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: St. Augustine Record
Jul 3, 2010
Archaeologists from the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program have found a potential colonial shipwreck buried under the sand about a mile off the coast and north of the St. Augustine Beach pier.
The scientists found a cauldron, thousands of lead shot, a glass base and a second cooking vessel about 400 meters from the site of where the ship the "Industry" sank in 1764.
The newly discovered ship could be older than the "Industry," said Chuck Meid
Source: TIME.com
Jul 3, 2010
On July 4th, America's 300 million citizens will mark the 234th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The holiday weekend that's famous for fireworks, barbecues and apple pie is increasingly being used as an occasion for tens of thousands of Americans that identify as "hard-core" war reenactors to wear outfits made from 19th century fabric adorned with arcane military pins. For the July 4th holiday also marks another major American historical milestone — the anniversary of th
Source: CS Monitor
Jul 3, 2010
Quill pen in hand, Thomas Jefferson invited the King's noose when he set out to write what his fellow founders at first thought would be a mundane legal document: a declaration of independence from the British crown.
But despite a preamble that became a paean to individual liberty that has rivaled the Magna Carta in the breadth of its global impact, Mr. Jefferson apparently committed a slip of the pen.
To usher in the Fourth of July weekend, the Library of Congress reve
Source: CNN
Jul 3, 2010
Abu Daoud, the man who claimed to be the mastermind behind the massacre that marked the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died, according to the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority.
On September 5 of that year, Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes who were taken hostage.
Daoud, also known as Mohammed Oudeh, died Friday night, the WAFA news agency reported Saturday. The former Palestinian politician and commander in the Fatah and Palestinian Liberation
Source: LA Times
Jul 3, 2010
Paleontologists digging near the coast of Peru have uncovered the largest fossilized skull of a sperm whale ever found.
The 12-million-year-old skull, which measures nearly 10 feet across, belonged to a now-extinct genus and species of sperm whale that may have been as long as 57 feet. The fossil includes the longest documented sperm whale teeth, measuring more than 14 fearsome inches.
The whale, described in a paper published Thursday in the journal Nature, was christe
Source: Canada.com
Jul 3, 2010
Career diplomat Roza Otunbayeva was sworn in as conflict-torn Kyrgyzstan’s president on Saturday, making her the first female leader in the history of ex-Soviet Central Asia.
Standing before an audience of more than 1,000 cheering onlookers in a packed Soviet-era concert hall in the capital Bishkek, Otunbayeva solemnly took her oath and promised a new political era for increasingly-unstable Kyrgyzstan.
"As president, I will spare no effort to create a new political
Source: BBC
Jul 2, 2010
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond has again denied that the convicted Lockerbie bomber was released from prison because of pressure from BP.
In a letter, he has challenged US senator Robert Menendez to provide evidence Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was freed on economic grounds.
Mr Salmond also reiterated that Scottish ministers would not attend a US inquiry into last year's release.
Mr Salmond said it was "puzzling" that former UK Prime Minister
Source: BioScholar
Jul 2, 2010
Tibetans split off from the Han Chinese some 3,000 years ago and since then rapidly developed a unique ability to thrive at high altitudes and low oxygen levels, researchers have ascertained after comparing the genomes of 50 Tibetans and 40 Han Chinese.
The genome-wide comparison, carried out by evolutionary biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, uncovered more than 30 genes with DNA mutations that have become more prevalent in Tibetans than Han Chinese, nearly half o
Source: Science Daily
Jul 2, 2010
Once thought to be "evolutionary leftovers," new research has shown that ostriches in fact use their feathered forelimbs as sophisticated air-rudders and braking aids.
According to the researchers, wing-use and hindlimb function in ostriches may help palaeontologists in their quest to reconstruct locomotor techniques in bipedal (two-legged) dinosaurs.
The scientists present their research at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Prague on T
Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer
Jul 2, 2010
Near the terminus of a dead-end road, on a bulblike hill in the midst of a grassy meadow, a group of Temple University archaeology students and volunteers is excavating what may be one of the most important African American historical sites in New Jersey.
An entire village lies beneath the grassy hill near Rancocas Creek in Westampton Township outside Mount Holly - at least 18 houses, remains of a church, two roadways, an alley, a number of privies and wells, possibly schools, and l
Source: BBC
Jul 2, 2010
Archaeologists are to start excavations on a suspected ancient burial site to try to understand the significance of a Llangollen landmark.
But the team will have to work carefully because the 9th Century Pillar of Eliseg, a CADW-protected ancient monument, stands directly on top of the barrow - burial mound - and the archaeologists can't disturb it.
Medieval archaeology Professor, Nancy Edwards, from Bangor University says it is the first time the site has been dug sin
Source: BBC
Jul 2, 2010
The arrest of 10 alleged spies in the United States has thrust the ancient practice of steganography into the limelight.
Several of the suspects are accused of using the method to conceal data being transmitted from the US to Russia.
That question mark over it dates from the text in which the word was coined, Steganographia, which was written in 1499 by Johannes Trithemius but not published until 1606.
The name of the book derives from the Greek for conce
Source: Politics Daily
Jul 2, 2010
Every eight years Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., asks scholars to rank the best and worst presidents in American history, and every survey since 1982 has seen Franklin D. Roosevelt in the number one spot. This year is no exception.
But there's a shakeup at the number two position in the 2010 ranking. For the first time in 20 years, Abraham Lincoln has been supplanted as second-best by another Roosevelt: Teddy.
Rounding out the top five in the survey of 238 presid
Source: Huffington Post
Jul 2, 2010
In the wake of the passing of Sen. Robert Byrd, the Ku Klux Klan, an organization Byrd briefly belonged to, is coming to the defense of the West Virginia Democrat who served in the Senate for 51 years. The Daily Caller reports:As politicians and columnists across the country debate the life and legacy of the
Source: CNN.com
Jul 2, 2010
Ethnic Tibetans' ability to thrive in high altitudes with low oxygen is the fastest genetic change ever observed in humans, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science.
Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley said their comparison of the genomes of ethnic Tibetan and Han Chinese could help scientists understand how the body deals with decreased oxygen and diseases associated with oxygen deprivation in the womb, according to a news release on the univers
Source: Jacksonville Patriot
Jul 2, 2010
Dorothy Gardner, a former Army nurse, and Betty Krause, a former Navy WAVE, both Hot Springs Village residents, shared their World War II experiences with members of the Jacksonville Historical Society at the Jacksonville Museum of Military History on Thursday.
Both women said they joined their respective services up to two years after the entry of the U.S. into World War II, not because of the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Each said they knew where Pearl Harbor was, but dist
Source: NYT
Jul 2, 2010
...In 90,000 pages of letters and memorandums released Friday by the Nixon Presidential Library, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, counselor and assistant to the president for urban affairs from January 1969 through December 1970 and a future senator from New York, prodded the president and his White House colleagues to deliver on a domestic agenda and expressed exasperation over the government’s entropy....
Source: AP
Jul 2, 2010
Historical records from the prison that held Adolf Hitler in 1924 documenting the future dictator's time behind bars sold to an anonymous bidder for euro27,000 ($33,400) Friday at an auction in Germany.
The approximately 500 documents from the Landsberg prison were recently found by a Nuremberg man among the possessions of his late father, who had purchased them at a flea market in the 1970s, according to Werner Behringer, whose auction house put them up for sale.
The B
Source: CNN
Jul 2, 2010
He was raised an orphan of the West Virginia coal mines years before the Great Depression.
On Friday -- as his body made a final return to the state he loved -- Sen. Robert C. Byrd was remembered as a political titan, champion of the poor, and defender of the Constitution.
Political leaders from both parties and every corner of the country came together at the start of the Independence Day weekend to pay homage to America's longest serving member of Congress, who died
Source: CNN
Jul 2, 2010
A man wanted in Hungary for the torture and killing of a Jewish teenager during World War II averted extradition Friday after an Australian federal court ruled in his favor, an Australian news agency reported.
Hungary issued a warrant for Perth resident Charles Zentai, 88, in 2005. He is suspected of being a Nazi collaborator who killed Peter Balazs in Budapest in November 1944, the Australian Associated Press said.
Zentai is on the list of most wanted Nazis compiled by
