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: NYT
Feb 21, 2013
In the year’s most haunting image of black Civil War soldiers, the opening battlefield sequence in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” Confederate forces massacre many fallen former slaves.In reality, African-American prisoners of war were killed en masse. Black troops in action endured lower wages and poorer medical care and living conditions than their white counterparts. But soldiers of both races did have surprisingly easy access to the luxury of photography.Photographers ran government-sanctioned booths near encampments, selling souvenir portraits. The images of black personnel, from officers to gravediggers, are now on view widely in 150th-anniversary commemorations of the Emancipation Proclamation. They provide a nuanced view of African-American life at the front, even though some of the subjects can no longer be identified....
Source: FoxNews
Feb 21, 2013
A plea for help penned in 1836 by the commander of the besieged rebel Texas forces at the Alamo, in which he vowed "Victory or Death," returns to old Spanish mission for the first time Friday.
William Barret Travis' famous letter to "the People of Texas and All Americans in the World," will get a police escort from the state archive in Austin to the Alamo, which is now in the heart of downtown San Antonio. The weathered, single-page letter will go on display for two weeks, starting this weekend, and will be kept in a special display cabinet and given round-the-clock guards....
Source: SciNews
Feb 20, 2013
Spoke-like dirt paths extend as far as five kilometers from several ancient Mesopotamian cities that have been excavated in what’s now northeastern Syria. Although often regarded as transportation features unique to these more than 5,000-year-old sites, new evidence reveals similar radial paths in western Syria and southwestern Iran that date to as recently as 1,200 years ago....
Source: TheNews
Feb 20, 2013
Polish archaeologists working in Sudan have found remains of human settlements that appear to date back as far as 70,000 years.
If confirmed, the discovery in the Affad Basin of northern Sudan will challenge existing theories that our distant ancestors only began building permanent residences on leaving Africa and settling in Europe and Asia....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 20, 2013
David Cameron has been criticised for failing to meet the families of Indians killed by British troops as he tried to make amends for a "deeply shameful" Imperial massacre.The Prime Minister invoked Sir Winston Churchill as he lamented the "monstrous" killings in Amritsar in 1919.Mr Cameron flew to Amritsar at the end of a trade visit to Delhi and made a public show of British contrition over the massacre, which left at least 379 Sikh civilians dead.The Prime Minister visited a memorial in the Jallianwala Bagh gardens, laying a wreath and writing in a book of remembrance....
Source: CBS News
Feb 20, 2013
Cameras and microphones are virtually everywhere these days, and it seems just about everything that happens is preserved forever on the internet.Of course, it wasn't always that way. The Library of Congress has just reported that 80 percent of motion pictures filmed before 1930 -- and countless audio recordings from that era -- are gone. But the library has a plan to stop this bleeding of priceless history.A 1936 Louis Armstrong recording is an artifact nearly lost to time. It's a nickel-plated disc widely used to record sound in the first half of the 20th century.
Source: PopuArch
Feb 20, 2013
Its remains rest almost unnoticeable near the small village of Rakhigarhi in northwest India. On the surface, its most visible features consist of well-ordered mounds of cow dung cakes, nature's fertilizer for the present-day local villagers' farming operations. Ox carts routinely transport their agricultural supplies over its ancient mounds and into the fields every day. Below the surface, however, lay an expansive network of ruins and artifacts that would betray an ancient city that would rival, and likely exceed, the enormity of the Indus Valley civilization's best known archaeological site, Mohenjo-Daro. At 224 hectares, it is the largest known Harrapan (Indus Civilization) site in India....
Source: PopuArch
Feb 20, 2013
Aleppo's medieval covered market has already been gutted by fires which also ripped through the city's Umayyad mosque. Illegal excavations have threatened tombs in the desert town of Palmyra and the Bronze Age settlement of Ebla, and Interpol is hunting a 2,700-year-old statue taken from the city of Hama.
In a country which also boasts stunning Crusader castles, Roman ruins and a history stretching back through the great empires of the Middle East to the dawn of human civilisation, the task of safeguarding that heritage from modern conflict is a daunting responsibility....
Source: Washington Examiner
Feb 19, 2013
DUBLIN (AP) — Ireland ignored the mistreatment of thousands of women who were incarcerated within Catholic nun-operated laundries and must pay the survivors compensation, Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Tuesday in an emotional state apology for the decades of abuses in the so-called Magdalene Laundries."By any standards it was a cruel, pitiless Ireland, distinctly lacking in a quality of mercy," Kenny said, as dozens of former Magdalenes watched tearfully from parliament's public gallery overhead.Kenny told lawmakers his government has appointed a senior judge to recommend an aid program for the approximately 1,000 women still living from the residential workhouses, the last of which closed in 1996. He also pledged government funding for the erection of a national memorial "to remind us all of this dark part of our history."...
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 19, 2013
Some 18 crates of gold and platinum may lie buried under the bed of the Stolpsee, a 988-acre stretch of water to the north of the German capital.Yaron Svoray, who has the backing of German authorities, will use the latest sonar and radar equipment to try and locate the gold, which, the story goes, was dropped into the lake under the orders of Hermann Goering as the Red Army made its final push for Berlin in March, 1945.One eyewitness, Eckhard Litz, told a post-war commission that he saw around 30 concentration camp prisoners unloading heavy crates from lorries parked by the Stolpsee. The boxes were then ferried into the middle of the lake, and thrown into its waters ....
Source: KTAR (AZ)
Feb 19, 2013
PHOENIX -- The buildings stretch from 11th Avenue to 52nd Street and include five homes and one church all designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and all are part of a new plan by the Phoenix Historic Preservation Commission.The proposed plan, which would cost $1.2 million, was created after a home Wright designed for his son in the Arcadia area narrowly escaped demolition. A developer bought the land and planned to tear down the 2,500 square foot concrete house and build two new houses in its place....
Source: Guardian
Feb 19, 2013
Finding Richard III (on the premises of Leicester social services no less) is testament to the ingenuity of archaeologists. Weaving together findings from historical analysis of texts with scientific analysis of the skeleton and the site, they have made an overwhelming case that these are the remains of the king....
Source: CBS News
Feb 19, 2013
It's the original Iwo Jima monument. It was inspired by combat photographer Joe Rosenthal's picture of five marines and a sailor raising the American flag during a battle that cost 6,000 U.S. lives. Sculptor Felix de Weldon was so moved he used his own money to create it, finishing the 12-foot statue six months after the battle. The monument was displayed in front of the Federal Reserve building in Washington during the late 40's. But then the government asked de Weldon to build a 32-foot-tall version -- the Marine Corps War Memorial -- which sits just outside of Arlington National Cemetery. The smaller one was forgotten ....
Source: ArtDaily
Feb 19, 2013
In a pharmaceutical company’s premises, located in the municipal district of Miguel Hidalgo of Mexico City, specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH-Conaculta) recovered two burials that are over 500 years old, as well as other ceramic remains. Given the possibility that there could be more pre Hispanic element findings in the area, INAH elaborated an archaeological salvage project that will take place in said area....
Source: ArchNews
Feb 19, 2013
Back in 1995, a hoard of 400 Roman coins was discovered west of Didcot in Oxfordshire (England), indicating the land had been lived on for centuries. When archaeologists began digging the fields in 2010 they knew it was a site of historical interest, but even they were surprised by the wealth of finds their trowels unveiled, proving that people have been living in Didcot for about 9,000 years....
Source: Huffington Post
Feb 18, 2013
Mississippi lawmakers have officially ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which banned slavery in 1865.One hundred forty-eight years after three-fourths of the states voted to approve the amendment, Mississippi's legislature finally took steps to fix the glaring oversight last month. According to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, the decision was inspired by the Oscar-nominated film "Lincoln," which depicts the 16th president's efforts to enact the amendment.
Source: PastHorizons Blogger
Feb 18, 2013
In the course of my research of Viking Age woodcraft, I somewhat unexpectedly turned up information about a most delightful archaeological find: an entire hoard of children’s toys, found at Market Harborough parish church, England. A charming stash of the everyday playthings of sixteenth or seventeenth century children, the hoard throws a rare spotlight on the material culture of children in the archaeological record....
Source: Novinite
Feb 18, 2013
A Bulgarian team of archaeologists have discovered well-preserved remains of a Roman bath in the ancient Bulgarian town of Sozopol.
The news was revealed by National Museum of History director Bozhidar Dimitrov.
"The team, led by Sozopol Archaeology Museum director Dimitar Nedev has made the discovery as part of its digs in the area in front of Sozopol's fortress walls," said the historian....
Source: NYT
Feb 17, 2013
VATICAN CITY — What will he be called? Will he keep his white robes and trademark red loafers? And in the last absolute monarchy in the West, how does the dramatic resignation of Benedict XVI, the first pope to step down willingly in six centuries, change a role long considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be that of God’s representative on Earth?In transforming an office with an aura of divinity into something far more human, Benedict’s decision has sent shock waves through the Vatican hierarchy, who next month will elect his successor. But it has also puzzled the faithful and scholars, who wonder how a pope can be infallible one day and fallible again the next — and whether that might undermine the authority of church teaching....
Source: SciDaily
Feb 17, 2013
DNA preserved in calcified bacteria on the teeth of ancient human skeletons has shed light on the health consequences of the evolving diet and behaviour from the Stone Age to the modern day.The ancient genetic record reveals the negative changes in oral bacteria brought about by the dietary shifts as humans became farmers, and later with the introduction of food manufacturing in the Industrial Revolution....
