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: Guardian (UK)
Sep 23, 2011
Are we going to find out more about one of the north of England's first great writers, the Venerable Bede who recorded the history of Anglo-Saxon England?Although never actually canonised, he has always been seen as a potential patron for journalists, because he is said to have written his mighty work The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation without ever leaving his monastery in Jarrow.Like pretty much everything else about him, however, that allegation is unproven and unprovable. But this might just change. A survey by ground-penetrating radar has revealed what may be an underground chamber below St Paul's church in the Tyneside town, where the monastery stood....
Source: Civil War Librarian (Blog)
Sep 22, 2011
The Gettysburg National Military Park announced its most recent property acquisition Wednesday afternoon, the Josiah Benner House in Straban Township. Purchased in May, GNMP took possession of the nine-acre, 980 Old Harrisburg Road property Monday. In 2001, the park purchased the three-acre parcel next door, which includes the Josiah Benner barn, but this $405,000 purchase of the farmhouse and springhouse completed the package.The farmhouse, springhouse and barn are all contributing features to the park's listing on the National Register of Historic Places according to GNMP spokesperson Katie Lawhon. Lawhon said that the property was previously a private residence and that billboards removed from the site in June. "Even though there is a Congressionally authorized boundary of the park, inside that boundary there is still more than 900 acres of non-protected lands," said Katie Lawhon of the 5,989 acre park.Lawhon said that GNMP received help from the Civil War Trust, America's largest non-profit organization devoted to the preservation of America's Civil War battlefields. In a 24-year span, the Civil War Trust has worked to preserve more than 30,000 acres of battlefield land at 110 battlefields in 20 states....
Source: Fox News
Sep 22, 2011
For years, Arkansas historians have searched for a valuable lunar rock from the Apollo 17 mission, one of the moon rocks NASA presented to each state in the 1970s.
Source: History.com
Sep 22, 2011
A team of archaeologists has unearthed what might be the first major ancient Roman shipyard ever discovered. Located at Portus, a site that served as Rome’s main maritime trading hub between the first and sixth centuries, a newly discovered building larger than a football field could have been used for assembling, servicing and storing merchant ships and other vessels. Archaeologists believe they’ve uncovered a major shipyard from the second century A.D. on the site of Rome’s ancient port, the University of Southampton announced today. A massive building recently excavated by the international team was likely used for constructing, repairing and housing vessels that ferried goods in and out of imperial Rome. Bigger than a football field and five stories high, the structure featured piers and bays that opened onto a hexagonal basin linked to the Tiber river, which served as the empire’s gateway to the Mediterranean....
Source: LA Times
Sep 22, 2011
An Islamic community center that fueled angry demonstrations because of its proximity to the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has opened quietly in Lower Manhattan, drawing no protesters but bringing words of regret from the developer for not consulting with Sept. 11 survivors during its planning.The scene at Wednesday's official opening at the building on Park Place, about 2 1/2 blocks from the former World Trade Center towers, was far different from a year ago, when the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks became a platform for groups trying to prevent the center from going forward. Previously, the towering building housed a Burlington Coat Factory, which was damaged in the 2001 attacks and subsequently closed.The new owner's decision to use the building for an Islamic center, including a prayer space, divided politicians and survivors of Sept. 11 victims, with some saying the project was an insult because it is so close to ground zero. They labeled the center the "ground zero mosque."
Source: NYT
Sep 22, 2011
The quilts will live to see another day.Having seriously weighed dissolving and transferring its collections to another institution because of financial problems, the American Folk Art Museum on Wednesday evening decided to continue operating at its current location at Lincoln Square in Manhattan with the help of financial infusions from trustees and the Ford Foundation.“We are confident that we’re embarking on a prudent course with the facilities that we have and the staff that we have,” Edward Blanchard, who was elected the museum’s new president on Wednesday, said in an interview. “I think we’re going to do some very exciting things.”Mr. Blanchard declined to specify the dollar amount of the donations that appear to have saved the day....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Sep 22, 2011
The British government is to pay compensation to families of those killed or wounded on Bloody Sunday, the Ministry of Defence announced on Thursday.More than a year after David Cameron apologised to the victims and described the 1972 Derry shootings as "unjustified and unjustifiable", the Ministry of Defence has said it is in contact with the lawyers of victims' relatives and is preparing to make amends where required."We acknowledge the pain felt by these families for nearly 40 years, and that members of the armed forces acted wrongly. For that, the government is deeply sorry," said an MoD spokesman. "We are in contact with the families' solicitors and where there is a legal liability to pay compensation we will do so."Thirteen unarmed civilians died in the Bloody Sunday shootings, when paratroopers opened fire during a civil rights protest in the Bogside area of Derry in January 1972. A 14th man died of his wounds several months later....
Source: New York Times
Sep 21, 2011
New York landmark laws create huge rent disparities in the Belnord.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 21, 2011
Did he or didn’t he? That is the question. The debate over whether William Shakespeare could write his own name, let alone the body of works considered among the greatest in English literature, has consumed minds for more than 150 years.Now a new film, Anonymous, by Independence Day director Roland Emmerich, is about to throw more fuel on the fire.Anonymous, released on October 28, is set in the political snake-pit of Elizabethan England. It asserts that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the Bard’s plays. And Shakespeare, an actor, was a mere provincial frontman for the plays so Oxford’s authorship could remain secret.
Source: BBC News
Sep 21, 2011
The German fashion firm Hugo Boss has apologised for its maltreatment of forced workers during World War II when it supplied the Nazis with uniforms.It issued the apology to coincide with the publication of a new history of the company during the Hitler years, which it commissioned itself.Its factory used 140 Polish and 40 French forced workers.The book concludes that company founder Hugo Boss, whose past is already well documented, was a loyal Nazi."It is clear that Hugo F Boss did not only join the party because it led to contracts for uniform production, but also because he was a follower of National Socialism," wrote the author, Roman Koester, an economic historian at the Bundeswehr (English: Federal Defence Force) University in Munich.Both Mr Koester and the company insist that it had no influence over the contents of the book, although it provided the funding....
Source: BBC
Sep 21, 2011
Exactly 35 years ago, an audacious assassination occurred just a stone's throw from the White House. Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean government minister, was murdered when his car exploded in Washington DC's embassy district.Letelier was foreign minister in the cabinet of Chile's first Socialist president, Salvador Allende. But when the government was overthrown in Augusto Pinochet's military coup in 1973, Letelier was one of the first to be arrested.An FBI investigation revealed that the assassination had been orchestrated by agents of Dina, the Chilean secret police, led by an American called Michael Townley. They hired right-wing Cuban militants to carry out this hit.Two days before the explosion they had taped a remote-controlled bomb underneath the car.Although CIA evidence showed the Chilean leader had direct knowledge of the assassination, Pinochet was never charged.....
Source: LiveScience
Sep 21, 2011
...Of course, every death penalty case comes wrapped in some degree of debate, given deep disagreement over whether the death penalty is ever moral. Here is a by-no-means-exhaustive list of some of the most controversial cases of the 20th and 21st centuries:Sacco and Vanzetti: Italian Anarchists (1927)Death penalty controversy is not a new phenomenon. Italian immigrants Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in 1927 after a highly contested series of trials over the shooting death of two men during a 1920 armed robbery. [The History of Human Aggression]
Source: BBC
Sep 21, 2011
Sada Mire fled Somalia's civil war as a child, and lived as a refugee in Sweden. But now she is back in the Horn of Africa as an archaeologist, making some incredible discoveries.Sada Mire is only 35, but she has already revealed a dozen sites that could be candidates for Unesco world heritage status.She has a fellowship in the department of art and archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and is head of the department of antiquities in the breakaway territory of Somaliland, in the north-west region of Somalia. She is the only archaeologist working in the region.It's a remarkable journey for a girl who fled Mogadishu in 1991, aged 14, as Somalia descended into the chaos of civil war.Driving her forward is the urge to uncover and preserve a cultural heritage that has been systematically looted, both in colonial times and more recently by warlords trading national heritage for guns....
Source: NYT
Sep 21, 2011
CHARLTON, Mass. — It took only 105 years, but “Eve’s Diary” is back on the shelf.Richard Whitehead was researching his new role as a trustee of the public library here when he stumbled on an old, forgotten controversy about the book, Mark Twain’s sly interpretation of the Adam and Eve story.In 1906, he learned, the library’s trustees voted to ban “Eve’s Diary” because the illustrations, by Lester Ralph, showed a naked (though not graphically so) Eve exploring the wonders of Eden.“There’s nothing outrageous about them,” Mr. Whitehead said. “It’s kind of a shame that for what seems to me like very good artwork, a great piece of literature was banned.”
Source: Guardian (UK)
Sep 20, 2011
A statue of a bare-breasted woman whose torso was discreetly covered for centuries has been found in a Bristol church house where John Wesley worshipped.There is speculation that the half-clad figure was considered too much of a distraction for Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and his followers.The figure, holding a cornucopia of fruit, is suspected to be Abundantia – a Roman personification of abundance and prosperity.The statue is thought to have arrived in the UK from Europe and to have been placed in the house soon after it was built in the 17th century.In the 18th century theologian Wesley (1703-91) held prayer meetings in the building before his move to a purpose-built place of worship – the New Room....
Source: AFP
Sep 20, 2011
VIENNA — Representatives from the birthplaces of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin will meet at the weekend in Austria to discuss the heritage of their towns, an organiser said Tuesday.Saturday's meeting in the town of Braunau in Upper Austria, where Hitler was born, will also draw representatives from Gori in Georgia -- Stalin's birthplace -- and Predappio, Mussolini's native town in Italy....
Source: BBC
Sep 20, 2011
Parts of Coventry's cathedral ruins are in danger of collapse, the site's director has said.An urgent fundraising campaign has been started to raise money to repair the weather-damaged wall adjoining Bayley Lane, currently held up by scaffolding.The estimated cost of repair to the structurally-unsafe 14th Century building is £250,000.Cathedral executive director, Jane Woodward, said a crack had "suddenly appeared" through part of the stone.She added: "You could see daylight through the crack, so we took immediate steps to put scaffolding up and the road had to be closed."We carry out an ongoing survey of the cathedral but this damage has taken us by surprise and it's very upsetting."...
Source: CNN
Sep 20, 2011
Washington (CNN) -- A 90-year-old Michigan man who officials say rounded up and shot Jews in Nazi death camps during World War II is a step closer to being deported, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.In January, a judge found John Kalymon of Troy, Michigan, to have been an armed member of the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Auxiliary Police from 1941 to 1944.Tuesday, an appeals board dismissed Kalymon's attempt to block his deportation from the United States. Kalymon immigrated to America from Germany in 1949 and became a U.S. citizen in 1955. A federal judge in Detroit revoked his U.S. citizenship in 2007."John Kalymon and his Ukrainian Police accomplices were indispensable participants in Nazi Germany's campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe during World War II," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer. Breuer said tens of thousands of Jewish men, women and children were murdered in L'viv or rounded up and shipped to the Nazi death camp in Belzec or to Nazi forced labor camps....
Source: LA Times
Sep 20, 2011
Reporting from London—It's been called the world's most famous cold case, a source of endless fascination and speculation ever since the first mutilated victim was found in a bloody heap 123 years ago on the gas-lighted streets of East London. So why is Scotland Yard suppressing information that some crime buffs think could offer fresh leads on the identity of Britain's most notorious serial killer, Jack the Ripper? That's the question baffling Trevor Marriott, a retired homicide detective who's been waging a solitary legal battle to force "the Yard" to release uncensored versions of information recorded in thick Victorian ledgers that are gathering dust in an official archive.
Source: History.com
Sep 20, 2011
Stone Age hunter-gatherers in southeast Sweden mounted the skulls of their dead on stakes and buried them in a lake, according to a team of archaeologists. The researchers unearthed remains and artifacts estimated to be 8,000 years old—including the skulls of 11 individuals—at a site thought to have served as a ceremonial gathering place.Two years ago, archaeologists found what they believed to be a Stone Age settlement near what was once a shallow lake in Motala, a town in southeast Sweden. Conducted to pave the way for a new railway line, the excavation took an unexpected turn when the researchers discovered skulls and skull fragments from 11 individuals, including men, women, children and infants. Recent carbon dating determined that the items unearthed at the site, which is known as Kanaljorden, are roughly 8,000 years old.
