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
Sep 5, 2011
Consider the case of Ned Kelly’s skull.In Australia, Kelly needs no introduction; for Americans, it may help to think of him as Jesse James, Thomas Paine and John F. Kennedy rolled into one.Born about 1854 to an Irish convict exiled to Australia, Kelly became a folk hero as a very young man. He took up arms against a corrupt British constabulary, robbed banks and wrote an explosive manifesto. He was shot and arrested in a final shootout in which he wore homemade metal armor, and in 1880 he was hanged by the Anglo-Irish establishment he despised.As with any semimythical hero, Kelly’s public has always hungered to get closer to the legend. His armor, cartridge bag, boots and a bloody sash became state treasures....
Source: NYT
Sep 5, 2011
He donated a plot from his backyard garden for New York’s original City Hall, where George Washington would be inaugurated as president. He presided as mayor over a government that assumed responsibility for paupers and banned slaughterhouses within the city limits. He even covered municipal deficits out of his own pocket.Nonetheless, the crated, larger-than-life bronze likeness of Abraham De Peyster remains in a parks department warehouse on Randalls Island — arguably, another unsung casualty of Sept. 11. The statue was removed from Hanover Square in the financial district seven years ago to make room for a memorial to British victims of the attack.De Peyster’s fate is an object lesson in the fleeting fame of former mayors. At best, they survive as the namesake for an airport or expressway (De Peyster Street in downtown Manhattan was swallowed up in the 1960s by new skyscrapers). At worst, they are forgotten, with no visible legacy.As far as enduring monuments are concerned, De Peyster personifies the limitations of statues....
Source: BBC
Sep 5, 2011
Archaeologists in Austria say they have discovered a large, well-preserved school for Roman gladiators.
The remains of the school, at a site east of the modern capital, Vienna, were found using radar imagery.
The school was part of a Roman city which was an important military and trade outpost 17 centuries ago.
Though excavations have yet to begin, the radar images show thick walls surrounding the compound which contained 40 small cells for fighters.
There is also a training area and a large bathing area in the Carnuntum ruins.
Outside the walls, radar scans show what archaeologists believe was a cemetery for those killed during training....
Source: BBC
Sep 5, 2011
A lock of Napoleon's hair has been unearthed during a visit by a TV antiques show to the former home of Sir Walter Scott in the Borders.
The historic item was contained in a small handwritten note at Abbotsford House near Melrose.
The hair was found by the Antiques Road Trip team during studies of a blotter book which had belonged to Napoleon.
Jason Dyer of the Abbotsford Trust said it showed the "importance of preserving this wonderful home and its contents".
The hair was rediscovered as one of the show's antiques experts, Anita Manning, and Mr Dyer examined the blotter book which had been on show in the library.
It contained a small handwritten note dated 8 November 1827, written to Sir Walter Scott from a Mr Dalton.
In the note, Mr Dalton explained that the lock of hair was given to him by Lt Col Elphinstone who served under Wellington, and that he believed it would be of great interest to Scott who was famed for his passion for collecting.
The blotter, which is in an extremely fragile condition, the note and hair have now been removed from Abbotsford and are being examined by a team of conservation experts.
They will go on show again to the public once that work has be
Source: BBC
Sep 5, 2011
The Frome Hoard, the second largest collection of Roman coins found in the UK, is to be brought back from the British Museum to Somerset later.
The coins will go on display at the new Museum of Somerset, in Taunton, which opens at the end of the month.
The collection of 52,000 Roman coins dates back more than 1,700 years and was found in Frome, Somerset, last April by a metal-detector enthusiast Dave Crisp, from Wiltshire....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 5, 2011
President George W Bush’s most senior aide was forced to drastically increase his security soon after the September 11 attacks because Tony Blair joked that he was an al-Qaeda target, he has disclosed.
Andrew Card became internationally renowned when he was photographed in a Florida classroom whispering into the president’s ear that United Flight 175 had struck the World Trade Centre in New York.
But thanks to Mr Blair, the photograph also had a less well-known impact nine days after the attacks, which Mr Card described publicly for the first time during in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
“He said: ’Andy, it’s so good to see you. You’re a marked man. You’re a target for every terrorist out there. They use that picture of you whispering to the president as target practice’.” Mr Card said Mr Blair appeared to be joking that he had received this information from British security officials. But it was taken absolutely seriously by their American counterparts.....
Source: AP
Sep 5, 2011
A new video shows a cloud of gray smoke rising in the sky minutes after United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in western Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.
The Tribune-Democrat newspaper of Johnstown says the video was filmed and narrated by Somerset County resident Dave Berkebile, who died this year.
Berkebile calmly reports a plane has crashed a few miles from his Berlin home and assumes a link to the other terror attacks that day....
Source: CNN
Sep 5, 2011
Some families of 9/11 victims say they are confused, anxious and surprised as the 10th anniversary approaches because they have not received invitations to the Sunday ceremony opening the ground zero memorial.
Gillian Joseph, who lost her husband Stephen in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, said she is thinking of canceling her plans to attend the memorial because the whole thing seems so disorganized.
So did Ansu Philip, who said the mayor's office finally told her after several days of calling that she would be receiving the invitation last week but she still has not received it. It's been 10 days since she spoke to the mayor's office, and she is anxious to make sure she and her relatives can attend the memorial to honor her daughter, Sneha Anne Philip.
The confusion and anxieties surround official invitations -- or lack of them -- for the Sunday morning service that will mark the opening of the National September 11 Memorial at ground zero. The ceremony starting at 8:30 a.m. will include the reading of the names of victims and two moments of silence to mark the times the towers were hit.
Source: CNN
Sep 5, 2011
Former President George W. Bush says he experienced no pleasure when he heard about the death of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader responsible for orchestrating the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Schnall interviewed the former president as part of a documentary airing on National Geographic on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The interview covers a broad range of topics tied to Bush's response to the attacks -- a response that remains a source of deep political division both within the United States and overseas.
Bush told Schnall that initially he thought a small plane had hit one of the towers at New York's World Trade Center.
Among other things, Bush ordered the military to shoot down commercial planes that failed to respond to a Federal Aviation Administration demand to land as quickly as possible.
For a time, the president was unsure if that order was responsible for the crash of United Airlines flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania....
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Sep 4, 2011
The case of Jack the Ripper has long captivated amateur true-crime enthusiasts. Now scholars too have become enthralled by him, but why?Under the slayer's sway ourselves, Fred J. Abbate, a philosopher, and I, a literary critic, wanted to find out. We took popular interest in Jack the Ripper to be a given. Buffs are everywhere, populating groups like the Whitechapel Society and Internet sites like the JTR Forums and Casebook: Jack the Ripper. Yet work on the case had long been dominated by these so-called Ripperologists, with academic involvement lagging behind. Despite some scholarly work going back 25 years, only in the past 10 (with two dissertations listed in the MLA Bibliography in the past three) has an academic literature begun to accumulate as the cultural turn in the humanities intersected with a widespread interest in true crime. Jack the Ripper is arguably the first publicly recognized "serial killer" (though the term was not coined until the 1970s), and the Whitechapel murders—as the Ripper case is decorously known—may be the first modern true-crime narrative.
Source: Parade Magazine
Sep 4, 2011
In the spring of 1964, less than six months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. began conducting more than eight hours of interviews with Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline. At her request, the transcripts and tapes were sealed from the public. Now her daughter, Caroline, is releasing the interviews in a new book, Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, to be published on Sept. 14. On a hot summer morning in Boston, Caroline Kennedy sat down to talk to PARADE about the conversations, which reveal a different side to the glamorous woman the world calls Jackie O but whom Caroline still calls “Mummy.” Inside the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Caroline, 53, wearing a beige summer coat, an off-white blouse, and a light beige skirt, displayed the elegance of her mother and the charm of her father, whose bust stood nearby.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 4, 2011
Few of the tourists who gaze up to admire one of London's most famous landmarks, Nelson's Column, would realise that its column's topmost point is made from the salvaged remains of an unheralded 18th Century warship.But the HMS Royal George can lay an even greater claim to posterity than providing the foundations of the world-famous statue in honour of perhaps the most celebrated naval hero in British history.According to naval historian Dr John Bevan, the largely forgotten flagship, which sank in the Solent at Spithead in August 1782, helped divers to locate the wreckage of the Mary Rose in the 1830s - a full 150 years before the stricken vessel was raised from the seabed.More than 900 people died when the Royal George sank, including 300 women and 60 children who were visiting the ship which was due to head for Gibraltar with HMS Victory....
Source: BBC
Sep 4, 2011
Few of the tourists who gaze up to admire one of London's most famous landmarks, Nelson's Column, would realise that its column's topmost point is made from the salvaged remains of an unheralded 18th Century warship.
But the HMS Royal George can lay an even greater claim to posterity than providing the foundations of the world-famous statue in honour of perhaps the most celebrated naval hero in British history.
According to naval historian Dr John Bevan, the largely forgotten flagship, which sank in the Solent at Spithead in August 1782, helped divers to locate the wreckage of the Mary Rose in the 1830s - a full 150 years before the stricken vessel was raised from the seabed.
More than 900 people died when the Royal George sank, including 300 women and 60 children who were visiting the ship which was due to head for Gibraltar with HMS Victory.....
Source: AP
Sep 3, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — The country has moved on. To the presidents who lead it, Sept. 11 never ends.The ramifications of the worst terrorist attack in American history live on, bridging the decade from George W. Bush to Barack Obama.Two wars. Huge debt. The Guantanamo Bay quandary. The evolving threat of terrorism. The end of Osama bin Laden. The hardening of executive power.And the remains of fallen soldiers still coming home in flag-covered cases.Sept. 11, 2001, defined Bush's presidency. It drives Obama's, even if more quietly."I remember President Bush used to warn people that it was going to be a long slog," said Michael Chertoff, Bush's second homeland security secretary. "There wasn't going to be a Battleship Missouri moment. The critical issue for us was to persevere without being overwrought. I think that was an accurate prediction."But persevere for how long?That is perhaps the biggest legacy at the presidential level: a new mindset....
Source: CNN.com
Sep 3, 2011
(CNN) -- Before Moammar Gadhafi, there were the Phoenicians. And the Greeks. The Romans. The first Arabs. They're a reminder that no civilization -- and no leader -- is forever.The Libyan transitional leaders have a lot to deal with once they stop being rebels, and begin shaping a new Libya: Keeping law and order, setting up a rudimentary government, dealing with money -- and oil.But what about Libya's other wealth? Its archaeological treasures?They are all over the country.In the south, in Acacus, rock paintings 12,000 years old cross an entire mountain range....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 3, 2011
An examination of 340 skeletons from three 18th and 19th century Royal Navy graveyards found that a "surprisingly high" proportion suffered from scurvy and infected wounds.The bones, excavated from sites in Greenwich, Gosport and Plymouth, also found that more than six per cent of sailors in Nelson's navy, were amputees, many of whom died as a result of operations that went wrong.But despite uncovering evidence of syphilis, ulcers, serious tooth infections and possible malaria among the remains of the seamen, researchers said evidence indicated that only a minority came from the lowest rung of the social ladder....
Source: BBC
Sep 3, 2011
An indigenous Brazilian who celebrates her birthday on Saturday may be the oldest woman in the world - and by some distance.
Maria Lucimar Pereira, a member of the Kaxinawa tribe in the Amazon, is 121 years old, says a tribal rights group.
It says she has a birth certificate showing she was born in 1890.
But the Guinness Book of Records says she has not been registered with them. The verified oldest living woman is 115-year-old American Besse Cooper.
Maria puts her longevity down to a healthy lifestyle, Survival International said - with regular dishes including grilled meat, monkey, fish, the root vegetable manioc and banana porridge, and no salt, sugar or processed foods.....
Source: Biloxi Sun-Herald
Sep 2, 2011
The Forest Heights neighborhood of Gulfport, Mississippi was redeveloped in the 1960s as one of the first racially integrated developments promoting home ownership. Like the rest of historically Black north Gulfport, it is threatened by more frequent flooding.
Source: Daily Star
Sep 2, 2011
BEIRUT: Kamal Salibi, the most respected Lebanese historian of his generation, died in Beirut Thursday morning at the age of 82.Born in Beirut on May 2, 1929, and raised in Bhamdoun, Salibi was educated at International College and the American University of Beirut. He earned his doctorate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His thesis, entitled “Maronite historians and Lebanon’s medieval history,” was supervised by noted Orientalist Bernard Lewis....
Source: Fox News
Sep 2, 2011
It was one small step for man -- and for some astronauts it was a big leap of faith, too.
