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: AP
Dec 29, 2012
As New Year's Day approached 150 years ago, all eyes were on President Abraham Lincoln in expectation of what he warned 100 days earlier would be coming - his final proclamation declaring all slaves in states rebelling against the Union to be "forever free."A tradition began Dec. 31, 1862, as many black churches held Watch Night services, awaiting word that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation would take effect amid a bloody Civil War. Later, congregations listened as the president's historic words were read aloud.The proclamation would not end slavery outright and at the time couldn't be enforced by Lincoln in areas under Confederate control. But the president made clear from that day forward that his forces would be fighting to bring the Union back together without the institution of slavery... This year, the Watch Night tradition will follow the historic document to its home at the National Archives with a special midnight display planned with readings, songs and bell ringing among the nation's founding documents.
Source: Special to HNN
Dec 29, 2012
According to documents released under the 30-year rule, U.S. President Ronald Reagan delayed accepting formal invitations to visit the UK.The two-month delay in responding to invites from both Margaret Thatcher and the Queen risked creating, said Britain's Ambassador to Washington Sir Nicholas Henderson, the "worst possible impression on London." The White House was determined to make a good impression, though, and asked what the Commander-in-Chief should wear to go horse riding at Windsor Castle. The aforementioned fashion inquiry is but one gem within a 485-page treasure-trove of hitherto confidential documents surrounding Reagan's 48-hour, 1982 visit made public by the National Archives.
Source: AP
Dec 28, 2012
FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.But the records, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962...
Source: Special to HNN
Dec 28, 2012
A memorial to a war hero whose exploits helped shorten WWII has just been unveiled.
Captain Albert Laver, from Birkenhead, was one of the Second World War "Cockleshell Heroes" whose audacious raid on German ships is now commemorated with a plaque at Woodside waterfront, in Wirral, across the River Mersey from Liverpool.
Laver was part of a 10-man Royal Navy team and is believed to have either drowned or been executed after successfully sinking a number of enemy merchant ships.
Operation Frankton involved commandoes canoeing 70 miles up the Gironde estuary, paddling by night and hiding by day until they reached the Nazi-occupied harbour of Bordeaux, some 60 miles from the sea.
Source: Daily Mail
Dec 28, 2012
There was ... trouble with the 'special relationship' during the Falklands when the US threatened to tell Argentina that UK troops were landing on South Georgia.Newly declassified files reveal that Britain's historic allies wanted to tell Argentina that the task force was planning to retake South Georgia, the first of the islands to be invaded by Argentina, on April 21. The operation on South Georgia was the first stage of the campaign to retake the Falklands and it would have been disastrous had Argentina been forewarned.
Source: AP
Dec 28, 2012
The case of an 87-year-old Philadelphia man accused by Germany of serving as an SS guard at Auschwitz has largely centered on whether he was stationed at the part of the death camp used as a killing machine for Jews. Johann "Hans" Breyer — while admitting he was an Auschwitz guard — insists he was never there. World-War II-era documents obtained by The Associated Press indicate otherwise.
Source: Telegraph
Dec 28, 2012
The Queen was asked to intervene to stop the dean of St Paul's Cathedral from including a Spanish translation of the Lord's Prayer during the Falklands memorial service, according to official records.
Source: Guardian
Dec 28, 2012
Margaret Thatcher repeatedly agonised over Gibraltar's vulnerability to attack from the Spain during the 1982 Falkland's conflict, newly released cabinet papers reveal. "I understand that the prime minister has expressed concern about the implications of the Falklands Islands crisis for Gibraltar," one of her private secretaries recorded in papers released to the National Archives under the 20 year rule, adding: "particularly in the light of reports of the jubilant reaction in the Spanish press." A British military review of Gibraltar's position gave "a rather more reassuring picture", he remarked, adding: "We have no reason to believe that there is an increased military threat to Gibraltar from the Spanish government.
Source: Daily Mail
Dec 28, 2012
The Soviet Union used civil airliners to conduct secret Cold War spying missions over Britain, according to newly published Government files.
Some aircraft would switch off their transponders, alerting air traffic controllers to their position before veering off their approved flight paths to carry out aerial intelligence-gathering missions over sensitive targets, papers released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule show.
In a memorandum marked Secret for UK US Eyes Only, Defence Secretary John Nott informed prime minister Margaret Thatcher in December 1981 that the RAF was monitoring the hundreds of monthly flights through UK airspace by Warsaw Pact airliners.
Source: Yahoo
Dec 28, 2012
FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning acquaintances who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage. But the files, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the file show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide. Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.
Source: Special to HNN
Dec 28, 2012
The Museum of Liverpool has been awarded the European Museum Prize for 2013 by the Council of Europe.The human rights watchdog said that the museum traced the history of one of the most socially diverse cities in the UK and encourages local community members and faraway visitors alike to live together in dignity by promoting mutual respect between different ethnicities.The £72m museum, which is part of the National Museums Liverpool and built on a Unesco World Heirtage Site, will receive a bronze statuette by Joan Miro and will be on display for one year.The Council of Europe Museum Prize has been awarded annually since 1977 to a museum adjudged to have made an outstanding cultural contribution.
Source: Special to HNN
Dec 28, 2012
The 70th Anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic will be commemorated next year with a series of events in London and Londonderry.
The final national commemoration, however, will be hosted by the city of Liverpool over the bank holiday weekend of May 24-27, 2013.
Around 5,000 veterans are expected to attend the parade led by the Band of the Royal Marines and HMS Eaglet guards after a thanksgiving service at the Anglican Cathedral.
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in the Second World War and the port of Liverpool played a pivot role directing the battle's strategy from the Western Approaches HQ.
Source: Special to HNN
Dec 28, 2012
The BBC's Letter from America archive has recently been replenished after a British enthusiast answered the Corporation's plea for recordings of Alistair Cooke's "Letters."David Henderson provided an astonishing 620 "missing" episodes and follows in the footsteps of Roy Whittaker, another Cooke enthusiast, who supplied 470 on cassettes in November.The 920-programme online archive covers some of the seminal events in post-war American history up until Cooke's death in 2004 and went live earlier this year.Broadcast on Radio 4 between 1946 and 2004, it was one of the world's longest-running speech radio programmes with 2,869 "Letters" recorded.
Source: Huff Post
Dec 27, 2012
On Wednesday, archeologists revealed the remains of an ancient arts center underneath Rome dating back to 123 AD, according to the Guardian. Emperor Hadrian is believed to have funded "the Athenaeum," as it was known at the time; it was a 900-seat complex created to promote arts and culture, CBS News reports. Archeologists discovered the arts center during excavations for a new subway line to run through the Italian capital. "Hadrian's auditorium is the biggest find in Rome since the Forum was uncovered in the 1920s," said Rossella Rea, an archeologist working on the project.
Source: Yahoo News
Dec 27, 2012
While on his death bed, the brilliant Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan cryptically wrote down functions he said came to him in dreams, with a hunch about how they behaved. Now 100 years later, researchers say they've proved he was right. "We've solved the problems from his last mysterious letters. For people who work in this area of math, the problem has been open for 90 years," Emory University mathematician Ken Ono said. Ramanujan, a self-taught mathematician born in a rural village in South India, spent so much time thinking about math that he flunked out of college in India twice, Ono said.
Source: Yahoo News
Dec 27, 2012
Israeli archeologists have discovered the remains of an ancient temple that is nearly 3,000 years old and was once home to a ritual cult. "The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judaea at the time of the First Temple," excavation directors Anna Eirikh, Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz said in a statement released by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The temple remains were discovered at the Tel Motza site, located to the west of Jerusalem. The Israeli Antiquities Authority has been conducting excavation efforts at the site and says that along with the temple remains itself, the findings include a “cache of sacred vessels” estimated to be 2,750 years old.
Source: Special to HNN
Dec 27, 2012
A new effort is currently underway to answer some of the outstanding questions surrounding the world's worst-ever chemical attack on civilians at Halabja.Returning to the Kurdish town 25 years on from the 1988 attack, the BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson interviewed those in search of identifying the original chemicals for the mustard gas used and the European companies suspected of supplying Saddam Hussein's Iraq.The mastermind behind the operation, Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, previously known as "Chemical Ali," was tried and executed in 2010.
Source: Tennessean
Dec 26, 2012
The Civil War Trust has finalized purchase of a shopping strip center in Franklin that will help eventually to restore the land to its Civil War battlefield appearance. A Washington, D.C.-based charitable organization whose focus it is to preserve American battlefields, the Civil War Trust was able to complete the sale last week through a partnership with Franklin’s Charge and generous donations, according to a press release issued Monday. The trust purchased what’s been called the “Domino’s” strip on Columbia Avenue for $1.85 million from local businessmen Donnie and Tim Cameron. The site was also the location of the Carter House’s cotton gin. Potential plans for the location include rebuilding the cotton gin.
Source: Jon Wiener at The Nation website
Dec 26, 2012
December 26, 1862: thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hung in Mankato, Minnesota, in the largest mass execution in US history–on orders of President Abraham Lincoln. Their crime: killing 490 white settlers, including women and children, in the Santee Sioux uprising the previous August. The execution took place on a giant square scaffold in the center of town, in front of an audience of hundreds of white people. The thirty-eight Dakota men “wailed and danced atop the gallows,” according to Robert K. Elder of the New York Times, “waiting for the trapdoors to drop beneath them.” A witness reported that, “as the last moment rapidly approached, they each called out their name and shouted in their native language: ‘I’m here! I’m here!’” Lincoln’s treatment of defeated Indian rebels against the US stood in sharp contrast to his treatment of Confederate rebels. He never ordered the executions of any Confederate officials or generals after the Civil War, even though they killed more than 400,000 Union soldiers. The only Confederate executed was the commander of Andersonville Prison—and for what we would call war crimes, not rebellion....
Source: WSJ
Dec 25, 2012
DALLAS—Officials in the city where President John F. Kennedy was gunned down Nov. 22, 1963, want to observe the 50th anniversary of that day with a celebration of his life.The city plans a ceremony that would include readings from Kennedy speeches by historian David McCullough and military jets flying over Dealey Plaza, where the 35th president was shot. But some who believe the assassination was a conspiracy involving high-ranking U.S. officials say their views shouldn't be excluded from the commemoration. "It's absurd to move the discussion of his death to another moment," said John Judge, executive director of the Coalition on Political Assassinations, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that studies 1960s murders of public figures. "Our First Amendment rights are being violated."
