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: CBS
Apr 12, 2011
A newly released memo shows that a Boston doctor who examined FDR in 1944 said he did not believe the president was fit to complete a fourth term. Katie Couric reports.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Apr 12, 2011
Darkness had fallen in the remote and beautiful Rift Valley, north of Nairobi, and the white farmer was in his pyjamas ready for bed.
But first he stepped outside his isolated house for his customary evening stroll in the garden with his pregnant wife, before checking the shutters on the windows and doors in case of intruders.
That was when the Mau Mau raiders struck; 30 of them, wielding their sharp pangas or machetes.
Thirty-eight-year-old Roger Ruck and his wi
Source: The Daily Beast
Apr 12, 2011
Going to elementary school in Michigan in the 1980s, Geoffrey Blair learned about the Civil War: a story of Lee vs. Grant, North vs. South. He learned about Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Manassas, and Antietam. And he learned that President Lincoln had freed the slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation. But no one ever told him about the nearly 200,000 black soldiers who fought in the war. “I was never taught that blacks actually had a role in the Civil War,” says Blair. “It wasn’t until I had my fir
Source: WaPo
Apr 12, 2011
The National Archives unveiled a trove of newly found documents in its files Tuesday that were penned by Walt Whitman when the poet worked as a government clerk during and after the Civil War.
Whitman came to Washington from Brooklyn, where he lived, in 1862 after his brother, George, was wounded in the Battle of Fredricksburg. The poet stayed on in the capital after his brother recovered, working part time in the paymaster’s office and visiting wounded soldiers in Washington hospit
Source: AP
Apr 12, 2011
LONDON – In life, Pall Arason sought attention. In death, he is getting it: The 95-year-old Icelander's pickled penis will be the main attraction in one of his country's most bizarre museums.
Sigurdur Hjartarson, who runs the Phallological Museum in the tiny Icelandic fishing town of Husavik, said Arason's organ will help round out the unusual institution's extensive collection of phalluses from whales, seals, bears and other mammals.
Several people had pledged their pe
Source: AP
Apr 12, 2011
RICHMOND, Ky. – The home of anti-slavery newspaper publisher Cassius Marcellus Clay is being designated a Historic Site in Journalism on Tuesday.
The national president of the Society of Professional Journalists will take part in the ceremony in Madison County at White Hall State Historic Site. Also expected to attend are Eastern Kentucky University President Doug Whitlock; Tourism, Arts and Heritage Secretary Marcheta Sparrow; and Parks Commissioner Gerry van der Meer....
Source: LA Times
Apr 12, 2011
On the heels of the Civil War's 150th anniversary come film and TV projects from Robert Redford, Carlton Cuse and others that may take a page from the richer, and darker, narratives being uncovered.
Of course, the war between the North and South over slavery and states' rights has for decades supplied a bottomless well of drama — and potential profit — for storytellers. But the new wave of projects is coming at a time when researchers raised in the post-Vietnam era have revolutioniz
Source: BBC
Apr 12, 2011
The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum has acquired a collection of more than 7,000 items from the Titanic's parent company White Star Line.
It includes serving dishes and soap from the Titanic, as well as passenger lists, tickets, playing cards and a steward's menu ideas.
The collection will form the basis of an exhibition at the museum to mark the centenary of the Titanic's launch.
TITANICa: The Exhibition will be open to the public on 31 May.
Source: BBC
Apr 12, 2011
A file detailing the fuss and the flurry for Queen Victoria's visit to Ireland in 1900 could prove sober reading to those planning her great great granddaughter's trip in May.
An Irish Office of Public Works file which is to be sold at Whytes auctioneers in Dublin on Saturday details a "misplaced" royal yacht and chaotic last-minute preparations.
The papers, published for the first time, are being sold by an Irishman in the United States who inherited them fro
Source: BBC
Apr 12, 2011
A 1938 comic featuring Superman's debut that has been recovered in a storage locker in the US appears to be the copy stolen from Nicolas Cage, police say.
The 47-year-old actor, who accepted an insurance payout after the 2000 theft, said last week's find, in Los Angeles, was "divine providence".
He said he was hopeful the "heirloom", a mint condition copy of Action Comics No 1, would be returned to his family.
In March 2010, a copy of th
Source: CNN
Apr 12, 2011
This week marks the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War, a war that redefined national and regional identities and became an enduring tale of noble resistance in the South and, for the rest of the country, a mighty moral struggle to erase the stain of slavery.
On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces opened fire on the beleaguered Union garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. By April 14, the fort had fallen and the war had begun in earnest.
To see th
Source: CNN
Apr 12, 2011
How did churchgoing, Bible-worshiping Christians justify holding slaves? It’s a question I’ve long had as a Civil War buff and that has new resonance on Tuesday, which marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.
Henry G. Brinton, a pastor at Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia, writes that the Bible was used a weapon by both the North and the South. Brinton says some contemporary Americans are making the same mistake their Civil War ancestors did by twisting the B
Source: CNN
Apr 12, 2011
Sam Lyons' connection to the Civil War came to him last year in a pink gift bag.
Lyons said one of his relatives lived near Gettysburg in the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and picked up the cannon ball a few days after the 1863 battle. It's been in their family ever since.
It's been 150 years since the first shots of the Civil War fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The four-year conflict killed more than 600,000 people and became a pivotal part of American hist
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 12, 2011
The Google doodle has the word "Google" written in an angular, Cyrillic-influenced font, with the two O's replaced by the head of an old-fashioned space suit and a planet with a rocket - like the Vostok 3KA that took Gagarin into space - which blasts off when the mouse moves over it.
Clicking on the image takes users through to a search for "Yuri Gagarin", the top result of which is Gagarin's Wikipedia page.
Gagarin's flight made him a lifelong natio
Source: Discovery News
Apr 11, 2011
Civil War photographers completely changed popular perceptions of modern warfare. We've all seen photographs of the Civil War: black-and-white images of bearded Union generals or mustachioed Confederate colonels posing to one side of the camera, dead bodies stacked on the battlefield or common soldiers around a camp tent. Looking back 150 years to the start of the Civil War this month, what impact did photography have on the war? On the people who lived during the time? What do these images tell us today about the soldiers and their families?
Source: Live Science
Apr 11, 2011
Seventy metal books allegedly discovered in a cave in Jordan have been hailed as the earliest Christian documents. Dating them to mere decades after Jesus' death, scholars have called the "lead codices" the most important discovery in archaeological history, and leading media outlets have added fuel to the fire surrounding the books in recent weeks. "Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history," reported the BBC. [Image]
Source: CNN
Apr 11, 2011
JERUSALEM, Israel (CNN) -- Israel is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Here is some history surrounding the trial and gets reactions to the trial and the anniversary. Gabriel Bach was a young Israeli prosecutor charged with the case of a lifetime. He says, "I'll never forget the first moment of that trail, when these judges came into the court room with the Israeli emblem behind them and that man whose only object in life had became to destroy that people, when he stood up to attention."
Source: WaPo
Apr 11, 2011
Trying to bring a Civil War history lesson to life, teacher Jessica Boyle turned her fourth grade Norfolk classroom into a slave auction: She ordered black and mixed race students to one side of the classroom. Then, the white students took turns buying them.
Parent complaints began rolling in shortly after the April 1 lesson, and the principal at Sewells Point Elementary School, Mary B. Wrushen, wrote to parents last week that Boyle had gone too far.
“The lesson could h
Source: BBC
Apr 11, 2011
The first series of documents have been released by the High Court in the legal challenge by Kenyans for abuses and torture more than 50 years ago.
The documents give further details of what ministers in London knew about how the colony was attempting to crush the rebellion that paved the way to independence.
The papers - the first of more than 17,000 pages - contain reports of British officers implicated in atrocities including the murder of suspected Mau Mau rebels.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 11, 2011
Two of the nails used to crucify Jesus have been dsicovered in a 2,000-year-old tomb, according to a new film.
The film, 'The Nails of the Cross' by Simcha Jacobovici, follows three years of research during which he presents his assertions - some based on empirical data, others requiring much imagination and a leap of faith.
He hails the find as historic, but most experts and scholars dismissed his case as far-fetched, some calling it a publicity stunt.
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