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: National Parks Traveler
Feb 6, 2011
Although it may seem to be just for show, that distinctive pinch in the crown of the national park ranger's iconic hat actually originated as a practical solution to a significant problem.
The broad-brimmed, high-crowned hat that national park rangers wear with their class A uniform was first specified as National Park Service apparel in the agency's 1920 uniform regulations. Since this was only four years after Congress created the National Park Service, the hat that rangers call t
Source: CNN
Feb 5, 2011
Prehistoric paintings of antelope, snakes and giraffes that have survived for around 5,000 years are now under threat from looting and a lack of protection.
The rock paintings, which include renderings of dogs and sheep as well as human figures, were discovered at Dhambalin, in a unique sandstone shelter close to the Red Sea in Somaliland, a breakaway state from war-torn Somalia.
They were found by Dr. Sada Mire in 2007, in what she says was first ever survey initiated
Source: BBC
Feb 5, 2011
Birds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation.
The finding comes from a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region, published in the journal PLoS One.
Brain size was significantly smaller in yearlings compared with older birds.
Smaller brain sizes are thought to be linked to reduced cognitive ability.
The discovery
Source: BBC Earth News
Feb 5, 2011
Birds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation.
The finding comes from a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region, published in the journal PLoS One.
Brain size was significantly smaller in yearlings compared with older birds.
Smaller brain sizes are thought to be linked to reduced cognitive ability.
The discovery
Source: NYT
Feb 5, 2011
BAGHDAD — As hundreds of thousands in Egypt protested the iron rule of that country’s president, Iraq quietly began restoring a bronze fist of its former dictator, Saddam Hussein.
Without public announcement or debate, the authorities here ordered the reconstruction of one of the most audacious symbols in Baghdad of Mr. Hussein’s long, violent and oppressive rule: the Victory Arch, two enormous sets of crossed swords, clutched in hands modeled after his very own.
“Nure
Source: Pew Research Center
Feb 4, 2011
Americans like the idea of their government promoting democracy in other nations. But democracy promotion has historically lagged far behind other objectives among the public's long-term foreign policy goals.
In the most recent "America's Place in the World" survey, conducted in November 2009, just 21% said promoting democracy abroad should be a top long-range priority for U.S. foreign policy. Democracy promotion ranked last on a list of 11 long-term foreign policy objecti
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 4, 2011
When Katherine of Aragon made her entry into London, two days before her marriage to Prince Arthur, heir to the throne, she visited St Paul's and made an offering there at the shrine of St Erkenwald. It is a detail I was struck by in Giles Tremlett's splendid new biography of Henry VIII's eventual queen.
The wedding of Henry's doomed brother Arthur to Katherine took place on November 14, 1501, the saint's feast day, or rather the feast of the translation of his relics to their magni
Source: AFP
Feb 4, 2011
BRUSSELS — Top Nazi Martin Bormann, who German authorities say died in 1945, escaped Berlin and lived in Latin America disguised as a priest, a former Belgian collaborator said in an interview published Saturday.
Paul van Aerschodt, 88, who was sentenced to death in Belgium in 1946 but broke out of prison before his execution and now lives in Spain, told the Derniere Heure newspaper he had met Bormann four times in La Paz, Bolivia, around 1960.
"Bormann had come fr
Source: WXVT (MS)
Feb 4, 2011
VICKSBURG, Miss. (AP) - Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker have again proposed expanding the Vicksburg National Military Park to add the battlefields of Champion Hill, Port Gibson and Raymond.
The bill was filed in Congress this week by the Republican senators. A similar bill was filed last year....
Source: Daily Times (Delaware County, PA)
Feb 4, 2011
Acclaimed historian Shelby Foote insisted that any true understanding of American history, and thus of America, must be rooted in an understanding of the Civil War.
For Foote and scores of history buffs, often it was the power of pictures that helped trigger their curiosity. Soldiers marching up against a shower of shot and shell, seeing men mowed down by the dozens. After staring at those Civil War pictures for hours, the historians had to uncover the stories behind them.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Feb 4, 2011
Human remains from Stonehenge and other ancient settlements will be reburied and lost to science under legislation that threatens to cripple research into the history of humans in Britain, a group of leading archaeologists says today.
In a letter addressed to the justice secretary, Ken Clarke, and printed in the Guardian today, 40 archaeology professors write of their "deep and widespread concern" about the issue.
The dispute centres on legislation introduced
Source: AFP
Feb 4, 2011
Archaeologists voiced deepening concern on Thursday after fresh street battles erupted around Cairo's Egyptian Museum housing the gold sarcophagus of King Tutankhamun and other priceless relics.
Websites and chat-rooms buzzed with anxiety after a break-in last Friday that left a number of glass cabinets smashed and precious objects damaged, including two mummies.
There were also accounts of pilfering at an antiquities storage depot at Qantara and anecdotal reports of to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 4, 2011
Guy Walters, author of <em>Hunting Evil</em> and <em>Berlin Games</em> and a PhD student at Newcastle University, has crafted a Valentine's Day history quiz that offers as a prize £150 of red roses for delivery in the UK.
The competition ends 10:00 am GMT on February 10. For more information, click on the link above.
Source: Southern Maryland Online
Feb 3, 2011
ANNAPOLIS (February 3, 2011) — An effort to replace the statue of a Revolutionary War-era Maryland politician with a Civil War-era former slave is sparking debate about whose contributions to history are more important.
The women's caucus and the Legislative Black Caucus are both supporting legislation to have Harriet Tubman replace a statue of John Hanson, a Charles County planter and the first president of the Continental Congress, but they're running into opposition from Sen. Pre
Source: Live Science
Feb 3, 2011
Before dog was man's best friend, we might have kept foxes as pets, even bringing them with us into our graves, scientists now say.
This discovery, made in a prehistoric cemetery in the Middle East, could shed light on the nature and timing of newly developing relationships between people and beasts before animals were first domesticated. It also hints that key aspects of ancient practices surrounding death might have originated earlier than before thought.
The ancient
Source: The Art Newspaper
Feb 3, 2011
WASHINGTON, DC. 150 years ago this month, seven Southern states seceded from the Union, igniting the American Civil War. A defining event in US history, it lasted four years, claimed nearly a million lives, and led to the abolition of slavery. Yet despite its impact even today, there is no major art exhibition planned in the US in 2011.
It was a different story for the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in 2009. Congress created a special commission to plan the nation’s co
Source: Live Science
Feb 3, 2011
Rumors that the Egyptian Museum in Cairo caught fire yesterday (Feb. 2) were just that, according to Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, on his blog today.
Al Jazeera reports suggested the monuments of Saqqara -- a large burial ground of Ancient Egypt referred to as the "City of the Dead" -- had been damaged and that items were stolen, Hawass wrote. "This is not true."
In fact, while the break-in at the Egyptian Mu
Source: BBC
Feb 3, 2011
Police investigating the sale of memorabilia bearing fake signatures of Winston Churchill have arrested a man in Hampshire.
The 65-year-old from Lymington was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service's Art and Antiques Unit earlier.
He is being held at Lyndhurst Police Station on suspicion of fraud by misrepresentation.
Officers also seized calligraphy pens, ink and about 30 books....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 3, 2011
Archaeologists at James Madison's country estate say they have unearthed fragments of a chess set they think Madison used in matches against another former president, Thomas Jefferson.
Archaeologists recently discovered fragments of two pawns during an excavation at the Orange County estate of the fourth US president and architect of the Bill of Rights. They initially mistook the quarter-inch diameter tops for sewing bobbins, but subsequently determined they were fragments of chess
Source: BBC
Feb 3, 2011
Researching your family tree can only go back so far in time before records become patchy.
Now genealogists from the University of Leicester are using DNA tests to trace Manx ancestry back to the Viking era.
Local men with popular Manx surnames are being asked to give a DNA sample to help researchers explore the links between Y chromosomes, surnames and common ancestry.
The investigation starts on Saturday, 19 February 2011 at the Manx Museum....
