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: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 10, 2013
Official plans to commemorate 100 years since the First World War will let people make up their own minds about who was to blame for the conflict, Maria Miller has said.Maria Miller said the Government would not take a judgemental position on the cause of WWI, as this is the job of historians.Her comments come amid accusations from campaigners that the Government is being too anxious to avoid appearing patriotic and triumphalist for fear of upsetting the Germans.Historians have criticised the current plans for failing fully to recognise the achievement of British forces and skipping over their biggest victories in an effort to emphasise the futility and carnage of the war....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 9, 2013
The Queen is to lead the nation in commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War at a service where she will be joined by other heads of state.The monarch is due to attend the event at Glasgow Cathedral on August 4 next year. The city has been chosen as a focal point for activities to mark the start of the conflict, as it is hosting the Commonwealth Games which end the day before.Across the country, flags on public buildings will fly at half mast on the anniversary of the outbreak, while, in Belgium, another service will be held at St Symphorien Military Cemetery near Mons, where similar numbers of British and German war dead are buried, including the first and last Commonwealth soldiers killed in the conflict....
Source: WSJ
Jun 9, 2013
For decades, the last remnants of a Prohibition Era bootlegging operation shut down by federal authorities in 1932 have rested on a peaceful swath of farmland in upstate New York.Now, the property in rural Pine Plains, N.Y., is set to once again host a production facility for alcoholic beverages—this time, a legal one.Dutch's Spirits, founded by two friends who met as roommates at the University of Chicago, plans to build a new distillery there and host tours and tastings that incorporate the complex of bunkers and tunnels still on the site....
Source: Washington Times
Jun 9, 2013
A government-subsidized museum in Paris has opened a photography exhibition of Palestinian suicide bombers, remembering them as freedom fighters, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported Friday.The exhibition, “Death” by Ahlam Shibli, opened on May 28 at the Jeu de Paume museum of contemporary art.The museum’s website describes the people pictured as “those who lost their lives fighting against the occupation,” and the exhibition as being about “the efforts of Palestinian society to preserve their presence,” the JTA reported....
Source: NYT
Jun 9, 2013
WASHINGTON — These days it is hard to imagine a single presidential speech changing history.But two speeches, given back to back by President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago this week, are now viewed as critical turning points on the transcendent issues of the last century.The speeches, which came on consecutive days, took political risks. They sought to shift the nation’s thinking on the “inevitability” of war with the Soviet Union and to make urgent the “moral crisis” of civil rights. Beyond their considerable impact on American minds, these two speeches had something in common that oratory now often misses. They both led quickly and directly to important changes.
Source: AP
Jun 8, 2013
Go back 50 years in time.Homosexuality was deemed a mental disorder by the nation’s psychiatric authorities, and gay sex was a crime in every state but Illinois. Federal workers could be fired merely for being gay.Today, gays serve openly in the military, work as TV news anchors and federal judges, win elections as big-city mayors and members of Congress. Popular TV shows have gay protagonists.And now the gay-rights movement may be on the cusp of momentous legal breakthroughs. Later this month, a Supreme Court ruling could lead to legalization of same-sex marriage in California, and there’s a good chance the court will require the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in all U.S. jurisdictions where they are legal — as of now, 12 states and Washington, D.C....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 7, 2013
Top secret orders issued to naval captains involved in the D-Day landings have emerged after spending decades hidden in a chest in a loft, where they were discovered following a house fire.The inch-thick document – which should have been destroyed at the end of the Normandy invasion – gives a detailed account of the navy’s role in the landings.The orders were issued to Royal Navy officers who were involved in Operation Neptune – the code-name for the initial phase of the D-Day mission....
Source: WaPo
Jun 7, 2013
UNITED NATIONS — A team of experts led by UNESCO said Friday it has found far more serious damage to Mali’s cultural heritage in the fabled city of Timbuktu than initially estimated, with 16 mausoleums totally destroyed and over 4,000 ancient manuscripts lost.Lazare Eloundou Assomo of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center, who led the mission, said a visit to the damaged and destroyed sites on Thursday revealed that the destruction by Islamist rebels who occupied Timbuktu and the rest of the north until early this year “is even more alarming than we thought.”“We discovered that 14 of Timbuktu’s mausoleums, including those that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage sites, were totally destroyed, along with two others at the Djingareyber Mosque,” a famous learning center built in 1327 which also needs to be repaired, he said....
Source: AP
Jun 7, 2013
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Fourteen slaves who petitioned the New Hampshire Legislature for their freedom during the Revolutionary War were granted posthumous emancipation Friday when the governor signed a largely symbolic bill that supporters hope will encourage future generations to pursue social justice.A group of 20 slaves who had fought in the war submitted a petition to the New Hampshire General Assembly on Nov. 12, 1779, while the war was still being fought. They argued that the freedom being sought by colonists should be extended to them, as well, and maintained that “public tyranny and slavery are alike detestable to minds conscious of the equal dignity of human nature.”...
Source: Reuters
Jun 7, 2013
Government surveillance and secret warrants are not new in the United States, particularly in the years since the September 11, 2001, attacks. Following are some key milestones in the history of surveillance in the country:1919 - The U.S. Department of State quietly approves the creation of the Cipher Bureau, also known as the "Black Chamber." The Black Chamber is a precursor to the modern-day National Security Agency. It was the United States' first peacetime federal intelligence agency.1945 - The United States creates Project SHAMROCK, a large-scale spying operation designed to gather all telegraphic data going in and out of the United States. The project, which began without court authorization, is terminated after lawmakers begin investigating it in 1975....
Source: CBC
Jun 6, 2013
A government plan to rename the Canadian Museum of Civilization as the Museum of History abandons a successful brand and gives it a "deeply worrying" new mandate, says the man who led the museum from 2000 to 2011.Former CEO Victor Rabinovitch addressed the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage Wednesday evening, making his first public remarks since the government announced the proposed changes in the fall of 2012.He pointed to reviews in tourism guides about the country's largest national museum, which sees about 1.2 million visitors per year."If the Museum of Civilization stands out as such a good product, why would anyone want to change its brand?" he asked....
Source: CBS
Jun 6, 2013
Thursday is the 69th anniversary of D-Day, when U.S. forces stormed the shores of Normandy during World War II.A project aims to save American military history. They are just a few of the thousands of stories of America's war veterans being preserved by the Library of Congress."'So don't fret and tell pa not to get hysterical. Love Butch,'" said Bob Patrick as he read aloud from a letter.It's called The Veterans History Project, and Patrick is the director."We're not trying to recreate history or rewrite history or disprove history," said Patrick. "Really, what that experience was like for those who go off to war and most importantly at the end, what did it all mean to them."...
Source: Medievalists.net
Jun 6, 2013
Players of chess will know that the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board – it can move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, and is often used to capture the opponent’s pieces. In the Middle Ages this was not the case. When the game was introduced to Europe this piece was known as the fers, named after the vizier or counsellor to the King. It could only move diagonally one square at a time, and the strategy for using this piece was mostly a defensive, trying to protect the King.In his article “How Did the Queen Go Mad?” Mark Taylor of Berry College examines how did the chess queen take on her modern movement. Historians have previously believed that changes to the Queen came about in the last decades of the fifteenth century in Italy and Spain. These changes also affected the Bishop, which could also now had more expanded movement.However, Taylor has found several medieval texts going back to the 12th century that imply the queen/fers was more powerful than previously thought....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 6, 2013
Britain announced compensation for thousands of Mau Mau veterans, saying that it “sincerely regretted” years of “suffering and injustice” carried out under its imperial rule of Kenya, but stopped short of a full apology.The brutal suppression of an independence rebellion led to torture, internment without trial and excessive numbers of executions, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said in a statement to Parliament.He confirmed that more than 5,200 claimants would share compensation from the Government of £13.9 million, but said that the out-of-court settlement did not mean Britain was legally liable for the abuses, although he said the settlement was about a “process of reconciliation.”“I would like to make clear now and for the first time … that we understand the pain and grievance felt by those who were involved,” Mr Hague said....
Source: National Geographic
Jun 5, 2013
A benign bone tumor that afflicts modern-day humans has now been found in one of our ancestors: a Neanderthal more than 120,000 years old.The discovery of a fibrous dysplasia in a Neanderthal rib is the earliest known bone tumor on record, predating other tumors by more than 100,000 years. The rib, recovered from a site in Krapina, Croatia, indicates that Neanderthals were susceptible to the same types of tumors modern-day humans get, despite living in a remarkably different environment."They didn't have pesticides, but they probably were sleeping in caves with burning fires," says David Frayer, an anthropologist at the University of Kansas and the co-author of a new paper about the discovery. "They were probably inhaling a lot of smoke from the caves. So the air was not completely free of pollutants—but certainly, these Neanderthals weren't smoking cigarettes."...
Source: NYT
Jun 5, 2013
In an institution where seniority has long been prized, Representative John D. Dingell Jr. of Michigan is about to set a new standard with 57 years, 5 months and 26 days of House service — a remarkable tenure that spans more than a quarter of the existence of Congress.On Friday, Mr. Dingell, 86, the former Democratic powerhouse who asserted jurisdiction over vast expanses of federal policy as the intimidating chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, will become the longest-serving member of Congress in history with his 20,997th day as a representative, surpassing the record held by Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia. Unlike Mr. Byrd, who rose from poverty in the Appalachian coalfields, Mr. Dingell was, in his own words, “a child of the House.” He made his first appearance on the House floor at the age of 6, when his father was elected in 1933; he went on to become a Congressional page; and after his father died in 1955 he successfully ran for his seat at the age of 29....
Source: NYT
Jun 5, 2013
ARLINGTON, Va. — Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, said her husband was a man who saw a job that needed to be done, and he answered the call, “not just for his people but for all people.”Ms. Evers-Williams and a group of about 300 visitors, including Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and former President Bill Clinton, observed the 50th anniversary of Mr. Evers’s assassination on Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery, where Mr. Evers is buried.Mr. Evers was working as a field secretary for the N.A.A.C.P. when he was gunned down in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Miss., on June 12, 1963, at the age of 37. Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist, was convicted of the murder in 1994, 30 years after two all-white juries deadlocked on earlier charges....
Source: Fox News
Jun 5, 2013
Are they righting a wrong or wronging the Wrights?The Connecticut Senate passed a bill just after midnight on Wednesday that would delete the Wright brothers from history, explicitly stripping recognition for the first powered flight from Orville and Wilbur and assigning it to someone else.“The Governor shall proclaim a date certain in each year as Powered Flight Day to honor the first powered flight by [the Wright brothers] Gustave Whitehead and to commemorate the Connecticut aviation and aerospace industry,” reads House Bill No. 6671, which now sits on the Governor’s desk awaiting passage into law....
Source: WaPo
Jun 5, 2013
PARIS — Pieces of the Iron Curtain’s most iconic symbol, the Berlin Wall, are being put up for auction in Paris after being decorated by some of the world’s top artists.Slabs of the smooth concrete that divided East and West Berlin from 1961 until 1989 totaling 60 meters (66 yards) were given to artists including France’s Daniel Buren and the late Eduardo Chillida of Spain in the 1990s to be used as canvases.The result of their unique work is going under the hammer in central Paris on Thursday, under the title “Artists of Freedom.”...
Source: Der Spiegel
Jun 4, 2013
It used to be easy for foreign archaeology teams to get excavation permits in Turkey. This year, though, dozens of scientists are still waiting for government permission even though the dig season has begun. Some suspect that politics and nationalism are in play.On the surface, the mood is buoyant at the annual archaeology conference in southern Turkey. Eager academics, more than a few of them clad in khaki vests and breathable pants, engage in animated conversation as they network and discuss their pet projects. Outside, a warm sun is shining.But looks are deceiving. For many of those present, the future is filled with uncertainty. The Turkish government in Ankara has still not granted annual permits to many of the excavations that the careers of the scientists present depend on. And there is concern that the reason for the delay has much more to do with the state of Turkey's relations with the West than with the merits of the projects in question....
