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: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 23, 2011
An amateur model-maker has been banned from selling tiny figures of Hitler on eBay after the online auction site decided it could be classed as Nazi propaganda.Philip Fursman has been buying plain models from a UK company, painting them and then selling them on the eBay website for a number of years for a small profit.But Mr Fursman from Card, Somerset, fell foul of the site's policies when he tried to sell a model of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.However, similar models of Osama bin Laden used in war games are allowed.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 23, 2011
The painting of Farrah Fawcett seen hanging over Ryan O'Neal's bed in a reality television show was, for most viewers, a sign of his enduring love for the late actress.But to beneficiaries of her will it was evidence that O'Neal was in possession of a $30million (£18.8million) Andy Warhol portrait that has not been seen since her death two years ago.Warhol made two portraits of the actress in 1980, both of which were shown in the documentary Farrah's Story, which charted the Charlie's Angels star's courageous battle with cancer.
Source: BBC
Jun 22, 2011
The remains of 17 bodies found at the bottom of a medieval well in England could have been victims of persecution, new evidence has suggested.The most likely explanation is that those down the well were Jewish and were probably murdered or forced to commit suicide, according to scientists who used a combination of DNA analysis, carbon dating and bone chemical studies in their investigation.The skeletons date back to the 12th or 13th Centuries at a time when Jewish people were facing persecution throughout Europe.
Source: CBC
Jun 22, 2011
An archeological dig in Grand-Pré is digging deeper into the history of the early European occupation of Nova Scotia.Aaron Taylor, a grad student from Saint Mary's University in Halifax, has been working with others to find bits and pieces of clues in a mystery of the Acadian people expelled by the English in 1755.There is now evidence that English immigrants from Connecticut probably built new homes on old Acadian stone foundations just a few years following the expulsion.
Source: Andina
Jun 22, 2011
The archaeological pieces, taken from Machu Picchu nearly a century ago for research at Yale University, arrived Wednesday morning to Cusco which were received by political, military and religious authorities. These Inca artifacts landed at Alejandro Velasco Astete airport at around 08.20 hours (13.02 GMT) in an airplane of the Peruvian Air force (FAP) along with Peru’s Culture Minister Juan Ossio.
Source: NYT
Jun 22, 2011
ON April 29, 1945, Allied captives at Stalag Luft VII A, a prisoner-of-war camp in southeast Germany, heard the rumbling of artillery in the distance. Lt. Charles B. Woehrle, 28, of the United States Army Air Forces, peered though the barbed wire fence to the town of Moosburg in the Isar River valley below. Plumes of white smoke rose above the village.Gaunt, unwashed and lice-ridden, Lieutenant Woehrle checked the new Patek Philippe watch on his wrist and noted the time. The watch was stainless steel — an uncommon luxury at the time — with a hand-stitched alligator strap....
Source: Jewish Daily Forward
Jun 22, 2011
The mystery surrounding President Washington’s famous 1790 letter guaranteeing religious liberty in America continues.As the Forward revealed last week, Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I., disappeared from public view almost a decade ago, after the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum, where the letter had been displayed for half a century, moved to a smaller location and put the document into an art storage facility in suburban Maryland.
Source: AP
Jun 22, 2011
Some of the earliest Americans turn out to have been artists.
A bone fragment at least 13,000 years old, with the carved image of a mammoth or mastodon, has been discovered in Florida, a new study reports.
While prehistoric art depicting animals with trunks has been found in Europe, this may be the first in the Western Hemisphere, researchers report Wednesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science....
Source: BBC
Jun 22, 2011
Off the track beaten by most Holy Land tourists lies one of the richest archaeological sites in a country full of them: the walled port of Acre, where the busy alleys of an Ottoman-era town cover a uniquely intact Crusader city now being rediscovered.
Preparing to open a new subterranean section to the public, workers cleaned stones this week in an arched passageway underground.
All were last used by residents in 1291, the year a Muslim army from Egypt defeated Acre's Christian garrison and leveled its remains....
Source: BBC
Jun 22, 2011
US First Lady Michelle Obama has paid tribute to apartheid victims on a visit to South Africa's township of Soweto.
She was speaking to young women from across Africa in a church that became a landmark in the 1976 Soweto uprising.
Mrs Obama said the successful fight against apartheid as well as the US civil rights movement should inspire them to overcome the problems of today, such as HIV or violence against women.
On Monday, Mrs Obama met the former South African President Nelson Mandela....
Source: BBC
Jun 22, 2011
The notebooks of the Scottish folklore pioneer Alexander Carmichael have been prepared for publication.
It will be the first time Carmichael's work has been available in its entirety.
From 1860, he spent 50 years collecting legends, songs, curses and oral history from Gaelic-speakers.
Researchers and archivists have worked for two years preparing the notes for publication by the University of Edinburgh.
Carmichael's work has led to him being likened to the brothers Grimm in Germany.
His volume Carmina Gadelica,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 22, 2011
A Picasso painting that was donated to an Australian university has raised £13.5m for scientific research at a sale in London.
Jeune Fille Endormie was given to the University Of Sydney by an anonymous American donor last year on the condition that it be sold and the money raised be spent on research into obesity.
At a Christie's art auction in London it fetched £13.5m, exceeding expectations by more than £1m.
Source: HNN Staff
Jun 22, 2011
Various news agencies are reporting this morning that imprisoned artist Ai Weiwei has been released on bail.
Source: NYT
Jun 22, 2011
As Tuesday dawned, what we knew about an anonymous photo album by a Nazi photographer was only what could be inferred from its 214 pictures (all but one uncaptioned). We could see he had amazing access: taking portraits of Russian and Jewish prisoners one month, standing just a few feet from Adolf Hitler the next. We knew he had been to the Eastern Front, we surmised that he worked for the Propagandakompanie and we guessed that the pretty woman in the album’s closing pages was someone special....
Source: Think Progress
Jun 21, 2011
According to a national test released last week, “just 13 percent of high schools seniors” demonstrated proficiency in U.S. history. Speaking to the Story County GOP Central Committee in Ames, Iowa, presidential candidate Rick Santorum attributed the poor scores to a leftist plot to keep students in the dark about U.S. history so they don’t learn American values:
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jun 21, 2011
Editor's Note: The Organization of American Historians sent out a mass email to its membership today requesting that they act TODAY, June 22, by calling or faxing their representatives and/or the Committee chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Hal Rogers (R-KY).
Source: NYT
Jun 21, 2011
MOSCOW — In April an amateur video of a distressed Tupolev Tu-154 jet flying low over the city circulated on the Internet and the craft became known as the Dancing Airplane, as it appeared to waltz in the air — because of equipment failure, officials said. The plane, which the pilots astonishingly managed to land safely, was being flown to a repair shop and was not carrying passengers.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 21, 2011
Traditional British weather was unable to dampen the spirits of 18,000 revellers who thronged Stonehenge at dawn today to celebrate the summer solstice.
Source: BBC
Jun 21, 2011
The remains of a Roman bath complex have been uncovered in York.
The baths, which date from the second and third centuries AD, were discovered during construction of a new council headquarters building.
The edge of the complex was first discovered in the 1840s when the original railway station in the city was built on the site.
This is the first time archaeologists have been able to investigate the site since the 19th Century.
Chief archaeologist, Nick Pearson from On Site Archaeology, said the discovery was very signif
Source: BBC
Jun 21, 2011
Russia and other parts of the former USSR commemorate one of the darkest days of their history on Wednesday, the 70th anniversary of Hitler's invasion.It has long been known that Stalin received warnings of an impending attack, prompting one of the great questions of military history: why were Soviet forces, despite their impressive numbers, so ill-prepared to withstand the Nazi blitzkrieg?
