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.
Aug 8, 2005
No one at Hanford Engineer Works knew they were making history.
There were signs, but all told them to keep quiet. They were told they were serving their country and furthering the war effort.
But they were curious.
Why were they -- thousands of men and women -- converting an isolated Central Washington farming community into a bustling industrial complex, virtually overnight? Where were trucks and railcars filled with tons of precious steel and aluminum
Aug 8, 2005
IT was a national scandal, the first of its kind. A senior C.I.A. officer was exposed in the United States press by a "high official source." The story shot from newspaper to newspaper. The officer lost his job and went into hiding.
Six days later, with a conservative Republican leading the charge, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee grilled the secretary of defense, demanding a point-by-point refutation of the anonymous charges against the officer in the news media. Th
Aug 8, 2005
Thousands of people marched down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive on Saturday to mark the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, in an event organized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and attended by lawmakers and celebrities, including Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson and Harry Belafonte.
But the mood was more cautionary than celebratory, with speaker after speaker warning in a rally after the march that the law may not be renewed by Congress when some of its critical provisions expire in 20
Aug 8, 2005
HIROSHIMA, Japan, Aug. 6 - At 8:15 a.m. Saturday, as tens of thousands of Japanese bowed their heads here to mark the instant when an atomic bomb fell 60 years ago, only the loud, telltale buzz of the summer cicadas broke the respectful silence.
In an hourlong ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park, participants, as in previous years, laid wreaths, burned incense, prayed for the souls of the dead, and gave impassioned pleas for world peace and the abolition of nuclear arms. Few in Hiro
Aug 8, 2005
ONE soldier fought off scores of elite Iraqi troops in a fierce defense of his outnumbered Army unit, saving dozens of American lives before he himself was killed. Another soldier helped lead a team that killed 27 insurgents who had ambushed her convoy. And then there was the marine who, after being shot, managed to tuck an enemy grenade under his stomach to save the men in his unit, dying in the process.
Their names are Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester and Sgt.
Source: Times (UK)
Aug 7, 2005
Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University, thinks that today’s investors have a great deal to learn from the events that led up to the first world war — and his ideas are gaining followers in the London. Ferguson’s argument is that while analysts usually look to the Great Depression of the 1930s or the oil shock of the 1970s to understand impending crises, they should in fact be looking back almost 100 years. While he does not suggest we ar
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
Aug 7, 2005
Less than a year after the United States exploded two atomic bombs in Japan, the federal government established agencies to oversee the future of this powerful but short-lived monopoly.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who directed the bomb's development, chaired one body, the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission. Serving with him were other scientists, making the GAC the most influential and respected panel on atomic energy.
By the end of Apri
Source: LAT
Aug 7, 2005
There was a distinct air of nostalgia in the room last week when organizers launched a group dedicated to promoting bipartisan consensus on foreign policy. Partly that was because the two Washington veterans headlining the effort -- former Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) -- were last seen together playing key roles in the congressional investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal in 1988.
But the mood owed more to the e
Source: Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)
Aug 7, 2005
With the help of Japanese historian Shigeaki Mori, a British airman recently was added to Nagasaki's list of atomic-bomb victims, after his death in the bombing on Aug. 9, 1945, while being held as a prisoner of war, was confirmed. A portrait of Royal Air Force Cpl. Ronald Shaw was offered to the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims by his family, who recently learned of Shaw's fate through information provided by Mori, 68, in Hiroshima.
Aug 6, 2005
Hiroshima wasn't uniquely wicked. It was part of a policy for the mass killing of civilians, writes
Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the Guardian.
During the recent Kosovo "war", a French officer asked bitterly if this was to be the first war in history in which only civilians were killed, and yet we had long since begun to go down just that road. It is sobering to compare the 300,000 British uniformed servicemen who died in 1939-45 with the 600,000 German civilians killed
Aug 6, 2005
On Aug. 8, 1945 -- a week before Japan's surrender in World War II -- 1.5 million Soviet troops launched a massive surprise attack against Japanese occupation forces in northern China and Korea, an area the size of Western Europe. Within days, Tokyo's million-man army in the region had collapsed in one of the greatest military defeats in history.
''It was a massive campaign and a crushing blow for Japan which was already in a bad way after fighting for almost four years in the Pacif
Source: Knight Ridder Newspapers
Aug 5, 2005
Sixty years after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, a film documenting the aftermath is reminding Americans about the horrors of nuclear war.
Footage from a U.S. government-produced film, which was labeled top secret and kept out of public view for decades, is included in "Original Child Bomb," a documentary that aired on many cable stations Saturday, the 60th anniversary of the day that Hiroshima became the first city to suffer atomic attack.
Aug 5, 2005
A clamor always seems to accompany any mention in Memphis, the city where ML KIng Jr. was shot and killed, of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the cavalryman whose outnumbered men whipped the Yankees at Brice's Crossroads in northern Mississippi.
He was not just any Confederate hero. After the war, he returned to Memphis and, in 1867, became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Today, Memphis is a city on the move. It has a new downtown basketball arena and minor-lea
Aug 5, 2005
A few months ago, a team of Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) who were studying documents from Iranian churches for international registration, discovered some skeletons in Saint Stepanos Church, located in the northeastern province of East Azarbaijan.
Following the recent discovery, Iran's Armenian Archbishop talked of the possibility of their belonging to John the Baptist. "Most probably the discovered remains are of great historical value," said
Aug 5, 2005
The rusty iron coffin stubbornly resisted hammer and chisel as researchers in a warm Smithsonian laboratory tried to get a glimpse of an American who lived more than 150 years ago. An electric drill finally freed the lid.
"This is a person and we want to tell this person's story. She is our primary obligation," anthropologist Doug Owsley said as the lid was lifted on a young body wrapped in a brown shroud.
The scientists hope to identify the remains so they ca
Aug 5, 2005
Bob Dylan's song Like a Rolling Stone has topped a poll of rock and film stars to find the music, movies, TV shows and books that changed the world.
The 1965 single beat Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel into second place in the survey for Uncut magazine. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4747739.stm
Aug 5, 2005
Thousands of Croats in the town of Knin have celebrated the 10th anniversary of a Croatian offensive which crushed a breakaway Serb republic in the region.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, attending a military parade, said the Operation Storm offensive in 1995 was magnificent and liberating.
But Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said the anniversary was tragic and should not be celebrated.
Aug 5, 2005
A "mummy" that duped archaeologists and nearly sparked a diplomatic row between Pakistan and Iran is finally being laid to rest.
Discovered in a wooden sarcophagus in October 2000, the mummy was thought to be Persian and date to about 600BC.
Iran laid claim to the sarcophagus and Pakistani provinces squabbled over it until tests showed the "mummy" was a fake only a few decades old.
Aug 5, 2005
The Japanese city of Hiroshima is preparing to mark the anniversary of the atomic bomb explosion above the city 60 years ago on Saturday.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will attend the annual commemoration in the city's Peace Park, to mark the moment the bomb fell.
Around 140,000 people were killed by the blast and its aftermath.
Many commentators believe the attack helped bring an early end to World War II in the Pacific.
Hirosh
Aug 5, 2005
In 1857, Indian soldiers turned on their British rulers in a mutiny that led to an unprecedented wave of violence across the country. Is it really a good subject for a musical?
"For too long, we have rusted in the service of foreign masters. All it takes is a bit of grease to remind us who we are." So declares Mangal Pandey in The Rising, an epic new film about the so-called Indian Mutiny of 1857. Mangal is a sepoy , a private in the British army. New Enfield rifles have j
