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
Jun 26, 2011
Brent Glass, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, who oversaw a two-year renovation that answered some of the criticisms of the museum, will retire effective July 10. An acting director is to be appointed in July, and Mr. Glass will continue as an adviser to the Smithsonian through the end of the year....
Source: The Hindu
Jun 26, 2011
CHENNAI: An Iron Age megalithic burial site, dotted with cairn-circles, has been discovered near Veeranam village, at the foot of a chain of hills, in Tamil Nadu's Tiruvannamalai district.
Source: NYT
Jun 26, 2011
His parents were among the last generation born into Southern slavery, and his own birth in 1883 was notable for another benchmark: At 16 pounds, he was the biggest baby ever recorded in North Carolina.“I guess I’ve always wanted to be large, and I have been large,” Samuel Jesse Battle recalled decades later.But his personal growth was threatened when, as a teenager, he was caught pilfering cash from a safe belonging to his boss, R. H. Smith, a landlord who predicted that within a year, the young man would be in prison.
Source: NYT
Jun 26, 2011
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The four surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge went on trial Monday, more than three decades after the collapse of a government that caused the death of as much as one-fourth of the population and left Cambodia
Source: BBC
Jun 26, 2011
A memorial is being unveiled to three children who died near Gretna Green in Britain's worst ever rail disaster.
The "lost children of Maryhill" were among 227 people killed in a multi-train crash at Quintinshill in 1915.
Most of the victims were soldiers with the Royal Scots who were on their way to fight in World War I.
A headstone has been laid at the Western Necropolis in Glasgow, where the children were buried in an unmarked grave.
They were interred in 1915 along with a fourth unidentified person, whose age is not
Source: BBC
Jun 26, 2011
A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia is due to hold its first hearing in the trial of four former top Khmer Rouge leaders.
The defendants include the "number two" in Pol Pot's regime, Nuon Chea.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 26, 2011
An attempt to have the Mona Lisa return from France for a temporary visit to Italy has been dismissed by gallery chiefs.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 26, 2011
A Royal palace on Corfu where the Duke of Edinburgh was born will this week emerge as the focus point of protests on the Greek islands against the sale of the national heritage to pay off the country's debts.
Mon Repos Palace in Corfu, where a museum records the site as the birthplace of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, 90 years ago, is one of several state-owned properties included the package. The firesale will beaches, casinos, palaces, airports and marinas auctioned off around Greece.
Source: Huffington Post
Jun 26, 2011
What is believed to be the only surviving authenticated portrait of Billy the Kid went up for auction in Denver on Saturday and sold for $2.3 million.The tintype on Saturday evening went to private collector William Koch at Brian Lebel's 22nd Annual Old West Show & Auction, where auction spokeswoman Melissa McCracken said the image of the 1800s outlaw was the most expensive piece ever sold at the event.A 15 percent fee was added to the bidding price, making the selling price more than $2.6 million. Organizers had expected it could fetch between $300,000 and $400,000.The tintype is believed to have been taken in 1879 or 1880 in Fort Sumner, N.M. It shows the outlaw dressed in a rumpled hat and layers of clothes, including a bulky sweater. He's standing with one hand resting on a Winchester carbine on his right side and a Colt revolver holstered on his left side.Tintypes were an early form of photography that used metal plates. They are reverse images, and the Billy the Kid tintype led to the mistaken belief that Billy the Kid was a lefty. The myth inspired the 1958 movie "The Left Handed Gun", starring Paul Newman as Billy....
Source: Houston Chronicle
Jun 25, 2011
SAN ANTONIO — Alamo officials have discovered a clue to the building's mysterious past, right over the doorway some 3 million visitors pass through each year.Experts believe "1802" might have been scratched into the wall when the Alamo was a mission under Spanish rule, or perhaps decades later, after the U.S. Army added a second floor and roof in the mid-1800s.Or, as Alamo historian and curator Bruce Winders suggests, it could have been left by an Alamo defender who kept watch from a ledge by a window during the 1836 siege and decided to mark the year of his birth.More than likely, it's evidence of a little-known period between 1793, when Mission San Antonio de Valero was secularized, and 1803, when Spanish troops began to occupy the former mission that later would be known as the Alamo, Winders said."If you look at historic graffiti at face value, people usually put the date when they did it," he said. "Americans at that time were kind of notorious for leaving behind something that says, 'I was here.' "...
Source: Montreal Gazette
Jun 25, 2011
The nice girl in Premier Jean Charest's office was confused.- "You're the one who called about World War I," she told the reporter.- "Not World War I," the reporter said patiently. "The War of 1812. I'm trying to find out if Quebec has any plans for the 200th anniversary."It's a simple enough question. But when it comes to the war best known for the Star Spangled Banner, Laura Secord and Isaac Brock, it seems most people in Quebec - even in the premier's office - draw a blank.
Source: USA Today
Jun 24, 2011
The H.L. Hunley, a Confederate submarine, sealed its place in history on a February night in 1864 when it became the world's first sub to sink an enemy warship in combat. Then its own fate was sealed when it sank mysteriously to the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Charleston, S.C., killing its crew of eight.There the Hunley rested on its starboard side at a 45-degree angle until it was lifted from the ocean floor at that exact angle in 2000. Late last week, preservationists finished two painstaking days of work that allowed them to rotate the Hunley to its upright position.Starting Wednesday, conservation specialists at Clemson University's Warren Lasch Conservation Center in Charleston began the process of rotating the 7-ton, 40-foot submarine to expose a side of its hull never before seen in the post-Civil War era....
Source: Houston Chronicle
Jun 24, 2011
A local division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is just one vote away from gaining approval of a Texas specialty license plate bearing its logo, which prominently features the Confederate flag.The Texas Department of Motor Vehicle license board voted on the group's request in April, but it was a tie vote. One of the nine members was absent, so the board decided to reconsider the request at its next meeting June 9.The meeting, however, didn't take place because a board member from Houston died June 3.Now, the Sons of Confederate Veterans must wait until Gov. Rick Perry appoints a new board member, and that might not happen until fall, said DMV spokeswoman Kim Sue Lia Perkes....A mock plate was posted on the DMV's website in March. Comments were overwhelmingly positive: 186 in favor, 3 against....
Source: Oregon Live
Jun 24, 2011
For Oregonians, the words Civil War more often conjure up colors of yellow and green or orange and black than blue and gray.But as the U.S. observes the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War (1861-1865), hundreds of hardy Northwest souls pull on wool uniforms and fill paper cartridges with gunpowder to re-enact the battles and daily life of the War Between the States.
Source: BBC
Jun 24, 2011
The inside of a Mayan tomb thought to be 1,500 years old has been filmed by archaeologists for the first time.Using a tiny video camera, the researchers were able to capture images of the burial chamber in Palenque in south-eastern Mexico.As the device was lowered 16ft (5m) down into the tomb, they saw red paint and black figures emblazoned on its walls.The scientists say the images will shed new light on the Mayan civilisation ..........
Source: CNN.com
Jun 24, 2011
(CNN) -- The soldiers came for her at night. They took the girl to a barrack and forced her to watch a woman get raped.The drunken men then set loose a dog to rip off the raped woman's breasts. Blood was everywhere. The woman passed out.The young witness was next. Five soldiers held her down and took turns raping and sodomizing her. They spilled alcohol on her. They laughed. They said they'd kill her. She didn't yet have breasts for the dog to attack.
Source: NYT
Jun 23, 2011
Solved: the case of the missing moon dust.The United States attorney’s office for eastern Missouri announced Thursday that it had recovered government property stolen more than 40 years ago: a triangular nub of transparent tape an eighth of an inch wide.
Source: NYT
Jun 23, 2011
BERLIN — Just 20 years ago, German lawmakers hunkered down for a passionate 10-hour debate to make a decision that seemed as momentous as it was a no-brainer: Should the capital of the newly reunified country remain where it was — in Bonn on the Rhine — or move back to its historic, eastern location on the Spree, amid the monuments and mixed memories of Berlin?...
Source: BBC
Jun 23, 2011
Experts are planning to record and protect exposed Roman masonry at a fort in south Cumbria.The work on Ambleside Roman fort at Waterhead, is being undertaken by the National Trust, with the help of volunteer archaeologists.Masons will remove the turf capping from the low walls of the fort, rake out earth, then mix and apply lime mortar to create a hard wearing cap.The work is part of a wider scheme called "Romans by the River"....
Source: BBC
Jun 23, 2011
Celebrations are due to be held in Stirling to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of work on the Wallace Monument.On this day in 1861 more than 100,000 people thronged Stirling and the Abbey Craig as a ceremony took place to lay the foundation stone.Paid for by public subscription, the monument went over budget and it was eight years before it was opened.More recently, the Wallace monument has attracted over 130,000 visitors a year....
