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
Apr 6, 2011
Growing up in the tiny town of Ephrata, Wash., Tom Washington and his older brother Nat, blood relatives of George (yes, that George) were surrounded by family lore. There were more tangible connections as well: family papers going back to 1662, tools George Washington used in his early years as a surveyor, even bits of his coffin. Now, after generations of safekeeping, the family is selling its treasures at auction starting Thursday, creating a buzz of excitement among Americana experts.
Source: NYT
Apr 6, 2011
LOS ANGELES — This was once a place for the famous, or at least those who wanted to be. There were ballroom dances and Champagne toasts, a welcoming place for the star-struck ladies who lunch.
But those glory days were a long time ago.
Now, the glamour of the Woman’s Club of Hollywood has been replaced by squabbles and lawsuits. The membership has dwindled and some members say the club has been subject to a hostile takeover by a couple of women who, under the guise of
Source: AP
Apr 6, 2011
Human remains that could be 7,000 years old have been found by sewer construction workers on the southeast side of Des Moines.
The remains were discovered in January.
They were found near a site where scientists think people harvested, cooked and ate clams thousands of years ago.
State archaeologist John Doershuk (DOHR'-shuhk) told The Des Moines Register that it's "a rather unique site, not only in Iowa but in the Midwest."
The site'
Source: BBC News
Apr 6, 2011
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is hoping to use social media and web technology to trace more than 1,000 children who survived World War II but became separated from their families in its aftermath. Photographs taken at the time by aid workers at refugee centres are the only record of the children's identities - and their fate remains a mystery.
Many of the children in the pictures, who are both Jewish and non-Jewish, are infants, too young to remember the war that disp
Source: BBC News
Apr 6, 2011
Researchers will attempt to identify the woman who sat for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, by digging up the remains of an Italian noblewoman.
Art historian Silvano Vinceti believes that by locating the remains of Lisa Gherardini, he can prove whether or not she was the artist's model.
A recently discovered death certificate suggests she died in 1542 and is interred in a convent in Florence.
The excavation will begin at Saint Orsola later this month.
Source: Huntsville Times
Apr 5, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Former Gov. George Wallace loomed large Monday in a federal trial over Alabama's property tax system.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs sought to show that Wallace's mix of power and racist politics helped create a property tax system that leaves Alabama schools underfunded, particularly poor, largely black schools.
Lawyers for the State of Alabama, the defendant in the case, cited Wallace's diminishing power in his second term as governor and his even
Source: Guardian (UK)
Apr 5, 2011
The novel prompted one of the most famous heterosexual sex scenes in film history, with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr clasping each other passionately on a beach amid the foaming waves. But an uncensored text of James Jones's 1951 novel From Here to Eternity has revealed that the author originally intended to include frank references to homosexuality considered too scandalous to be published at the time....
From Here to Eternity is the story of first sergeant Milt Warden, who has
Source: The Leamington Observer
Apr 5, 2011
Warwickshire's earliest known African resident, believed to have been living in Stratford some 1,700 years ago, has sparked
the interest of boffins over the possible impact on British and European DNA.
Earlier this year Warwickshire County Council’s Archaeology Warwickshire team revealed the skeleton of the African man had been found in a Roman cemetery in Tiddington, which revealed people of African descent had been living in the county for far longer than previously t
Source: The Four Shires (UK)
Apr 5, 2011
Archaeologists will be delving into layers of Tudor soil untouched for 400 years as they resume the 'Dig for Shakespeare' on the site of the playwright’s last home at New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon. For the next seven months, visitors to Nash’s House and New Place will be able to watch the team of archaeologists and volunteers as they dig deeper every day into the mysteries of Shakespeare’s later years.
The live archaeological project will explore foundations and other remains thought to
Source: NY Times
Apr 5, 2011
An archaeologist digging in the rubble of a distant past counts on the conqueror’s havoc, nature’s upheavals and plain human negligence to have left legacies of unintended value — like a fragment of a clay tablet bearing archaic writing from an early period of state formation in Greece, more than 3,400 years ago.
Had it not been for some inadvertence, the tablet would almost certainly have disintegrated in the rain in a year or two and scattered with the wind as so much illiterate d
Source: Ahram online (Egypt)
Apr 5, 2011
A storehouse of Coptic, Islamic and some ancient Egyptian artefacts was raided on the American University in Cairo’s (AUC) campus, beneath Ewart Hall at the end of March.
An inventory was carried out by the ministry of state of antiquities affairs immediately after the discovery, which reveals that a total of 145 authentic pieces and 50 replicas are missing, Egyptian Minister for Antiquities Affairs, Zahi Hawass tells Ahram Online.
“AUC is deeply disturbed by what appea
Source: Guardian (UK)
Apr 5, 2011
If you want to wind up a Pole of a certain age, there is no more reliable means than quoting the old myth about Polish lancers charging at German panzer divisions in the second world war.
The story feeds a stereotype about Polish men being hopelessly romantic, hopelessly moustachioed idiots who would actually gallop their horses at big steel tanks.
Even this newspaper fell into the trap less than two years ago, when a columnist described the mythical charge as "the
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Apr 5, 2011
Chilling confessions of PoWs captured by the British have laid bare the brutality and excesses of ‘ordinary’ German soldiers in the Second World War.
A book of transcripts to be published in Germany next week reveals how the honour of its old army was lost amid the frenzy to be ‘perfect, pitiless Nazis’.
In the interrogation transcripts, the German soldiers speak of the ‘fun’ and ‘pure enjoyment’ of massacring innocent civilians and enemy troops.
Historians
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 5, 2011
Britain is responsible for many of the world’s historic problems, including the conflict in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, David Cameron has said.
The Prime Minister appeared to distance himself from the imperial past when he suggested that Britain was to blame for decades of tension and several wars over the disputed territory, as well as other global conflicts.
His remarks came on a visit to Pakistan, when he was asked how Britain could help to end the row over K
Source: CBS News (video)
Apr 5, 2011
It's been 46 years since Malcolm X was gunned down in New York. The details were always murky. As CBS News national correspondent Jim Axelrod reports, a new biography of the controversial activist shines a new light on his murder and has sparked a new call for justice.
"Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," the new book by Columbia University professor Manning Marable, outlines why the investigation should be reopened. Marable died last week, just before publication.
Source: BBC
Apr 5, 2011
It is hoped a 1,700-year-old African skeleton unearthed in Warwickshire could provide data about the DNA history of later populations and the ethnic origin of modern Britons.
The male skeleton, thought to be of a Roman soldier, was found earlier this year in a Roman cemetery in Stratford.
Discovered by Archaeology Warwickshire, the skeleton is thought to belong to the county's earliest known African.
Further tests aim to determine the man's place of birth..
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 5, 2011
Thousands of documents detailing Britain’s involvement in the bloody Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya have been unearthed ahead of a High Court case this week.
The 300 boxes of documents were unearthed after four elderly Kenyans took steps earlier this year to sue the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), claiming they were tortured between 1952 and 1960.
A judge ordered the Foreign Office to produce all relevant evidence.
The 1500 files held by the National Ar
Source: Telgraph (UK)
Apr 5, 2011
Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, returned to orbit today as a Russian rocket emblazoned with his image blasted off to join the international space station.
A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off in pre-dawn darkness in the craft which had been specially painted in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's historic flight.
As the rocket launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome as scheduled at 4:18 am it turned the darkness into broad daylight for
Source: BBC
Apr 5, 2011
Part of a tall ship built in Aberdeen in 1877 is on board the International Space Station.
Elissa, which became the official tall ship of Texas, was built 134 years ago by Alexander Hall and Co.
Volunteers at the Galveston Historical Foundation in Texas asked astronaut Catherine Coleman, a friend of theirs, to take the memento - some deck - into space.
Aberdeen Maritime Museum said it was "special" to have an Aberdeen-built ship in space....
Source: BBC
Apr 5, 2011
Libya's former foreign minister is a "sick and old" man who has no secrets about the Lockerbie bombing, Colonel Gaddafi's son has told the BBC.
In an interview with John Simpson, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said Moussa Koussa left Libya to ensure he could continue treatment at a private London hospital.
Prosecutors investigating the Lockerbie bombing said they were hoping to meet Mr Koussa "in the next few days".
They believe he has informati
