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: Civil War News
Apr 12, 2012
PARKERS CROSSROADS, Tenn. — The last major purchase of ground at Parker’s Crossroads Battlefield has been completed. In another development, unmarked graves may have been discovered on park land.According to park historian Steve McDaniel, one of the driving forces in creating the park, a half acre and two buildings formerly housing a car repair and tire sales lot, and located next to the exit ramp of Interstate 40, were acquired in December. One of the buildings will be torn down and the other may possibly be used as a storage and meeting facility, said McDaniel. They have long been considered somewhat of an eyesore given the rest of the pristine park view south.“We have talked with the owner for years and fortunately one day he offered it to us at a price we couldn’t pass up,” McDaniel said. Most of the critical ground for interpretation has now been purchased and anything else acquired “would likely be through conservation easements,” he said....
Source: Civil War News
Apr 12, 2012
RICHMOND, Va. – The U.S. National Slavery Museum former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder hoped to open in Fredericksburg, Va., filed a reorganization plan in federal bankruptcy court on Feb. 17. The plan proposes a way for the museum to resume operations and pay off its debts of over $7 million.The museum filed for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors last September following 10 years of controversy, strained relations with the city, shaky finances and a penchant for secrecy (see November 2011 CWN).A hearing on the disclosure statement about the museum’s assets and debts has been set for April 11. At a subsequent hearing the reorganization plan will be discussed and at that or a follow-up hearing, the creditors will vote whether to accept the museum’s proposed reorganization plan....
Source: WaPo
Apr 12, 2012
Clara Barton’s post-Civil War office, where the battlefield nurse had helped families find missing soldiers, may finally get the care and respect it deserves.The top floor of an old brick commercial building in downtown Washington was Barton’s apartment and office where she collected donated medical supplies for the battlefield and later ran the Missing Soldiers Office. She closed the office in 1867, storing files and personal clothing in the crude attic above her rooms. She never came back for them, and they stayed in their hidden storage space until 1996, when a federal government carpenter discovered the cache while preparing the building for demolition.The discovery saved the building but little else had happened until today when officials of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine of Frederick, Md. announced they had signed an agreement with the building’s owner, the General Services Administration, to open the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum in that third floor space....
Source: NYT
Apr 12, 2012
The blossoming cherry trees around the Tidal Basin in Washington, a gift of friendship from Japan in 1912, attract millions of ogling, photo-snapping visitors each spring. For their 100th anniversary, the fluffy pink blooms are receiving more attention than ever, featuring celebrations organized by the Japanese Embassy across this country and a special-issue 45-cent stamp.Far less celebrated, and largely forgotten, are the cherry trees — 2,500 of them, nearly as many as were sent to Washington — that Japan gave New York City a century ago.While Washington’s cherries were planted in one area, probably a wise marketing decision, New York spread its out across Upper Manhattan, in several areas of Central Park, Riverside Park and an annex to Riverside east of Riverside Drive and Grant’s Tomb that was renamed Sakura Park. Sakura is Japanese for cherry tree....
Source: NYT
Apr 12, 2012
ISTANBUL — A former general and 30 other officers were detained Thursday for their roles in a 1997 coup, continuing the clash between the government and the nation’s once-indomitable military.Long considered the untouchable guardian of a staunchly secular state, the Turkish military has lost its immunity since the pro-Islamic government took power and paved the way for a series of cases against current and retired officers.Hundreds of people — from the former head of the army and other officers to academics and journalists — have been arrested and accused of plotting to overthrow the current government through an ultranationalist network known as Ergenekon.Many critics of the arrests have called it a pretext for a clampdown against government opponents, pointing out that actual coups remained unpunished while a broad spectrum of suspects in an alleged plot were being rounded up....
Source: WaPo
Apr 12, 2012
...President Obama cited two specific Reagan speeches — one (June 28, 1985) in which Reagan quoted from a letter he had received from a wealthy executive and another (June 6, 1985) in which he said it was “crazy” for some multimillionaires to pay zero in taxes.Why did Reagan give those speeches? Contrary to Obama’s suggestion that he was specifically arguing for a new tax provision aimed at the superwealthy, Reagan was barnstorming the country in an effort to reduce taxes for all Americans, mainly by cutting rates, simplifying the tax system and eliminating tax shelters that allowed some people to avoid paying any taxes at all.In other words, Reagan was pushing for a tax cut for everyone, not just an increase on a few. (The highest tax bracket at the time was 50 percent.) He even wanted to cut the tax rate on capital gains from 20 percent to 17.5 percent....
Source: NYT
Apr 12, 2012
The N.F.L.’s last bounty scandal of note did not provoke outrage or condemnation. It did not result in fines or suspensions. The accused perpetrators showed no remorse. The only person to receive any penalty was the victim.Mostly, the incident was played for laughs.There had been bad blood between Buddy Ryan’s Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys since 1987, when the Cowboys sent their stars onto the field against Philadelphia’s overmatched replacement players during the strike. The feud intensified in 1989 when Ryan released kicker Luis Zendejas after a string of poor games, and Zendejas criticized Ryan before signing with Dallas....
Source: The News-Press
Apr 12, 2012
A handful of mud and wood has given new insight into an ancient 4,150-foot canoe canal that once connected the Gulf of Mexico to Naples Bay.Now, archaeologists want to excavate part of the canal, which has been filled in since the 1920s, on property owned by the city of Naples, Bob Carr, executive director of the Archaeological & Historical Conservancy in Davie, said Wednesday.“We hope to look carefully at the canal,” Carr said. “We have big ideas, possibly opening an area where tourists can see the excavation and having a marked Naples Canal trail. This would be good for tourism and science.”...
Source: WaPo
Apr 12, 2012
ROME — One of Italy’s top culture officials has pushed private investment in the country’s museums and galleries and the seemingly insatiable Chinese and Indian appetites for art and archaeology as the way to pull the country out of its recession.Mario Resca, a former CEO of McDonald’s Italian operations who was appointed in 2008 by the government of Silvio Berlusconi to be director-general of the Culture Ministry, said that an increase in ticket sales to Italian museums has not been matched by an increase in state finding.Chatting with a small group of foreign correspondents in Rome, Resca said the number of visitors to state museums and archaeological sites increased by some 15 percent from 2009 to 2010 and by about 7 percent from 2010 to 2011.But budgets and investment have not risen with visitor numbers. Resca acknowledges that the budget shortfall isn’t about to be reversed, thanks to the latest round of austerity cuts ordered by Berlusconi’s successor, Premier Mario Monti....
Source: Discovery News
Apr 12, 2012
On April 12, 1961, the world met Yuri Gagarin, a former Soviet Air Force pilot who shot from obscurity to international fame after making one full orbit around the Earth in his Vostok 1 spacecraft.But the mission records the Soviet Union submitted to international authorities to secure Gagarin's place as the first man in space present a very different mission. Specifically, his landing was deliberately falsified. During the year, lies about the Vostok landing system called into question whether or not Vostok 1 deserved its place as history's first spaceflight at all....The Soviet Union statement presented to the FAI stated that the cosmonaut had landed inside Vostok 1 as per the organization's guidelines on spaceflight. Signed by the sports commissar of the USSR, the document asserts that "at 10:55 a.m. Moscow time on the 12th of April 1961 ... the pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Alexeyvich Gagarin landed with the 'Vostok' spaceship."He hadn't. He couldn't have even if he'd wanted to....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Apr 11, 2012
Martin Luther King was shot dead because a £62,000 bounty had been placed on his head by the Ku Klux Klan, according to a new book.Assassin James Earl Ray was in jail when he is said to have heard on the prison grapevine that the racist group would pay out to anyone who ended the life of the black U.S. civil rights leader.The book’s authors say the KKK in the 1960s functioned like an Al Qaeda-style organisation raising money to fight a ‘holy war’ against black people.By collecting donations from supporters who hated racial integration it put together the huge ‘reward’.Speculation has long raged that Dr King was killed in 1968 as part of a wider conspiracy, even though the FBI immediately dismissed the idea that Klansmen were responsible....
Source: Huffington Post
Apr 11, 2012
FREDERICK, Md. -- Long after the guns fell silent at Antietam, the earth yielded up gruesome reminders of the bloodiest day of the American Civil War: bodies, bones, buttons and entire severed limbs – one of which is now the focus of intense study at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.A Sharpsburg-area farmer is said to have found the human forearm while plowing a field two weeks after the 1862 battle.Officials at the museum in Frederick, Md., are trying to learn more about the limb in hopes of verifying that it's a relic of the Battle of Antietam and exhibiting the well-preserved specimen during the battle's 150th anniversary in September....
Source: AP
Apr 11, 2012
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) ' A rare engraved print created by Paul Revere has been found in a 19th century book at Brown University.A university preservationist discovered the print while studying the 1811 book once owned by a 1773 graduate of Brown. The graduate's descendants donated the book to the Rhode Island school.The print shows Jesus and John the Baptist in the Jordan River. Revere's name is featured on the bottom. Only five copies of the print are known to exist. Richard Noble, who catalogues rare items at Brown, says he has some unanswered questions, including Revere's reasons for making the print....
Source: Kingston Whig-Standard (Canada)
Apr 11, 2012
Why is the battle of Vimy Ridge marked when other battles during the First World War that may be of greater significance to the victory in Europe are rarely mentioned or even commemorated?Many military historians agree that Vimy Ridge, fought 95 years ago this week in 1917, didn't contribute to the victory that ended the war. Those battles took place between August and November 1918, 18 months later.Jonathan Vance, a professor of history at the University of Western Ontario, says there are many reasons why Canadians mark the Battle of Vimy Ridge.“The importance is in the symbolism,” said Vance, who has a master's degree in history from Queen's University....
Source: LiveScience
Apr 11, 2012
A century ago on Sunday, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank to a watery grave, killing 1,514 passengers. The disaster conjures images of luxury and hubris, cowardice and heroism, as well as one haunting question: Could it happen again?In many ways, it already has, according to maritime experts. The Northern Maritime Research shipwreck database, for example, lists more than 470,000 shipwrecks in North America in the 20th century alone. Extremely deadly shipwrecks are much more rare, of course, but even the infamous Titanic disaster was only the sixth-deadliest shipwreck in history. The deadliest, the sinking of the German hospital ship the MV Wilhelm Gustloff by Soviet torpedoes, killed more than 9,000 people. That disaster occurred in 1945 — long after the Titanic's wreck in 1912....
Source: LA Times
Apr 11, 2012
In rejecting freedom for Charles Manson, a California parole board Wednesday said they were swayed in part by comments he made to prison psychologists.John Peck, a member of the parole panel, quoted from the statements."'I'm special. I'm not like the average inmate,'" Peck said, according to the Associated Press. "'I have spent my life in prison. I have put five people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.'"Before the hearing, his attorney, DeJon R. Lewis, said he would like to see Manson transferred to Atascadero State Hospital from the state prison near Corcoran. "Charles Manson does not need incarceration at this point in his life," Lewis told CNN. "He needs hospitalization."...
Source: Discovery News
Apr 11, 2012
"Come at once. We have struck a berg." The Titanic's radio engineers sent this emergency message and many like it in Morse code wirelessly to anyone listening.Two employees of Marconi, the company that made the system, operated the radio. It was the most powerful system of its kind, and the clear night helped the signal go far.Many ships did receive the call. So did land-based stations in the United States and Greenland. Radio operators at the time were also skilled at transmitting messages quickly in code -- 80 to 100 words per minute. With such capabilities, what went wrong?For starters, Titanic's communications system had its limits....
Source: LiveScience
Apr 11, 2012
Two thousand years ago, an Egyptian purchased a mummified kitten from a breeder, to offer as a sacrifice to the goddess Bastet, new research suggests.Between about 332 B.C. and 30 B.C. in Egypt, cats were bred near temples specifically to be mummified and used as offerings.The cat mummy came from the Egyptian Collection of the National Archeological Museum in Parma, Italy. It was bought by the museum in the 18th century from a collector. Because of how the museum acquired it, there's no documentation about where the mummy came from....
Source: WaPo
Apr 11, 2012
A team of archaeologists and volunteers is close to locating a 1662 chapel at Newtowne Neck in Compton.Scott Lawrence of Grave Concerns and James Gibb of Gibb Archaeology Consulting were hired by St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and the Knights of Columbus to look for the original chapel. The two have completed an archaeological survey of the church’s original cemetery. St. Francis Xavier is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the original church chapel this year....
Source: LiveScience
Apr 10, 2012
Dramatic warming at the end of the last ice age produced an intense rise in sea level and a massive ice sheet collapse in the Antarctic.The sea level rise is known as Melt-Water Pulse 1A, and new research indicates it increased sea level by about 45 feet (14 meters) sometime between 14,650 and 14,310 years ago, during the same time as a period of rapid climate change known as the Bølling warming.Understanding the impacts of earlier warming and sea-level rise is important for predicting the effects of future warming....
