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: Voice of America
Apr 5, 2012
In Moscow, adults are snapping up school notebooks for children.Why? The cover has a heroic image of Stalin.The Stalin notebook is part of a “Great Russians” series.On one level, it is depressing that the art director of the Alt publishing house does not seem to know that “Stalin,” was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, a Georgian.But far more importantly, Russia’s amnesia towards its Stalinist past is dangerous.Winston Churchill, no friend of his wartime ally, once noted that Stalin dragged Russia from the wooden plow to the H-bomb. Similarly, many Russians prefer to focus on this “positive” of Stalin’s three decades of rule.As to the sinister side, Stalin’s close collaborators called him: “Genghis Khan with a telephone.”...
Source: BBC News
Apr 5, 2012
The wreck of the Titanic is to come under the protection of the United Nations cultural agency Unesco.The agency says more than 700 divers have visited the site, 4,000m under water off the coast of Canada.The ship will fall under the 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage once it passes the 100th anniversary of its sinking on 15 April....
Source: BBC News
Apr 5, 2012
The Italian government has launched a 105m euros (£87m) project to save one of the world's greatest archaeological treasures, the ancient city of Pompeii.There has been growing concern that the site, where volcanic ash smothered a Roman city in AD79, has been neglected.A number of structures have fully or partially collapsed, including the "House of Gladiators" which fell down 18 months ago....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Apr 5, 2012
When the great west doors of York Minster swing open on Thursday and the Queen makes her way along the nave of the packed church for the ancient service of distributing Maundy Money, she will also be walking towards a small pit from which human bones have been pouring by the barrow load, the remains of some of the earliest Christians to worship on the site.Tantalising finds include 30 skulls and a jumble of bones used to backfill a trench by the medieval builders of the present cathedral, and a man whose stone-lined and lidded grave was chopped off by Walter de Gray's 13th-century walls, leaving only his shins and feet in place.Potentially the most significant finds are two nondescript round holes, with groundwater bubbling up through the mud. They are post holes that could date from the time of the earliest Christian church on the site, after the Roman empire disintegrated in the 5th century and before raiding Vikings arrived in the 8th century and the Normans in the 11th century.
Source: Time
Apr 5, 2012
From the educational to the experiential to the downright bizarre, ways to commemorate the April centennial of the Titanic disaster won’t be in short supply. Whether through eerily specific replica cruises or the more foreseeable 3-D release of James Cameron’s 1997 film, history buffs and Leonardo DiCaprio fans alike can pay homage to one of the world’s deadliest peacetime sea tragedies 100 years after it happened.
Source: Discovery News
Apr 5, 2012
About 55 million years ago, an intense heat wave hit the planet. Earth's surface temperature surged by 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). Then, after a relatively short time, the heat subsided, only to be followed by at least two similar, but smaller heat waves.Based on chemical clues preserved in rocks, scientists believe a surge of carbon dioxide warmed the planet. But where did all of this greenhouse gas come from?A team of scientists is proposing that it came from the melting of permafrost, frozen soil packed with organic matter, after cycles in the Earth's orbit warmed up the areas near the poles. The melting released a massive amount of carbon into the atmosphere, keeping reflected sunlight from escaping and causing the heat wave....
Source: Reuters
Apr 4, 2012
(Reuters) - Watched by residents of the old quarter of Tunis, a court official stepped forward and unlocked the huge wooden doors. From the gloom within, volunteers began to bring out stools and chairs that had gathered dust and cobwebs for half a century.The school at Tunisia's 8th-century Zaitouna Mosque, one of the world's leading centers of Islamic learning, was closed by independence leader and secularist strongman Habib Bourguiba in 1964 as part of an effort to curb the influence of religion. Its ancient university was merged with the state's Tunis University.The college reopened its ancient doors to students on Monday, part of a drive by religious scholars and activists to revive Zaitouna's moderate brand of Islam, which once dominated North Africa, and counter the spread of more radical views....
Source: LA Times
Apr 4, 2012
Rick Santorum, watch out: Stephen Colbert is watching you. In recent weeks, the satirical host has made it his mission to fact-check the hyperbole-prone presidential candidate; he even launched a Twitter hashtag, #inmyheart, ridiculing Santorum's tall tales about Dutch euthanasia.On Tuesday night, Colbert once again criticized Santorum, this time for his false claim that "seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course."
Source: MSNBC
Apr 4, 2012
As a former United States Secret Service agent assigned to guard Jacqueline Kennedy for four years, Clint Hill went from being her dutiful protector to her close friend and confidant. In "Mrs. Kennedy and Me," he shares candid moments between him and the first lady. [He speaks out now for the first time.]
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 4, 2012
Summer was the most dangerous time for Tudors with nearly three quarters of all deaths happening over the season, University of Oxford research has shown.A study of coroners’ court records found fatal accidents were much more likely to occur in June than any other month, as agricultural work and travel reached a peak.The figures, discovered during an investigation into 16th century inquests, reveal deaths from drowning, working accidents and misadventure.Common causes of death included being crushed by a cart, falling from a horse, becoming entangled in agricultural machinery or even falling out of trees....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Apr 3, 2012
Interest in the newly released 1940 US census was so great that the government website was nearly paralysed shortly after the records became available to the public.Miriam Kleiman, spokeswoman for the US national archives, said the site registered more than 22m hits in just four hours on Monday, from almost 2 million users. After eight hours there had been 37m hits.The government released the records for the first time after the 72-year confidentiality rule expired.It is the largest collection of digital information ever released by the National Archives. The records allow individuals and families to learn details about their past....
Source: LA Times
Apr 3, 2012
The curator of the Catalina Island Museum opened the door to a musty backroom a few weeks ago hoping to find material for an upcoming exhibit on the World War II era. Closing the door behind him, he trudged down a narrow aisle lined with storage boxes and bins filled with gray photocopies of old letters, civic records, celebrity kitsch — and dust. "No luck," curator John Boraggina muttered. But as he made his way to a back corner, he noticed another row of boxes. He carried the largest to a table, blew off the dust and lifted the lid.Inside were leather-bound journals and yellowing photographs showing freshly unearthed skeletons lying on their backs or sides, or curled as if in sleep. Many were surrounded by grinding stones, pots and beadwork....
Source: NYT
Apr 3, 2012
For 110 years, the numbers stood as gospel: 618,222 men died in the Civil War, 360,222 from the North and 258,000 from the South — by far the greatest toll of any war in American history.
But new research shows that the numbers were far too low.
By combing through newly digitized census data from the 19th century, J. David Hacker, a demographic historian from Binghamton University in New York, has recalculated the death toll and increased it by more than 20 percent — to 750,000.
The new figure is already winning acceptance from scholars. Civil War History, the journal that published Dr. Hacker’s paper, called it “among the most consequential pieces ever to appear” in its pages. And a pre-eminent authority on the era, Eric Foner, a historian at Columbia University, said:
Source: LiveScience
Apr 3, 2012
Researchers using high-tech photography have reconstructed a signature that may belong to William Shakespeare — or perhaps a clever forger.It's not yet known who scrawled "Wm Shakespeare" across the title page of the legal treatise "Archaionomia," a collection of Saxon laws published during the reign of Elizabeth I of England. It may never be clear, said Gregory Heyworth, a professor of English at the University of Mississippi.
Source: LiveScience
Apr 3, 2012
James Cameron's epic 1997 movie "Titanic" is about to be re-released and re-packaged in a 3D presentation to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ocean liner on April 15, 1912. Although few changes have been made to the movie itself, there is one tweak that will impress astronomers.Spurred on by a "snarky" message from astrophysicist and outspoken science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cameron has addressed Tyson's criticism that the incorrect star field was used during one of the film's most famous scenes...."[W]ith my reputation as a perfectionist," [Cameron said,] "I should have known that and I should have put the right star field in. So I said 'All right, send me the right stars for that exact time and I'll put it in the movie.'"...
Source: Today Online
Apr 3, 2012
LONDON - Human ancestors first gathered around campfires a million years ago, 300,000 years earlier than previously thought, scientists have discovered. Traces of wood ash uncovered next to fragments of animal bones and stone tools in South African caves are the earliest known evidence of human ancestors using fire. The findings suggest the art of making fire may have begun among species as primitive as Homo erectus, the first early humans to become hunter-gatherers....
Source: Huffington Post
Apr 3, 2012
While the Daily Show brilliantly reminded millions of viewers last night of the disgraceful racist elements behind the attack on Tucson's acclaimed and now outlawed Mexican American Studies program, educators across the nation recalled a teaching moment.Over a half century ago, facing a similar segregationist campaign to shut down the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, famous for its pioneering desegregation and civil rights efforts, folk school co-founder Myles Horton informed his rabid foes: "A school is an idea, and you can't padlock an idea."Invoking Horton's towering legacy today, the Zinn Education Project bestowed its national Myles Horton Education Award on embattled Mexican American Studies director Sean Arce for his leadership role in "one of the most significant and successful public school initiatives on the teaching of history in the U.S."...
Source: NYT
Apr 3, 2012
AUGUSTA, Ga. — For decades, the black caddies at Augusta National Golf Club — required by the club’s rules and treasured for their nuanced knowledge of the course’s topography — stood as a striking symbol of the sport’s segregated state.“As long as I’m alive,” said Clifford Roberts, one of the club’s founders in 1933 and a longtime Masters chairman, “all the golfers will be white and all the caddies will be black.”In 1997, 20 years after Roberts’s death, Tiger Woods, with a white caddie, won the first of his four Masters championships, shattering the mirror that Roberts’s vision reflected. Woods, who has won 14 majors, changed the face of golf in more ways than one. Not only is the best golfer of this era not white, Woods’s success has helped push the black caddie to the brink of extinction....
Source: Finance and Commerce (MN)
Apr 2, 2012
When it comes to proposed state bonding projects, the Charles A. Lindbergh Historic Site in Little Falls hardly registers a blip on the radar screen.The Minnesota Historical Society wants $650,000 to preserve and maintain the 106-year-old boyhood home of the famous aviator — far less than the tens of millions requested by other agencies for other projects.But in the eyes of Lindbergh historians like Charlie Pautler, site manager for the Charles A. Lindbergh Historic Site, the relatively modest request doesn’t mean the project lacks significance....
Source: Science Daily
Apr 2, 2012
ScienceDaily (Apr. 2, 2012) — Scientists studying 1,600-year-old cotton from the banks of the Nile have found what they believe is the first evidence that punctuated evolution has occurred in a major crop group within the relatively short history of plant domestication.The findings offer an insight into the dynamics of agriculture in the ancient world and could also help today's domestic crops face challenges such as climate change and water scarcity.The researchers, led by Dr Robin Allaby from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, examined the remains of ancient cotton at Qasr Ibrim in Egypt's Upper Nile using high throughput sequencing technologies....
