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 7, 2011
On the day when much of the world was marking Christmas, I traveled with friends to a remote location deep in the Eastern desert in Egypt. Nestled in an oasis within the Red Sea Mountains is one of the world's oldest inhabited monasteries: The Coptic Orthodox St. Anthony's Monastery.
Festivities here were still some ways off; Christmas in the Eastern Orthodox tradition falls 13 days after the western one.
The founders of this monastery were disciples of St. Anthony the
Source: National Parks Traveler
Jan 7, 2011
The history of any national park includes stories of people, places and even empires that predate the parks themselves. Virgin Islands National Park's history involves international politics from centuries past, and a trip to the Spanish archives by the park historian yielded some important new insights.
Thanks to funds provided by the Friends of Virgin Islands National Park, Park Historian Milagro Flores traveled to Spain last summer to conduct research and compile documentation fr
Source: AP
Jan 7, 2011
Germany's Nazi government was so angry about a dog trained to imitate Hitler that it started an obsessive campaign against its Finnish owner, according to newly discovered documents.
In the middle of World War II, the Foreign Office in Berlin commanded its diplomats in the Nazi-friendly Nordic country to gather evidence on the dog, and even came up with plans to destroy the pharmaceutical wholesale company of the dog's owner.
Historians had not been aware of the strange
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 7, 2011
The family of a student who was murdered close to where Joanna Yeates was strangled said they believe both women could have been victims of the same killer.
Detectives are investigating the possibility that Miss Yeates’s killer could also have throttled Glenis Carruthers, 20, who was murdered in 1974 after leaving a party just 350 yards from where Miss Yeates lived.
A cold case review team set up last year to reinvestigate Miss Carruthers’ murder is liaising closely wit
Source: BBC News
Jan 7, 2011
Vang Pao, the former general and leader of his Hmong ethnic group in Laos, has died in exile in the US, aged 81.
He had been in hospital for about 10 days before his death late on Thursday.
As a young man, he had fought against the Japanese during World War II, and with the French against the North Vietnamese in the 1950s.
He led a 15-year CIA-sponsored secret war in Laos during the Vietnam War and, when it was lost, led tens of thousands of his people into
Source: CNN.com
Jan 6, 2011
(CNN) -- The isolated kingdom of Bhutan has opened its doors to a team of art experts in order to preserve its Buddhist history.
Working for the first time in collaboration with Bhutan's Department of Culture, conservators from The Courtauld Institute of Art in England have spent the last three years documenting some of the reclusive kingdom's most precious wall paintings.
According to Lisa Shekede, leader of the project, the wall paintings date from around the 17th cen
Source: Discovery News
Jan 6, 2011
Humans began to wear clothing 170,000 years ago, concludes a new study that suggests our ancestors first put on clothes after the second-to-last Ice Age, when being nude must have been too cool for comfort.
The evidence comes from seemingly very unfashionable lice, since scientists tracked when head lice evolved into clothing/body lice around 170,000 years ago. So lice have been with us since the world's first clothes were made.
The study, published in this month's Mole
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jan 6, 2011
Jews living near the German capital Berlin are being warned not to wear items of clothing that identify their religion as fears of neo-Nazi attacks rise.
Sixty five years after the end of World War Two and the Holocaust, a leading rabbi in the state of Brandenburg is urging Jews not to wear yarmulkes (skullcaps), traditional long coats, hats or other 'identifying symbols'.
Brandenburg, the state which surrounds Berlin, is a hotbed of neo-Nazi activity and its new chief
Source: Yahoo News
Jan 6, 2011
After a seven-month retirement, Helen Thomas has a new journalism gig: columnist for the Falls Church News-Press in Virginia, as the ARLnow blog in Arlington, Va., reports.
The 90-year-old retired from Hearst newspapers in June after a media uproar over controversial comments she made about Israel. That move sent shock waves through the press corps and left White House reporters scrambling to see who'd get Thomas' front-row seat in the briefing room....
Source: National Parks Traveler
Jan 6, 2011
During 2011-2015, the Civil War will be commemorated with special events in more than 70 Civil War-related national parks. This month's schedule includes highlighted events in four different parks.A Great Opportunity
The National Park System's large complement of Civil War-related sites and related human and cultural resources ensure that the National Park Service and its partners will have a prominent role to play in the Civil War sesquicentennial comme
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Jan 6, 2011
To residents of Hobart, the capital of Australia’s island state of Tasmania, a grassy flood plain bordering the Jordan River, was nothing special until archaeologists uncovered a treasure-trove: an estimated 3 million artifacts dating back 40,000 years.
The spot had been an important meeting place for Aboriginal tribes, and the tools, stones, and spear tips found there represent the oldest evidence of human habitation in the Southern Hemisphere.
But the Tasmanian govern
Source: Zahi Hawass (Personal Site)
Jan 6, 2011
Since 1880 a beautiful obelisk commemorating King Thutmose III has stood in Central Park in New York City. This obelisk is one of a pair - the other one currently stands in Westminster in London.
The Central Park obelisk of Thutmose III. (Photo: Richard Paschael and Dorothy McCarthy)
It has recently been brought to my attention that this incredibly valuable monument has been severely weathered over the past century and that no efforts have been made to conserve it. Because on
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 6, 2011
With the Monte Carlo rally just around the corner Simon Arron explains how you can relive the event's glory days thanks to the Rallye Monte Carlo Historique.
If you were introduced to rallying during the recent past, you might struggle to spot a link between the modern version of the sport and its forebear.
Today, Britain's world championship round runs over a weekend in Cardiff. Its predecessor lasted five days and covered much of the UK. Damaged cars were not refettle
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jan 6, 2011
Archaeologists hail oldest wooden structure ever found on river, despite security services' armed response to researchers.
When MI6 set up home on the banks of the Thames one secret escaped its watchful eyes. The oldest wooden structure ever found on the river, timbers almost 7,000 years old, have been discovered buried in the silt below the windows of the security services' ziggurat headquarters at Vauxhall, south London.
The archaeologists who uncovered the six hefty
Source: BBC
Jan 6, 2011
Republicans have opened the second day of their rule in the House of Representatives with a full reading of the US Constitution, the first time the entire document has been read aloud in Congress.
The reading was prompted in part by Tea Party activists concerned that the document has been somewhat sidelined.
Representatives from both parties took turns reading different sections.
It is both the shortest and oldest constitution of any of the world's major
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 6, 2011
The mystery over the murder of a former defence official in the George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations has deepened after CCTV footage emerged showing him wandering around a car park wearing one shoe.
Surveillance video, filmed in the car park of a nearby office block two nights before his death, shows John Wheeler stumbling around, holding one of his shoes, and telling an attendant he was not drunk.
Mr Wheeler, a 66-year-old defence contractor and ex-Pentag
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 6, 2011
China is to rebuild Burma's historic 'Stilwell Road', the route from India used by British and American forces to supply Chinese troops in the battle against Japanese occupation during the Second World War.
The road was named after American General 'Vinegar Joe' Stilwell by nationalist China leader Chiang Kai-shek to honour his determination to find a faster way to get more military supplies from India to Chinese troops in Kunming.
Allied forces had been hampered afte
Source: CNN
Jan 6, 2011
The isolated kingdom of Bhutan has opened its doors to a team of art experts in order to preserve its Buddhist history.
Working for the first time in collaboration with Bhutan's Department of Culture, conservators from The Courtauld Institute of Art in England have spent the last three years documenting some of the reclusive kingdom's most precious wall paintings.
According to Lisa Shekede, leader of the project, the wall paintings date from around the 17th century and
Source: Polskie Radio (Poland)
Jan 6, 2011
Roman legionary quarters have been discovered on the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea by Polish archeologists.
A team of Polish archeologists supervised by Radoslaw Karasiewicz-Szczypiorski
from the Archeology Institute at the University of Warsaw have discovered a house of a Roman legionary consisting of several spacious rooms in Balaklava in the Crimea.
“The discovery suggests that there must have been a Roman fort here. We aren’t sure yet how big it was and
Source: National Parks Traveler
Jan 6, 2011
During 2011-2015, the Civil War will be commemorated with special events in more than 70 Civil War-related national parks. This month's schedule includes highlighted events in four different parks.
A Great Opportunity
The National Park System's large complement of Civil War-related sites and related human and cultural resources ensure that the National Park Service and its partners will have a prominent role to play in the Civil War sesquicentennial commemoration that g
