflects Robert’s continuing interest in historical scholarship. It is an article entitled “Oral Advocacy and the Re-emergence of a Supreme Court Bar” published this year in an issue of the Journal of Supreme Court History (2005, Vol. 30 No. 1; pp 68-81). In this most recent writing Roberts reflects on the historical trend toward “discernible professionalization among the advocates before the Supreme Court” (of which Roberts is one) and traces the role
Source: NYT
Sep 15, 2005
In the development of ancient societies, salt was an important building block. It was a crucial trading commodity, and by allowing food to be preserved it enabled empires to expand.
But salt itself is not preserved. Time and water wash it away, so solid archaeological evidence of salt production has rarely been discovered.
Now, researchers have found strong signs that salt was produced in central China in the first two millenniums B.C., during the dynastic period.
Source: NYT
Sep 15, 2005
Senator Arlen Specter's testy interrogation of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. on the Supreme Court's treatment of Congress may well have left viewers scratching their heads on Wednesday morning, with cryptic references to the "congruence and proportionality test" and to unfamiliar case names like "Lane and Hibbs."
But the line of questioning that Mr. Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is Judiciary Committee chairman, chose to pursue offered a window on the incre
Source: NYT
Sep 15, 2005
A summer of bad news from Iraq, high gasoline prices, economic unease and now the devastation of Hurricane Katrina has left President Bush with overall approval ratings for his job performance and handling of Iraq, foreign policy and the economy at or near the lowest levels of his presidency, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
Source: Respectful Insolence
Sep 15, 2005
The twice-monthly roundup of the best history blogging is available at Respectful Insolence.
Source: Washington Times
Sep 15, 2005
Thousands of students across the country are learning the significance of the national anthem as part of the National Anthem Project. Yesterday, schools and communities nationwide sang the anthem to celebrate its 191st anniversary. The National Anthem Project comes after a nationwide poll found that two out of three American adults don't know all of the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" -- and many more don't know which song is the national anthem or why it was w
