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: The Times of India
Mar 21, 2011
Very few of us know that 99 years back, an archaeological excavation was conducted at Patna to establish the existence of ancient Pataliputra. It's a coincidence that today Bihar is also celebrating 99 years of its foundation.
In 1912, Ratan Tata of Bombay made an offer to the Government of India to conduct archaeological excavations at his own expense. On the advice of the director general of archaeology, the site of Pataliputra near Patna was selected and work began there during
Source: BBC
Mar 21, 2011
Beavers are to be re-introduced to the Welsh countryside for the first time in at least 900 years.
Ceredigion-based Wales Wild Land Foundation will create an enclosed habitat for a pair of European beavers at Artist's Valley, near Machynlleth.
Beavers lived in Wales until the 12th Century and the rest of Britain until the 16th Century but were hunted to extinction.
Gerald of Wales reported in 1188 that by then the river Teifi was its only habitat in Wales.
Source: BBC
Mar 21, 2011
He is the new chaplain of the Titanic Quarter. His parish is forever linked with a name that is an international by-word for catastrophe.
But Church of Ireland minister Chris Bennett's enthusiasm is unsinkable.
His parish is a building site on the edges of east Belfast - one of Europe's biggest water regenerations projects.
It is the place where the great ship was built and launched, only to hit an iceberg and sink on her maiden voyage on 15 April 1912 with
Source: Media Matters (liberal media watchdog group)
Mar 21, 2011
Glenn Beck mocked AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka for saying that Dr. Martin Luther King lost his life while fighting for the rights of public union workers. In fact, King was shot while in Memphis to support striking municipal workers, and in his eulogy honoring King, Benjamin Mays -- King's mentor and friend -- spoke of King's dedication to "fighting to get a just wage" for workers.
Source: NYT
Mar 21, 2011
Morton Sobell, who was convicted with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951 in an espionage conspiracy case and finally admitted nearly six decades later that he had been a Soviet spy, now says he helped copy hundreds of pages of secret Air Force documents stolen from a Columbia University professor’s safe in 1948.
According to an article by two cold war historians, Ronald Radosh and Steven T. Usdin, in The Weekly Standard, Mr. Sobell, who is 93, said in an interview last December that
Source: Iberosphere
Mar 21, 2011
The ‘División Azul’, a Spanish force that fought alongside the German army against Russia in World War II, has mostly been overlooked by history books and filmmakers. A new book by Jorge Martínez Reverte seeks to redress the balance.
On June 24, 1941, two days after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, General Francisco Franco announced the creation of a Spanish volunteer unit “to fight Bolshevism” that would eventually grow to include some 48,000 troops.
The División
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 21, 2011
Historic homes are already 'green', warn experts, as fears grow that insulation could be damaging old buildings
Home owners are in danger of harming historic buildings to make them more ‘green’ because of failure to understand how traditional building techniques already make houses energy efficient.
All homes now have to display an 'Energy Performance Certificate’ to show how energy efficient the building is before it can be rented out or sold.
However the Societ
Source: AP
Mar 21, 2011
For Andrew Carroll and Thomas Smith, two North Texas sixth-graders, the adventure began when they found a bone while exploring a creek southeast of Sherman.
"We all got excited because I knew it was too big to be a cow bone, so we knew it was a dinosaur bone," Andrew said of himself and his Pottsboro Middle School classmate.
What it was, once the Dallas Paleontological Society investigated. The bone was a pelvis of a Columbian mammoth, one of the two largest s
Source: Fox News
Mar 21, 2011
One issue and two words comprised the debate at Philadelphia's Constitutional Convention on August 17, 1787.
The Founders struggled with whether they should grant war authority to the legislature or the executive. And the Founders also wrestled with what verb they should use when entering into war: "make" or "declare."
Charles Pinckney of South Carolina worried about vesting war power with the legislature. Pinckney argued that legislative proceedings
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Mar 20, 2011
The final words of doomed Russian cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, were picked up by U.S. intelligence, according to a new book.
As Komarov hurtled towards earth and certain death in the stricken Soyuz 1 craft, he could be heard screaming and cursing the 'people who had put him inside a botched spaceship.'
U.S. National Security Analyst, identified in the book as Perry Fellwock, described intercepting Komarov's conversation with ground control officers in which he told them
Source: NYT
Mar 20, 2011
Henry James condemned it a century ago as a “primal topographic curse.” Rem Koolhaas, the architect and urbanist, countered that its two-dimensional form created “undreamed-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy.” More recently, two historians described its map, regardless of its flaws, as “the single most important document in New York City’s development.”
Two hundred years ago on Tuesday, the city’s street commissioners certified the no-frills street matrix that heralded New Yor
Source: NYT
Mar 20, 2011
John Randel Jr., the secretary, surveyor and chief engineer for New York City’s street commissioners, was hardly the most popular public servant of his day.
Beginning in 1808, Randel and his colleagues were pelted with artichokes and cabbages; arrested by the sheriff for trespassing (and often bailed out by Richard Varick, a former mayor); sued for damages after pruning trees; and attacked by dogs sicced on them by property owners irate at the prospect of streets’ being plowed throu
Source: Polskie Radio (Poland)
Mar 20, 2011
A major stronghold and a Medieval settlement have been discovered by Polish archeologists in Sudan at the start of a three year research project realized by the Prehistory Institute of Poznan University and the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums of Sudan.
The Hosh esh-Sheitan stronghold, or Satan’s Court, is situated in the Nile valley.
“There is no written mention of it and yet it is one of the biggest strongholds in this part of the Nile Valley”, says Po
Source: The Independent
Mar 20, 2011
It was one of the biggest and probably the bloodiest battle ever fought on British soil. Such was its ferocity almost 1 per cent of the English population was wiped out in a single day. Yet mention the Battle of Towton to most people and you would probably get a blank stare.
Next week marks the 550th anniversary of the engagement that changed the course of the Wars of the Roses. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 soldiers took part in the battle in 1461 between the House
Source: PressofAtlanticCity.com
Mar 20, 2011
The last time George Kroll and Jerry Lory saw each other, they were leaving Italy after flying 50 combat missions together.
Kroll was a nose gunner. Lory, a radio operator.
That was 66 years ago.
A fortuitous twist of fate brought the two World War II veterans together for the first time in nearly seven decades on Saturday afternoon, in the lobby of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort.
From July to December of 1944, Kroll and Lory were part of a
Source: The Examiner (MO)
Mar 20, 2011
In his cramped gunnery position behind the tail section of a B-26 Marauder bomber, Raymond Nolt fought Nazi Germany with his .50-caliber machine gun.
During the 13 months and 18 days he spent in the European Theater of War as a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps, Raymond made 66 combat missions over France, Germany and Holland as a tailgunner on the medium-size World War II bomber.
In his apartment at Valley View Residential Center at John Knox Village, the 92-year-old v
Source: BBC
Mar 20, 2011
Scotland's five world heritage sites are to link up in a series of interactive events exploring the theme of cultural identity.
The events will be part of the World Heritage Day celebrations on 18 April.
Edinburgh Old and New Town, New Lanark, Heart of Neolithic Orkney, The Antonine Wall and St Kilda will all participate.
The project is entitled 'Shadows of our Ancestors' and will see special events at each of the five sites.
At the Antonine Wa
Source: BBC
Mar 20, 2011
An experiment has shed light on how Iron Age people communicated from their hilltop homes 2,500 years ago.
About 200 volunteers stood on the summit of 10 hillforts in north Wales, the Wirral and Cheshire, and signalled to each other with torches.
Their aim was to learn if communities used the summits to warn each other.
Saturday night's Hilltop Glow event was rescheduled after December's severe weather.
The ancient sites used were on the Clwydi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 20, 2011
Six Picasso pieces are among a catalogue of hundreds of high value stolen art and previous objects published by Spanish police in the hope of reuniting them with their rightful owners.
The Picasso pieces from 1933 are part of a series called 'Cardinal Sins' and include 'Envy' and 'Avarice'. Each are in a silver frame. They feature alongside an Etruscan period bronze sculpture thought to be around 2,000 years old.
The items were recovered between 2005 to 2010 and jewel
Source: BBC
Mar 19, 2011
Nearly a century ago, Britain was accused of masterminding a failed plot to kill Lenin and overthrow his fledgling Bolshevik regime. The British government dismissed the story as mere Soviet propaganda - but new evidence suggests it might be true.
For decades what became known as the "Lockhart plot" has been etched in the annals of the Soviet archives, taught in schools and even illustrated in films.
Determined to get the Russians back into the war on the All
