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: Armchair General
Aug 4, 2010
With sunny suns – despite early morning rain – and temperatures hovering near 90 degrees at 3:30pm it wasn’t exactly close to the conditions that were seen in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944. But for those taking part in the World War II Veterans Day Weekend Re-enactment at Veterans Memorial Park in St. Clair Shores, Michigan it was close enough. A couple dozen of America and Canadian re-enactors gathered up and made the landing while coming "under fire" from the German defende
Source: Fox News
Aug 4, 2010
This is from the House Historian's Office.
1. 2005, for Katrina emergency supplemental2. 1991, for numerous appropriations and other bills3. 1980
Traditionally, there have been periods of time where Congress adjourned throughout the month of August as far back as the second session of the First Congress in 1790. The first period of time that Congress adjourned in the month of August was 12 August 1790 until the beginning of the third session of the First Congress on 6 D
Source: AP
Aug 4, 2010
More people are visiting Yellowstone National Park than ever before.
The park announced Wednesday that it set a new monthly record for visits during July, when more than 957,000 people came through its gates. That's nearly 60,000 more than last July, when the park's previous monthly record was set....
Source: AP
Aug 4, 2010
...A long-sealed tunnel has been found under the ruins of Teotihuacan and chambers that seem to branch off it may hold the tombs of some of the ancient city's early rulers, archaeologists said Tuesday.
Experts say a tomb discovery would be significant because the social structure of Teotihuacan remains a mystery after nearly 100 years of archaeological exploration at the site, which is best known for the towering Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun.
Archaeologists had susp
Source: The Sofia Echo
Aug 4, 2010
Archaeologists from Varna discovered one of the largest medieval treasures in recent times and the largest one in 2010 during excavation works in the medieval city of Kastritsi in Euxinograd, on August 4, news agency Focus reported.
The treasure was discovered embedded in the floor of a home within the medieval stronghold, the report said.
According to associate professor Valentin Pletnyov, head of the Regional History Museum in Varna, the treasure consisted of a small
Source: AP
Aug 4, 2010
A U.S. military historian on Wednesday testified in the trial of the retired Ohio autoworker accused of being a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp and expressed doubt about John Demjanjuk's account of his whereabouts in the last years of World War II.
Bruce W. Menning told the Munich state court Wednesday that Demjanjuk's claim he went to the Austrian city of Graz late in 1944 to join a Ukrainian force fighting the Soviets under German command was "implausible" as the
Source: BBC
Aug 4, 2010
Judges at The Hague have barred photographers from taking pictures of supermodel Naomi Campbell when she gives evidence at the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.
Her lawyers would be allowed to intervene in order to prevent her answering a question that might lead to her incriminating herself, the court ruled.
A television feed of the court's proceedings would be broadcast as usual, it was reported.
Measures to protect witnesses' identities
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 4, 2010
Fidel Castro, the former Cuban leader, is expected to address the communist country's National Assembly for the first time in four years on Saturday.
State media reported that a special session, requested by Castro, would be held this weekend.
On July 26 Castro said that he would ask for the meeting to warn of an imminent nuclear war involving the United States, Israel and Iran....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 4, 2010
When the remains of an ancient underwater city were photographed off the coast of Bali, the Indonesian government hailed it as a potentially "phenomenal" discovery.
Mystical statues of the gods, their faces covered in gorgonian fans, stood rooted to the ocean floor behind an ornate temple gateway 100 feet below sea level.
The undersea archaeological department of the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced an investigation as rumours quickly cir
Source: CNN
Aug 4, 2010
A judge in the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor has decided that supermodel Naomi Campbell's testimony in the case will go ahead Thursday.
The Special Court of Sierra Leone confirmed to CNN Wednesday that Campbell will take the stand at the tribunal, despite an emergency motion the defense filed Monday to delay her testimony.
Prosecutors say Taylor gave Campbell a diamond during the war in Sierra Leone, contradicting Taylor's testimony that
Source: CNN
Aug 4, 2010
New Orleans is richer than it was before Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, but largely because many of its poor have not returned since the storm, according to a report released Wednesday.
Average wages are up, "knowledge-based" jobs are gaining ground on the area's traditional blue-collar economy and basic services like schools and hospitals are improving, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu told reporters.
While the poverty rate of 23 percent is the lowest si
Source: CNN
Aug 4, 2010
A British navy ship abandoned and lost in Canadian Arctic waters since the mid-19th century has been found in relatively good shape at the bottom of a bay, the Canadian government says.
Parks Canada has released images of the HMS Investigator, found late last month at the bottom of Mercy Bay. The bay is located in the Northwest Territories' Aulavik National Park. The discovery is part of two Canadian archaeological missions to locate the Investigator and two other ships.
Source: Fox News
Aug 4, 2010
The son of the U.S. Air Force pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb in the history of warfare says the Obama administration's decision to send a U.S. delegation to a ceremony in Japan to mark the 65th anniversary of the attack on Hiroshima is an "unsaid apology" and appears to be an attempt to "rewrite history."
James Tibbets, son of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., says Friday's visit to Hiroshima by U.S. Ambassador John Roos is an act of contrition that his l
Source: Independent (UK)
Aug 4, 2010
During the six centuries of its storied existence, there was nothing else quite like Nalanda University. Probably the first-ever large educational establishment, the college – in what is now eastern India – even counted the Buddha among its visitors and alumni. At its height, it had 10,000 students, 2,000 staff and strove for both understanding and academic excellence. Today, this much-celebrated centre of Buddhist learning
is in ruins.
After a period during which the influen
Source: Miami Today
Aug 4, 2010
If all goes according to plan, the public will have limited access to the Miami Circle site by the end of the year.
Construction on the park at the mouth of the Miami River in Brickell, designed by the Orlando-based architectural firm Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, began in June, said Ryan Wheeler, chief of the state's
Bureau of Archaeological Research.
Miami-based Zurqui Construction Services is construction manager.
"Things are lo
Source: The Independent (UK)
Aug 4, 2010
Filthy lucre, booze and high drama – and that was behind the scenes. Archaeologists digging in East London have unearthed compelling new evidence of the seamier side of life at London's oldest playhouse.
Excavations at the site of The Theatre in Shoreditch, which hosted premieres of several Shakespeare plays and which pre-dates The Globe, is shedding new light on a theatre that was called a "school for all wickedness and vice".
Archaeologists, led Heather Knig
Source: Latin American Herald Tribune
Aug 4, 2010
A Dominican man discovered in the northern town of Monteclaro a cave with petroglyphs and other examples of prehistoric cave art, the daily Listin Diario said Tuesday.
The discovery was made by area resident Raul Fernandez.
The cavern has 61 petroglyphs and two bas-relief sculptures, the newspaper learned from Spanish archaeologist Adolfo Lopez, who is in charge of researching the area and believes that the petroglyphs and sculptures could be 5,000 years old.
Source: National Parks Traveler
Aug 4, 2010
A signature triplet staccato rings sharply across the ranch compound from the smithy's anvil in the blacksmith shop, signaling another creation from fire and iron. Though only symbolic these days, the hammering at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site recalls perhaps the greatest cattle baron America ever produced and captures a moment in history depicted in Lonesome Dove.
A self-taught smithy, Lyndel Meikle can hammer you out a hoof pick in minutes, or offer you a slice of lodge
Source: BBC News
Aug 4, 2010
Norman names such as William, Henry and Alice have been popular for 1,000 years. Why did the English copy their invaders?
The date 1066. William the Conqueror. King Harold with the arrow in his eye. Soldiers in those nose-protector helmets.
But many people will struggle to come up with more than these sketchy facts about how the Normans invaded England and overthrew the Anglo-Saxons on one bloody day almost a millennium ago.
But it was then the seeds were s
Source: WaPo
Aug 4, 2010
Once, this was a stout ship, with oak futtocks and floor timbers, fastened with iron nails, built with saw and adz and the calloused hands of shipwrights now long dead.
Two centuries ago, it was a simple coaster, hauling goods around the eastern capes, armed against pirates, and ending its days at a wharf in New York City. As the years went by, it sank into the harbor mud, entombed beneath what would one day become the World Trade Center site.
Shortly after noon Monday
