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: Fox News
Mar 13, 2013
Were we wrong about the Wright Brothers?That's the shocking claim by Australian aviation historian John Brown, who told FoxNews.com he has photographic proof that German immigrant Gustav Whitehead flew over Connecticut in 1901 -- Orville and Wilbur were second.“Two years, four months, and three days before the Wright brothers, somebody else flew first,” Brown said via phone from Germany. "It’s really a radical revision of the history of aviation."Even “Jane’s: All the World’s Aircraft” -- widely considered the essential bible of flight -- has acknowledged Whitehead's achievement and Brown's research. With the headline "justice delayed is justice denied," editor-in-chief Paul Jackson wrote about the early aviator's story for the overview to the newly released 100th edition of the reference guide, published online on Saturday....
Source: Yahoo News
Mar 13, 2013
A newly deciphered Egyptian text, dating back almost 1,200 years, tells part of the crucifixion story of Jesus with apocryphal plot twists, some of which have never been seen before.Written in the Coptic language, the ancient text tells of Pontius Pilate, the judge who authorized Jesus' crucifixion, having dinner with Jesus before his crucifixion and offering to sacrifice his own son in the place of Jesus. It also explains why Judas used a kiss, specifically, to betray Jesus — because Jesus had the ability to change shape, according to the text — and it puts the day of the arrest of Jesus on Tuesday evening rather than Thursday evening, something that contravenes the Easter timeline.
Source: David Austin Walsh for HNN
Mar 13, 2013
David Austin Walsh is the editor of the History News Network.Pope Francis in Rome on March 13, 2013. Credit: Mazur/catholicnews.org.ukUPDATE: In an email to HNN, James P. Brennan, a professor of history at the University of California, Riverside who is currently working on on a research project about the "Dirty War," cautioned against rushing to judgments about the new pope's record with the military junta. "[Journalist Horacio Verbitsky] is the sole source of [the] accusation [about concealing prisoners from human rights officials], which has yet to be verified by other credible sources such as human rights organizations in Argentina."
Source: FoxNews
Mar 13, 2013
Scientists from Illinois have found a rare, 600-year-old Chinese coin on the Kenyan island of Manda.The Field Museum in Chicago announced the find Wednesday. The joint expedition was led by Chapurukha Kusimba of the museum and Sloan Williams of the University of Illinois-Chicago. Researchers say the coin proves trade existed between China and eastern Africa decades before European explorers set sail....
Source: LiveScience
Mar 13, 2013
Neanderthals' keen vision may explain why they couldn't cope with environmental change and died out, despite having the same sized brains as modern humans, new research suggests.The findings, published today (March 12) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that Neanderthals developed massive visual regions in their brains to compensate for Europe's low light levels. That, however, reduced the brain space available for social cognition."We have a social brain, whereas Neanderthals appear to have a visual brain," said Clive Gamble, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton, who was not involved in the study....
Source: Scientific American
Mar 13, 2013
The last time I visited Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts was in 2004 to see a Rembrandt exhibition. But I might have wandered away from the works of the Dutch master in search of an ancient Greek artifact, had I known at the time that the object in question, a wine vessel, was in the museum’s collection. According to the 2012 Christmas issue of the BMJ (preacronymically known as the British Medical Journal), the 2,500-year-old cup, created by one of the anonymous artisans who helped to shape Western culture, is adorned with the image of a man wiping his butt.That revelation appears in an article entitled “Toilet Hygiene in the Classical Era,” by French anthropologist and forensic medicine researcher Philippe Charlier and his colleagues. Their report examines tidying techniques used way back—and the resultant medical issues. Such a study is in keeping with the BMJ‘s tradition of offbeat subject matter for its late December issue—as noted in this space five years ago: “Had the Puritans never left Britain for New England, they might later have fled the British Medical Journal to found the New England Journal of Medicine.”
Source: Archaeology News Network
Mar 12, 2013
A restored Roman cockerel figurine is the best result from a Cirencester dig in decades, archaeologists have said.The enamelled object, which dates back as far as AD100, was unearthed during a dig in 2011 at a Roman burial site in the town.It has now returned from conservation work and finders Cotswold Archaeology said it "looks absolutely fantastic".The 12.5cm bronze figure was discovered inside a child's grave and is thought to have been a message to the gods....
Source: Archaeology News Network
Mar 12, 2013
It had the potential to be another Afghanistan Buddha disaster, recalling the Taliban’s destruction of two ancient statues that had stood for centuries in this country’s west: A buried Buddhist city lost to time was about to be obliterated by what promised to be one of the largest copper mines in the world.Now, however, thanks to delays in construction of the massive mine and a hefty influx of cash from the World Bank, the 1.5-square-mile Mes Aynak complex is an archaeological triumph – though bittersweet.An international team of archaeologists and more than 550 local laborers are now frantically excavating what turns out to be a unique window into Afghanistan’s role on the ancient Silk Road connecting China and India with the Mediterranean.With its Buddhist city, a ring of perhaps a half-dozen monasteries and a striking complex of workshops and mine shafts built into a high mountain ridgeline at an altitude of 8,200 feet, the site shows the interplay of Buddhism, mining and trade during the years it was in operation, now thought to be from the fifth to the late eighth centuries....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Mar 12, 2013
Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, the last surviving participant in the main plot to kill Adolf Hitler, has died aged 90.Von Kleist, who once volunteered to wear a suicide vest to assassinate the Nazi dictator, died at his home in Munich on Friday, said his wife, Gundula.Von Kleist was born on 10 July 1922, on his family estate Schmenzin in Pomerania, in an area of north-eastern Germany that is now part of Poland.The Von Kleist family was a long line of Prussian landowners, who had served the state for centuries in high-ranking military and administrative positions....
Source: WaPo
Mar 12, 2013
WARSAW, Poland — A Jewish history museum in Warsaw has unveiled a reconstructed synagogue roof with an elaborately painted ceiling modeled on a 17th-century structure, presenting the first object that will go on permanent display in the highly awaited museum.The wooden roof and ceiling will be a key attraction in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is due to open next year in the heart of the city’s former Jewish quarter. Reporters in Warsaw were invited to view it Tuesday.The museum will tell the story of Jewish life in Poland, a complex history spanning 1,000 years, but one that has been forgotten today by many people and which is often overshadowed by the Holocaust....
Source: Religion News Service
Mar 12, 2013
Once the new pope is elected, he will have two big initial decisions to make: whether to accept the job, and what his new papal name will be.Gregory? Leo? Benedict? No one knows what the next pope will pick. But choosing a new moniker is a decision that’s tied up in history, tradition and more than a little symbolic value.In papal tradition, newly elected pontiffs choose a name to identify themselves during their reigns. The tradition has been around for centuries, even though no law or rule requires that a pope pick a new name.Chester Gillis, a professor of theology at Georgetown University, said that the pope’s choice of name offers an early indicator of what his papacy might be like....
Source: Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Mar 11, 2013
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and nearly 400 gathered in Dorchester County on Saturday March, 9 to break ground on the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park. The new park, just south of Cambridge, will be the trail head for the Harriet Tubman Byway and will include a 15,000-square foot Visitor Center, exhibit hall and theater, memorial garden, trails and a picnic pavilion.Commemoration — marking the 100th anniversary of the freedom fighter’s death — also featured the official ribbon cutting for the Byway....
Source: WaPo
Mar 11, 2013
Heart disease is often thought to be a malady of the modern era, the product of lifestyles heavy on eating and light on exercise.That includes conditions like atherosclerosis, when fat and cholesterol build-up along artery walls, making it difficult for blood to pass through the body to the heart and limbs.New research, presented Sunday night at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology, suggests the exact opposite: That heart disease is a malady with a history that stretches back over 4,000 years. How, exactly, did they figure this out? By putting mummies through CT scan machines, of course....
Source: Israel National News
Mar 10, 2013
Forty percent of Austrians believe things were not all bad under Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, according to a poll released Friday by the Market Institute for the Der Standard newspaper. Researchers sampled 502 subjects throughout the country, of varying ages.They found a rise in the number of respondents – 61 percent this time around, mostly elderly Austrians – who favored the idea of a “strong leader who does not have to worry about a parliament or elections” as a leader. The statistic was three times higher than that seen in 2008, 20 percent at the time, the paper reported.Of those surveyed, 42 percent said “not everything was bad under Hitler,” while 57 percent said they saw “no good aspects” to the Nazi era....
Source: The Daily Beast
Mar 10, 2013
It’s most likely that Menachem Bodner last saw his identical twin in 1945, in Dr. Josef Mengele’s gruesome Auschwitz laboratory. He was 4 then and doesn’t remember his time in the notorious death camp. But in the 68 years that have followed, Bodner says he’s “always” been certain he was one of a pair. He just didn’t have any proof until this past year. Now, he’s searching for Jeno, a man who probably looks just like him, and who has a distinctive “A-7734” tattoo on his forearm. And 1 million Facebook users are helping him look.
Source: Xinhuanet
Mar 10, 2013
Archaeologists in northwest China's Shaanxi Province said Sunday that one piece of thigh armor and two pieces of upper-body armor dating back 3,000 years may be the oldest pieces of bronze armor ever unearthed in China.The announcement was made after experts studied the artifacts retrieved from the tomb of a nobleman from the West Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC - 771 BC) in Shigushan Mountain of Baoji City.Liu Junshe, head of the excavation team, said the discovery filled in a blank in China's early military history, as excavations of pieces of armor forged during or prior to the Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 206 BC) have been rare....
Source: BBC News
Mar 9, 2013
The birth towns of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler are divided on the issue of how to deal with the legacy of the dictators who slaughtered millions.In some ways it would be hard to imagine two more different places than Gori in Georgia and Braunau am Inn in Austria.Gori, with its crumbling Soviet-era apartment blocks, is set in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains.You can still see scars from the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia, when Russian troops entered the town.It is poor. Even in winter, pensioners try to earn a few pennies, helping cars to park.Braunau, by contrast, is a comfortable little Austrian town, with a beautifully preserved medieval centre.Cross the bridge over the Inn river, close to the main square, and you find yourself in Germany, in Bavaria - one of the wealthiest parts of Europe....
Source: PastHorizons
Mar 9, 2013
Centuries before the first massive sarsen stone was hauled into place at Stonehenge, the world’s most famous prehistoric monument may have begun life as a giant burial ground, according to a theory disclosed on Saturday.
More than 50,000 cremated bone fragments, of 63 individuals buried at Stonehenge, have been excavated and studied for the first time by a team led by archaeologist Professor Mike Parker Pearson, who has been working at the site and on nearby monuments for decades. He now believes the earliest burials long predate the monument in its current form....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 9, 2013
Stonehenge may have been the result of the world's first team-building exercise which unified the people of ancient Britain, according to researchers.The vast stone structure has long been the subject of the debate among historians, who have variously described it as a pagan temple, or an astronomical calendar or observatory.Now experts claim the monument was built as part of an annual winter solstice ritual which resembled "Glastonbury festival and a motorway building scheme at the same time".Researchers from University College London said as many as 4,000 people may have gathered at the site each year, at a time when the entire population numbered only tens of thousands....
Source: WaPo
Mar 8, 2013
Before Erica Hubbard could portray an enslaved housekeeper, which she’ll do this weekend at Colonial Williamsburg, she had to learn some things about life in revolutionary times — including how slaves interacted with their masters circa 1776.These lessons are so painful that some African American actors simply can’t bear to learn them. Even as Colonial Williamsburg and other historic sites have tried to do justice to the story of slavery and attract more minority visitors, they’ve sometimes had difficulty persuading black actors to take jobs interpreting enslaved figures.It was easy to see why as Hubbard was being schooled on slavery in 18th-century Virginia one recent Sunday by two men from Colonial Williamsburg’s theatrical division....
