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
Sep 22, 2010
LIMA (Reuters) – Archaeologists say scrawl on the back of a letter recovered from a 17th century dig site reveals a previously unknown language spoken by indigenous peoples in northern Peru.
A team of international archaeologists found the letter under a pile of adobe bricks in a collapsed church complex near Trujillo, 347 miles (560 km) north of Lima. The complex had been inhabited by Dominican friars for two centuries.
"Our investigations determined that this pie
Source: BBC
Sep 22, 2010
Crew diaries which had been locked away for 150 years are being reunited with Britain's oldest surviving warship at a special ceremony on Teesside.
The journals were written by sailors on board HMS Trincomalee, which is berthed in Hartlepool.
The vessel, built in 1817, is being incorporated into the new National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN).
The journals have been sitting in Royal Navy archives in Portsmouth for the past 150 years.
Built in
Source: BBC
Sep 22, 2010
Young people in Wales face losing out on educational trips to historic sites if the heritage sector is hit by cuts, warns a senior National Trust official.
A report by the trust and other bodies says Wales' "historic environment" supports 30,000 jobs.
Heritage sites are worth £1.8bn a year to the economy.
The heritage sector in Wales includes nearly 30,000 listed buildings, more than 4,100 scheduled ancient monuments, 428 registered landscaped, pa
Source: BBC
Sep 22, 2010
A World War II hero who suffered serious facial burns while flying for the RAF has left £50,000 in his will to a medical research centre in Sussex.
Flt Lt Charles Davidson, 87, died at his home in Eastbourne in February.
He became a member of The Guinea Pig Club after his injuries were treated by a pioneering surgeon at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.
The money was left to the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation, based at the hospital....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 22, 2010
A bizarre dinosaur with a ''crown of horns'' has been discovered by scientists.
Kosmoceratops richardsoni was a cousin of the famous Triceratops, but instead of just three horns it had 15.
Horns sprouted from its nose, above each eye, and out of its cheeks. In addition, the creature had a bony frill adorned with an extraordinary array of 10 horns.
The Kosmoceratops fossils were found together with those of another horned dinosaur in the desert terrain of
Source: AP
Sep 22, 2010
...Boxes containing 15 British tons (16.8 U.S. tons) worth of the journalist's history volume "The Making of Modern Britain" have been strewn across a busy English road after an accident.
Thames Valley Police said Wednesday that a truck carrying books overturned about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London just before midnight on Tuesday. The driver suffered cuts to his arms, and the road was closed throughout the night as the books were cleared away.
Video f
Source: AP
Sep 22, 2010
...On Friday, an Indian court will finally issue its ruling in the 60-year-old case and decide whether the site should be given to the Hindu community to build a gigantic temple to the god Rama or should be returned to the Muslim community so it can rebuild the 16th-century Babri Mosque.
Though there are no signs of a repeat of the communal violence that killed 2,000 people in nationwide rioting in 1992 and nearly 1,000 more in the state of Gujarat in 2002, India is worried.
Source: AP
Sep 22, 2010
One of Liberia's most infamous warlords on Wednesday launched his presidential campaign, a race sure to be overshadowed by his reputation for gruesome acts and a government commission's quest to try him for crimes against humanity.
The National Elections Commission said that Prince Johnson's party, the National Union for Democratic Progress, met the constitutional requirements to compete in next year's poll in the West African nation.
Liberia is still tending its wounds
Source: AP
Sep 22, 2010
Vandals have damaged dozens of grave sites in a Dayton, Ohio, cemetery, including the gravesites for the Wright brothers and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Police say an American flag and an aviation flag were taken from the Wright brothers site, and its flagpole was broken. A flag honoring Dunbar was taken down and burned.
Workers found 62 sites vandalized Monday morning; damage is estimated at $25,000. The private Woodland Cemetery was founded in 1841 and also includes th
Source: CNN
Sep 22, 2010
The cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked protests worldwide four years ago will be republished in a new book soon.
Staffers at Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten said the cartoons will be in a book created by cultural editor Flemming Rose and will be titled "The Tyranny of Silence."
The cartoons were published in September 2006 and sparked worldwide protests after the reprinting of the caricatures in other publications.....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 22, 2010
Plants picked up to 150 years ago by Victorian collectors could hold the key to understanding climate change, according to a new study.
Recent studies using fresh specimens have shown that plants flower six days earlier for every 1C (1.8F) of global warming.
Now ecologists from the University of East Anglia and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew have shown that pressed flowers back up the data....
Source: Latin American Herald Tribune
Sep 22, 2010
A team of Peruvian archaeologists have discovered two ceremonial temples more than 4,000 years old in Peru’s northern jungle, which makes them the most ancient in the country and identifies them with the Bracamoros culture, the daily El Comercio said on Saturday.
On both sites were found 14 burial vaults that typically contain the skeletons of newborns and adolescents placed there as offerings at different times in the course of the 800 years these buildings were in use, the newspap
Source: Science Now
Sep 22, 2010
The Vikings, the famed Scandinavian warriors, started raiding Ireland in 795 and plundered it for decades, before establishing two Irish outposts, according to the Annals of Ulster, a 15th century account of medieval Ireland. One outpost, Dúbh Linn, became Dublin, the other, Linn Duchaill, was lost in time. Perhaps until now. A team of archaeologists announced on Friday that it has found the lost Viking settlement near the village of Annagassan, 70 kilometers north of Dublin. "We are unbeli
Source: CNN.com
Sep 22, 2010
The frigid waters of the North Atlantic aren't among the most prominent cruise destinations, but that may change as the world remembers one of the worst maritime disasters in history.
At least two cruises are planned in the spring of 2012 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, with both touting special activities, lectures and memorials to commemorate the tragic voyage.
Organizers insist it's a learning opportunity and a way to remember th
Source: BBC News
Sep 22, 2010
Naomi Campbell, the supermodel, has said she was "used as a scapegoat" at the war crimes trials of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor.
Campbell, 40, told the court in The Hague last month that she had been given a pouch of "dirty stones" by two men hours after she met Mr Taylor.
She denied knowing that they were from the former leader of Liberia.
In an interview with Sky News to mark 25 years in the fashion business she said: "W
Source: BBC News
Sep 22, 2010
Switzerland's parliament has voted a new minister into the government, giving the cabinet a majority of women for the first time.
The election of Simonetta Sommaruga, 50, a Social Democrat, is a historic step in a country where women only got to vote on a national level in 1971.
Ms Sommaruga becomes the fourth female in the seven-member Federal Council.
One of the other posts in the Federal Council will be filled by another vote later in the day.
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 21, 2010
It is instantly recognizable as a sign of peace, but what is the symbolism behind the peace sign?
The olive branch came from ancient Greece, the dove from the Bible … but where did that circle with the chicken-footprint come from?
Rewind back to 1958 when London textile designer, Gerald Holtom, wanted to create a symbol for marchers to carry on banners and signs at a "Ban the Bomb" march planned by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC). The eve
Source: The Root
Sep 21, 2010
No one knows why Bethany Storro decided to mutilate her own face with acid late last month. Obviously deeply troubled, she was sane enough to make a calculated decision to maximize sympathy and deflect suspicion. She blamed it on a black person.
And the fake acid attack became the latest twist on a tactic as old as America itself, one that plays into every long-held stereotype of black folks as criminal and violent: the racial hoax. The racial hoax "plays into long-standing fea
Source: C-DH Net
Sep 21, 2010
Having agreed to a deal to buy a portion of the Spring Hill Battlefield from General Motors Corp., the Civil War Preservation Trust will kick off a fundraising campaign on Friday to help pay part of the $2 million purchase price.
Jim Campi, policy and communications director for the Preservation Trust, said the group entered into an agreement with GM to acquire an 84-acre section of the battlefield sometime around the beginning of August.
“It’s going to be a public-priv
Source: Daily Press (VA)
Sep 21, 2010
NORFOLK — Just months after he triggered a national racial brouhaha for neglecting to mention slavery in a proclamation of Confederate History Month, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell travels to Historically Black College Norfolk State University on Friday to talk about slavery and the Civil War.
McDonnell issued the state proclamation quietly in April, but the document quickly sparked a firestorm nationwide because "slavery" went completely unmentioned. President Barack Obama c
