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: Reuters
Dec 13, 2010
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Archeologists who have uncovered the ruins of an important colonial site in New Jersey's capital Trenton will have to rebury them soon because the state doesn't have the money to finish the project.
Petty's Run, an iron and steel forge dating from about 1730, has yielded fragments of guns and pottery, cups, coins and other items from before and after the American Revolution, during a year-long dig next to the State House.
With the artifacts remo
Source: Third Age
Dec 13, 2010
A Xian pot of soup from 2,400 years ago was found in a tomb. The 2,400 year old bronze vessel was found near the capital of Xian. Archaeologists also believe they found a container of wine.
"It's the first discovery of bone soup in Chinese archaeological history," the Global Times quoted Liu Daiyun of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology as saying.
"The discovery will play an important role in studying the eating habits and culture of the W
Source: Yahoo News
Dec 13, 2010
WASHINGTON – America's neighborhoods became more integrated last year than during any time in at least a century, says a broad array of census data released Tuesday on the impact of race and economics.
Segregation among blacks and whites fell in roughly three-fourths of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas as the two racial groups spread more evenly between inner cities and suburbs. Still, ethnic segregation in many parts of the U.S. persisted, particularly for Hispanics.
Source: Army.mil
Dec 13, 2010
PHILADELPHIA (Army News Service, Dec. 13, 2010) -- Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and Army Historical Foundation Executive Director Retired Brig. Gen. Creighton W. Abrams Jr. unveiled designs for three 2011 Army Commemorative Coins during the 111th Army-Navy football classic Dec. 11, at Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field.
"The designs for the 2011 U.S. Army Commemorative Coins unveiled today celebrate our magnificent Army's storied history and heritage and sig
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Dec 13, 2010
To the untrained eye, the rough-looking tract on the south side of the Statehouse in Trenton looks like an ordinary construction site.
To archaeologists and historians, it's a rare treasure. Deep in the earth are the remains of what may be the only colonial-era steel mill excavated in North America.
Two Philadelphians - Timothy Matlack and Owen Biddle - once made steel at the so-called Petty's Run site, demonstrating an independent streak that dismayed England. The Brit
Source: BBC News
Dec 13, 2010
Seventy years after the Battle of Britain, the BBC has retraced the story of a little known amateur RAF squadron formed in a London gentlemen's club and composed of aristocrats and adventurers. But their privileged upbringing did not shield them from the brutal realities of war.
Born into high society in 1914, William Henry Rhodes-Moorhouse was determined to follow a family passion for flying.
His father had built and designed planes and flown in World War I, becoming t
Source: BBC News
Dec 13, 2010
The remains of the Roman town of Pompeii destroyed by a volcanic eruption in AD79 continue to provide intriguing and unexpected insights into Roman life - from diet and health care to the gap between rich and poor.
The basement storeroom under a large agricultural depot in the little suburb of Oplontis was full of pomegranates. To many of the Pompeiians trying to find shelter from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, it must have seemed strong and safe.
About 50 people took
Source: WaPo
Dec 13, 2010
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. -- An image of President Ronald Reagan graces the U.S. Postal Service's newest 44-cent stamp.
Former first lady Nancy Reagan helped unveil the design of the Ronald Reagan Centennial postage stamp during a ceremony Monday at the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif....
Source: NYT
Dec 13, 2010
Men who grew up in the St. Louis area in the early 1960s and died of cancer by middle age had more than twice as much radioactive strontium in their baby teeth as men born in the same area at the same time who are still living, according to a study based on teeth collected years ago by Washington University in St. Louis.
The study, published on Dec. 1 in The International Journal of Health Services, analyzed baby teeth collected during the era when the United States and the Soviet U
Source: NYT
Dec 13, 2010
POMPEII, Italy — Is Pompeii crumbling?
So it would seem, judging from the media maelstrom about several recent collapses at the ancient ruins here, including that of the Schola Armaturarum, a spacious hall used by a military association before it was engulfed with the rest of the city by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79....
The collapses at Pompeii have become a metaphor for Italy’s political instability and its inability to care for its cultural heritage. The
Source: BBC
Dec 13, 2010
Historic Scotland has issued a list of the most important battle sites located around the country.
The first phase of the Inventory of Historic Battlefields contains a total of 17 different locations.
It includes sites in the Borders, Aberdeenshire, the Highlands, North Lanarkshire, Stirling and East Lothian.
The inventory aims to highlight the historic significance of the areas to planning authorities making decisions which could affect their landscape.
Source: Fox News
Dec 13, 2010
A town in southern Colorado, which was founded by Hispanics 150 years ago and today no longer exists, offers some timeless lessons about cultural and technological conflicts, according to historian Virginia Sanchez.
In October 1862, eight families from northern New Mexico crossed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and founded the city of Cuchara in the southern part of Colorado, where they lived by farming and raising sheep.
But the arrival of the railroad a decade later an
Source: BBC
Dec 13, 2010
The remains of the Roman town of Pompeii destroyed by a volcanic eruption in AD79 continue to provide intriguing and unexpected insights into Roman life - from diet and health care to the gap between rich and poor.
The skeletons of a pair of twins show what were almost certainly the signs of congenital syphilis. If that is correct, then it puts paid to the usual idea that the disease was brought back to Europe from the New World by Christopher Columbus and his sailors in the 15th Ce
Source: BBC
Dec 13, 2010
Chinese archaeologists have unearthed what they believe is a 2,400-year-old pot of soup, state media report.
The liquid and bones were in a sealed bronze cooking vessel dug up near the ancient capital of Xian - home to the country's famed terracotta warriors.
Tests are being carried out to identify the ingredients. An odourless liquid, believed to be wine, was also found.
The pots were discovered in a tomb being excavated to make way for an extension to th
Source: CNN
Dec 13, 2010
Richard C. Holbrooke, the high-octane diplomat who spearheaded the end of the Bosnian war and most recently served as the Obama administration's point man in the volatile Afghan-Pakistani war zone, has died, officials said.
The 69-year-old diplomat died Monday at George Washington University Hospital in Washington. He was admitted last Friday after feeling ill. Doctors performed surgery Saturday to repair a tear in his aorta.
One of the world's most recognizable diploma
Source: CNN
Dec 13, 2010
Ukraine says it will lift restrictions on tourism in the zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 2011, formally opening the scene of the world's worst nuclear accident to visitors.
A limited number of visitors already are allowed into the 30-kilometer (19-mile) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which exploded and burned in 1986. The Ukrainian government will present a detailed plan for lifting the remaining restrictions on travel to the area December
Source: WaPo
Dec 13, 2010
RICHMOND - A federal judge in Virginia ruled Monday that a key provision of the nation's sweeping health-care overhaul is unconstitutional, the most significant legal setback so far for President Obama's signature domestic initiative.
U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson found that Congress could not order individuals to buy health insurance.
In a 42-page opinion, Hudson said the provision of the law that requires most individuals to get insurance or pay a fine by
Source: Hurriyet (Turkey)
Dec 13, 2010
The ancient city of Allianoi, near Turkey’s Aegean coast, has been completely covered with sand in preparation for building a dam in the area, despite protests from activists and archaeologists.
Though officials say covering the Roman-era spa settlement with sand is the only way to protect the ruins while they are submerged under the waters of the new dam, experts disagree with that assessment.
“The method is obsolete and it will destroy, rather than protect, the ancien
Source: Art Daily
Dec 13, 2010
The recent finding of 2 sculptures with the shape of a serpent’s head that 1,500 years ago were part of the Ballgame at the Maya city of Tonina, Chiapas today, were found by archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). This discovery allows the consolidation of the hypotheses of how this ritual place looked like in the Prehispanic age; due to its architectural position it is the one that resembles more the one described in Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Dec 13, 2010
The country has changed so much that young people can't conceive their grandparents had any link to the Nazis.
n a scenario that seems like it could have been written as a bad comedy sketch, a Japanese discount chain recently recalled a "Hitler costume" from its shelves after complaints from an American Jewish group. Such a move is reminiscent of the clever Mitchell and Webb skit where two vaingloriously unaware Nazi SS soldiers are chatting and one suddenly remarks to the
