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: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 24, 2010
The inhabitants of Pompeii, who died when Mt Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago, were killed by intense heat rather than suffocation as previously thought, a new study of the disaster has claimed.
Thousands of people in the Roman city were caught up in a firestorm in which they were exposed to temperatures of up to 1112F (600C), a team of Italian scientists believe.
The extraordinarily high temperatures would have killed fleeing inhabitants in just 10 seconds, acc
Source: ABC News
Aug 24, 2010
The remains of a prehistoric child were removed from an underwater cave in Mexico four years after divers stumbled upon the well-preserved corpse that offers clues to ancient human migration.
The skeletal remains of the boy, dubbed the Young Hol Chan, are more than 10,000 years old and are among the oldest human bones found in the Americas.
The corpse was discovered in 2006 by a pair of German cave divers who were exploring unique flooded sandstone sinkholes, known as c
Source: China Digital Times
Aug 24, 2010
Cao Cao was one of the three warlords competing for control of China after the downfall of the mighty Han empire (BC206 – AD 220 CE). Cao’s life was popularized in The Legend of Three Kingdoms, a novelized history which has been revered as one of the four Chinese literature classics.
According to the Modern Express, 23 experts at an academic forum in Suzhou have declared that the tomb is a fake, citing anachronistic styles of engraving Chinese characters as one of the sources of the
Source: AP
Aug 24, 2010
William Saxbe, a Republican maverick who became the fourth attorney general to serve under President Richard M. Nixon and presided during the Watergate investigation, died Tuesday. He was 94.
Saxbe, who served in the Ohio Legislature and as state attorney general, died at his home in Mechanicsburg, northwest of Columbus, said his son, Charles "Rocky" Saxbe.
Nixon's first two attorneys general were accused of Watergate-related crimes and the third, Elliot Richa
Source: NYT
Aug 24, 2010
Direct medical evidence? None. Autopsy? Not performed. Medical records? Nowhere to be found. Corpse? Disappeared.
Yet according to a recent article in an academic journal, researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
A modest industry of medical speculation has grown up around the subject, evidence of our fascination with what cut down great creative artists in history. In Mozart’s case published speculation began within a month of
Source: NYT
Aug 24, 2010
The field of archaeology and the timeworn Middle East would not seem the obvious places to look for a wiki revolution. But next month in Jordan, officials who oversee that country’s vast store of antiquities will begin an experiment aimed at bringing 21st-century tools to the task of protecting ancient sites, which is an especially pressing need in neighboring Iraq, where looting is once again on the rise.
Over the last four years the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, wit
Source: NYT
Aug 24, 2010
Conjure, for a moment, a place just steps from City Hall but a world apart. Salaam.
Yes, that is the fragrance of strong coffee in the air, of sweet figs and tart lemons, of pastries that remind buyers of childhoods in Damascus and Beirut. Bazaars abound with handmade rugs and brass lamps and water pipes. Men wear fezzes. A few women retire behind veils. Al-Hoda is the leading newspaper. Business signs — at least those legible to a non-Arabic speaker — proclaim “Rahaim & Malhami
Source: The Epoch Times
Aug 24, 2010
Adolf Hitler was found to be descended from the Jews and Africans he despised, after numerous DNA tests, according to reports on Tuesday.
Journalist Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren took saliva samples from 39 of the former German dictator's relatives, including a cousin who was an Austrian farmer named "Norbert H," and a grand nephew named Alexander Stuart-Houston, who is an American, according to the UK Newspaper the Daily Mail..
Mulders and V
Source: BBC
Aug 24, 2010
A Bath historian is hoping to give an admiral's wife - who tended to a wounded Lord Nelson - "her rightful place in history".
Dr Elaine Chalus has won a major research grant of more than £100,000 to investigate diaries kept by Elizabeth Wynne.
Elizabeth married one of Nelson's famous 'band of brothers', Captain Thomas Francis Fremantle, during the Napoleonic Wars.
Dr Chalus will use her funding from the British Academy to bring to light more tha
Source: BBC
Aug 24, 2010
South Sudan is preparing to repatriate some 1.5 million southerners from the north and Egypt, ahead of a referendum due next January on whether the south should secede.
The proposals suggest returnees will travel on trains and buses, as well as boats down the River Nile.
Some two million people have already returned to the south since the end of a two-decade conflict in 2005.
However, some aid workers have questioned the plan's feasibility....
Source: BBC
Aug 24, 2010
The Isle of Wight is home to the richest source of "pick 'n' mix" dinosaur remains anywhere in the world, a study has suggested.
Weather conditions 130 million years ago have been suggested as one reason why thousands of small teeth and bones lie buried alongside bigger fossils.
Portsmouth University palaeontologist Dr Steve Sweetman and Dr Allan Insole from Bristol University led the study....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 24, 2010
A rare 1950s Jaguar sports car with just 500 miles on the clock is to be sold after being painstakingly reconstructed from parts packed away in boxes.
The Jaguar XK150 Sports is expected to raise more than £250,000 after a rebuild in Harworth, near Doncaster
The car was bought brand new in the USA by American John Dolce in 1959, and it was one of only 724 of the cars sold in the country....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 24, 2010
An 8th BC century palace which Greek archaeologists claim was the home of Odysseus has been discovered in Ithaca, fuelling theories that the hero of Homer's epic poem was real.
Odysseus – known to the ancient Romans as Ulysses – famously took 10 years to return home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy.
But despite the fantastical details in the Greek epic, a team of archaeologists has claimed the tale is anchored in truth - and that they have discovered his home on the i
Source: Fox News
Aug 24, 2010
The controversial imam at the center of the debate over the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero says his goal is to create coalitions across the religious divide, but during a 2005 conference in Australia, he said America may be worse than Al Qaeda.
During his Australian visit, the imam also said the Arab and Muslim world senses that the West does not care about Muslim lives and their pain and anguish is not heard.
He explained that frustration and emotions can l
Source: CNN
Aug 24, 2010
Do you know where Leo Burt is? If you do, you could earn $150,000, the FBI says.
Burt, a 22-year-old aspiring journalist at the time, was part of a group that bombed the University of Wisconsin to protest the Vietnam War, the FBI says.
The attack happened 40 years ago Tuesday and was classified as the largest act of domestic terror until the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995.
Agents have been all over the world following tips about Burt's whereabouts.
Source: CNN
Aug 24, 2010
The brothers first heard about Duffy's Cut from their grandfather, a railroad worker, who told the ghost story to his family every Thanksgiving. According to local legend, memorialized in a file kept by the Pennsylvania Railroad, a man walking home from a tavern reported seeing blue and green ghosts dancing in the mist on a warm September night in 1909.
When Frank inherited the file of his grandfather's old railroad papers, the brothers began to believe the ghost stories were real.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 24, 2010
Details of secret missions flown by Lawrence of Arabia almost 100 years ago have been uncovered by a retired lecturer.
The diary of one of the British officers's colleages records the existence of the so-called ''X Flights'' led by Lt Col TE Lawrence across the former Ottoman empire.
James Hynes, 80, discovered the documents after his cousin told him that her father served alongside Lt Col Lawrence during World War One.
She revealed that she had kept typed
Source: AP
Aug 24, 2010
LOCKPORT — Officials trying to obtain an unclaimed Medal of Honor for a Civil War hero from western New York said they've instead been given a letter with a drawing of the medal, a move that one local historian called "an embarrassment."
Niagara County officials have been trying since last year to get the medal awarded to Michael Huskey, who died in 1864 without receiving it. Last week, the Navy sent county officials a letter that includes an embossed drawing of the medal.
Source: National Parks Traveler
Aug 24, 2010
Capturing and preserving a 200-year-old slice of history is no easy task, and yet that's part of the task for the folks managing the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, which ranges nearly 4,000 meandering miles from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.
With an eye on finalizing a Comprehensive Management Plan for the trail by the Fall of 2014, National Park Service managers are laying the foundation for developing a sound plan that will guide the trail's management for 15-20 years.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 24, 2010
Adolf Hitler is likely to have had Jewish and African roots, DNA tests have shown.
Saliva samples taken from 39 relatives of the Nazi leader show he may have had biological links to the “subhuman” races that he tried to exterminate during the Holocaust.
Jean-Paul Mulders, a Belgian journalist, and Marc Vermeeren, a historian, tracked down the Fuhrer’s relatives, including an Austrian farmer who was his cousin, earlier this year.
A chromosome called Haplogroup E1b
