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: CNN
Jan 19, 2011
As history is made every day, history teachers' subject matter is growing with it -- even as the number of classroom hours stays the same.
That ever-expanding content is the crux of the social studies teacher's dilemma: How to cover every topic with limited class time?
When high school teacher David Plonski mentions the 1860s and 1960s, he expects those dates to trigger different ideas in the minds of his students at Tarboro High School in Tarboro, North Carolina.
Source: Wired (UK)
Jan 18, 2011
We try and maintain a laserlike focus on the future at Wired, but sometimes it's worth taking a look back at the innovations of the past. On August 16, 1858, the first message was sent across the Atlantic by telegraph cable, reading "Glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace and good will toward men". The transmission marked the culmination of 19 years of dreams, plans and hard work, bridging the economic and political systems of both the UK and the USA.
The idea of a t
Source: CNN
Jan 18, 2011
Dave Taylor, a Civil War antiques dealer in Sylvania, Ohio, was excited about the possibility of buying a "top-notch," genuine .36-caliber Spiller & Burr revolver that had belonged to a Confederate officer from North Carolina.
A Tennessee woman who inherited the revolver from her late father sent him photos and, eventually, they agreed to a price, he said.
A day before driving down to Knoxville to finish the deal in late November, Taylor said he thumbed th
Source: WaPo
Jan 18, 2011
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- A St. Augustine archaeologist and a team of volunteers believe they've found a piece of colonial history.
A site dug up to make way for a new trolley station has uncovered some interesting finds.
St. Augustine's city archaeologist, Carl Halbirt, says post holes and soil stains at the site indicate it may be one of the area's earliest wooden forts.
Also discovered at the site are intact glass bottles, an ornate candlestick holder, sha
Source: BBC News
Jan 18, 2011
President John F Kennedy would have been delighted to know that his inaugural address is still remembered and admired 50 years later. Like other great communicators - including Winston Churchill before him and Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama since then - he was someone who took word-craft very seriously indeed. Recipe for Success 1. Contrasts 2. Three-part lists 3. Contrasts combined with lists 4. Alliteration 5. Bold imagery
Source: Spiegel Online
Jan 18, 2011
A stained glass window in a small church has caused a sensation in France. Unveiled in 1941, it depicts Adolf Hitler executing a saint who symbolizes the Jewish people. Local priests have praised the work as a brave act of resistance against the Nazi occupiers.
In the popular imagination, the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation of France is associated with heroic acts of guerrilla warfare, such as blowing up bridges or derailing trains. But in one small town near Paris, tw
Source: NYT
Jan 18, 2011
SEATTLE — A suspicious backpack found Monday along the route of a march honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in Spokane, Wash., contained a live bomb that was “likely capable of inflicting multiple casualties,” federal investigators said Tuesday.
The package, found before the morning march, prompted law enforcement to ask march officials to change their route and several businesses to evacuate as investigators sent in bomb-smelling dogs, a robot and specially trained office
Source: ana-mpa (Greece)
Jan 18, 2011
A 60-year-old man has been arrested in Thessaloniki by the security police's antiquities division, charged with violation of the law on protection of antiquities and cultural heritage, after a trove of antiquities were found hidden in a cafe owned by his wife, police announced on Sunday.
The antiquities were discovered, and seized, during an early morning search on Saturday of the cafe premises in the Hortiatis district.
The oldest of the artifacts date back to
Source: AOL News
Jan 18, 2011
They've been extinct for about 10,000 years, but woolly mammoths could be back on Earth in just five years, according to Japanese scientists who plan to use frozen DNA to resurrect the behemoth.
Last summer, researchers plucked skin and muscle tissue from an ancient mammoth's carcass that was found preserved under permafrost in Siberia. A nearly complete body of one of the animals was found there and has since been kept in a special freezer in a Russian research lab.
Re
Source: BBC News
Jan 18, 2011
Polish experts have said that Russian air traffic controllers gave their president's jet poor advice in the moments before it crashed in thick fog.
A Russian report last week blamed pilot error for the April 2010 disaster near Smolensk in which President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others died.
But the Polish panel said the controllers were under pressure and told the pilots they were on course.
A senior investigator said the plane was 80 metres off course.
Source: BBC News
Jan 18, 2011
Sargent Shriver, the first US Peace Corps director, Democratic vice-presidential candidate and brother-in-law to President John F Kennedy, has died.
His son, Anthony Kennedy Shriver, said he had died on Tuesday aged 95 after two days in hospital.
Mr Shriver, who was George McGovern's vice-presidential running mate in 1972, married Eunice Kennedy in 1958.
His son-in-law is former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Mr Shriver also ran Pre
Source: BBC News
Jan 18, 2011
President John F Kennedy would have been delighted to know that his inaugural address is still remembered and admired 50 years later.
Like other great communicators - including Winston Churchill before him and Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama since then - he was someone who took word-craft very seriously indeed.
He had delegated his aide Ted Sorensen to read all the previous presidential inaugurals, with the additional brief of trying to crack the code that had made Abrah
Source: BBC News
Jan 18, 2011
Haiti's former leader Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has been charged with corruption and embezzlement during his 1971-1986 rule, prosecutors say.
Mr Duvalier was allowed to go free after questioning, but a judge will decide whether his case goes to trial.
The ex-leader, who denies wrongdoing, made a surprise return to Haiti on Sunday after 24 years in exile.
He was regarded as a playboy during his time in office, when he used a brutal militia to
Source: BBC
Jan 18, 2011
late 19th Century town-house in central France that was sealed up for more than 100 years has finally been opened to the public in accordance with its owner's last wishes.
Louis Mantin was an aesthete and gentleman of leisure who bequeathed his opulent home to the town of Moulins on condition that a century later it be a museum.
After he died in 1905, the mansion was closed up and fell into dilapidation. Now thanks to a 3.5m euro ($4.7m; £2.9m) refit funded by local au
Source: BBC
Jan 18, 2011
Ancient sculptures from China which have never been seen outside of the country are set to go on display in Wales.
The ancient rock carvings from Dazu, China, will be exhibited at National Museum Cardiff from the end of January.
The carvings come from the Dazu World Heritage site and date back to the middle of the 7th Century.
The free exhibition will contain examples of the carvings that have become detached from their original setting, along with accurate
Source: CHE
Jan 18, 2011
Rutgers University at New Brunswick has returned a Renaissance painting to the heirs of a Dutch couple who tried to trade the artwork and six others for safe passage out of Nazi-occupied Europe but instead were shipped to death camps, where they died....
Source: BBC
Jan 18, 2011
A businessman has been accused of making a corrupt payment to Saddam Hussein's regime for a "shady deal".
Southwark Crown Court heard millionaire David Mabey inflated the price of a bridge building project so the Iraqi government would receive a "kickback" of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Peter Blair QC said Mr Mabey and ex-colleague Richard Forsyth, 62, from Hampshire, bypassed UN sanctions.
Mr Mabey, 49, from Berkshire, and Mr Forsy
Source: BBC
Jan 18, 2011
What do you do with a nasty old Nazi? Let him stew in exile in South America or use him for the value he might still have?
The latter is what the secret services of post-war West Germany chose to do, according to Spiegel magazine.
The normally reliable news magazine reports that Klaus Barbie became an agent of the West German foreign intelligence agency when he was apparently in hiding in South America.
It has seen documents of the Bundesnachrichtendienst
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 18, 2011
Barack Obama will on Wednesday grant Hu Jintao, the president of China, the honour of a White House state dinner, in marked contrast to his previous visit to the US when George W Bush offered him only lunch.
Mr Obama will be hoping for an evening free of controversy as he returns the hospitality he was shown at a state dinner in Beijing on a visit in November 2009.
That trip proved awkward however, with Beijing making it clear it was either unwilling or unable to play
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 18, 2011
The world has a lot to thank Edward Jenner for. The English scientist is credited with discovering the smallpox vaccine, then the first in the world.
As a 13-year-old, he observed that farm hands and milkmaids who contracted the less severe cowpox from cows were not afflicted during outbreaks of smallpox.
In 1796, as a young trained doctor, he took the fluid from a cowpox pustule on a sufferer's hand and inoculated an eight-year-old boy. The boy was then exposed to sma
