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: BBC
Jun 25, 2010
Supporters of an Israeli soldier seized by Palestinian militants are set to mark the fourth anniversary of his capture by holding rallies in Tel Aviv.
Gilad Shalit, 23, has been held in Gaza by Hamas militants who are demanding the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for his release.
Thousands are expected to rally outside the military headquarters in Tel Aviv calling for his release.
Sgt Shalit was captured in a raid into Israel by mil
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 25, 2010
Archaeologists have discovered evidence to support the theory that St Peter was imprisoned in an underground dungeon by the Emperor Nero before being crucified.
The Mamertine Prison, a dingy complex of cells which now lies beneath a Renaissance church, has long been venerated as the place where the apostle was shackled before he was killed on the spot on which the Vatican now stands.
It been a place of Christian worship since medieval times, but after months of excavati
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 25, 2010
On the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, China has finally rewritten its history of how the conflict began to point the finger of responsibility at North Korea.
Until now, the Chinese have staunchly supported their North Korean allies, along whose side they fought in the war.
China previously insisted that the war was waged out of American aggression. The official title of the conflict on the mainland is "The War to Resist America and Aid Korea".
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 25, 2010
Dozens of unwanted babies born during Roman times were murdered and buried on the site of a Roman brothel in Buckinghamshire, archaeologists suspect.
An extensive study of a mass burial at a Roman villa in the Thames Valley suggests that the 97 children all died at 40 weeks gestation, or very soon after birth.
The archaeologists believe that locals may have been killing and burying unwanted babies on the site in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire.
Unwanted pregn
Source: AP
Jun 25, 2010
Details of the sweeping intelligence sharing pact struck between the United States and Britain at the dawn of the Cold War were made public for the first time Friday, laying bare the details of an unprecedented espionage arrangement.
The 1946 UKUSA agreement — a secret deal to not to spy on one another and to share nearly every single piece of radio intercept material — was a keystone of the United States' global intelligence-gathering apparatus, allowing it to pool its resources wi
Source: AP
Jun 25, 2010
An ethnic Hutu opposition candidate who hoped to run for president in Rwanda has been denied the right to appear on the ballot because of charges of denying the country's genocide, party officials said Friday.
Victoire Ingabire returned to Rwanda in January after 16 years, a return she says she made because the country needs an open discussion to promote reconciliation.
Ingabire's party and other opposition parties tried to demonstrate against Rwanda's electoral commiss
Source: AP
Jun 25, 2010
Authorities in Georgia have torn down a monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in his birthplace of Gori to make way for a memorial to the fallen in the Russian-Georgian war of 2008.
Gori is just a few kilometers from the separatist enclave of South Ossetia, where Russian forces crushed the Georgian army in a brief conflict in August 2008.
Officials say the overnight dismantlement of the towering bronze statue, approved last week by the city's parliament, was spurred
Source: Medieval News
Jun 24, 2010
A ‘treasure trove’ of ancient records dating back over 1,300 years to the origins of the English city of Peterborough will be unveiled at Peterborough Cathedral’s Deanery on Saturday 3 July at 12 noon.
The archaeological records, maps, drawings and photographs focusing on the Cathedral Precincts have been compiled under a joint project by the Cathedral and Peterborough City Council.
Archaeologists and planning officers have compiled the records, which will eventually be
Source: Irish Examiner
Jun 24, 2010
IF you were to go off searching for gold, you’d hardly expect to find it lurking in between the sunlotion, plasters and bathsets at your nearest pharmacy.
However, a robbery at a Roscommon pharmacy started gardaí on a hunt that ended up with the discovery of 4,000-year-old gold artefacts.
Now known as the Coggalbeg Hoard, the early Bronze Age gold dates to 2300-1800 BC and now is on display at the National Museum in Kildare Street, Dublin.
Source: Deutsche Press
Jun 24, 2010
Archaeologists have discovered the well-preserved remains of a Roman road dating back to the first century in south- eastern Serbia, Belgrade media reported Thursday.
The Roman military road, or Via militaris, near the town of Dimitrovgrad used to connect the western parts of the Roman empire with the eastern parts, archaeologists said.
'This road was one of the main roads of the Roman empire,' archaeologist Miroslav Lazic told the Novosti daily.
'We are working
Source: Copenhagen Post
Jun 24, 2010
In what they describe as a ‘sensational’ discovery, archaeologists from Århus find the remains of 10th century king’s royal residence
After speculating for centuries about its location, the royal residence of Harald Bluetooth has finally been discovered close to the ancient Jelling complex with its famous runic stones in southern Jutland.
The remains of the ancient wooden buildings were uncovered in the north-eastern corner of the Jelling complex which consists of royal
Source: Chattanooga Free Press
Jun 24, 2010
The Civil War Preservation Trust has named two Northwest Georgia battlefields in their 15 "at risk" sites.
The national group said the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park and the Resaca Battlefield are at risk, but for different reasons.
Chickamauga "is beset by proposals for cellular communications towers" and Resaca is still struggling to secure funding and move forward with an interpretive center, the group said....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jun 24, 2010
The disgraced former Telegraph owner Conrad Black and the Enron fraudster Jeffrey Skilling have won fresh hope of early release from jail following a US supreme court ruling that their convictions partly relied on a controversial corruption law that was too broad in its scope.
In a major legal victory for the two jailed tycoons, America's top court issued separate, but related, rulings declaring that the men were treated unfairly when appeal court judges threw out their attempts to
Source: USA Today
Jun 24, 2010
The old warlord, infamous for backstabbing and bloodletting, can hardly complain. When Chinese state television broadcast a live excavation this month of the tomb of General Cao Cao, the destruction found inside confirmed that tomb robbers had beaten archaeologists to the underground site.
Back in the third century, Cao Cao organized his soldiers into a treasure-hunting, tomb-raiding division. These days, the Chinese government threatens the death penalty for stealing cultural relics, ye
Source: BBC
Jun 24, 2010
A Neolithic burial site in the parish of St Sampson has yielded pottery fragments and flints that date back 4,500 years.
They were discovered in a gallery grave, which lies within Delancey Park.
Evidence has also been found of related structures that were previously unknown to archaeologists.
The finds were made during a preliminary examination of the site in June 2010. More extensive excavations are due to take place in 2011....
Source: AP
Jun 24, 2010
A great wooden steamship that sank more than a century ago in a violent Lake Michigan storm has been found off the Milwaukee-area shoreline, and divers say the intact vessel appears to have been perfectly preserved by the cold fresh waters.
Finding the 300-foot-long L.R. Doty was important because it was the largest wooden ship that remained unaccounted for, said Brendon Baillod, the president of the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association.
The Doty was carrying a
Source: AP
Jun 24, 2010
Floods in Bosnia displaced thousands this week as they washed away homes, crops and bridges. The torrents may have also swept loose a perhaps even bigger concern: land mines planted during the Bosnian war.
Since the end of the war in 1995, authorities have done their best to clear away the estimated 1 million land mines planted by the conflicting sides — or at least to mark contaminated areas.
At the end of the 1992-95 war, the U.N. was forced to estimate the number of
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 24, 2010
Yann Martel, the Booker prize-winning author, has said that "Jews don't own the Holocaust".
The Life of Pi writer, whose latest novel is about the Holocaust, claimed that he should be able to write about the period in history even though he is not Jewish.
His fictional work, Beatrice and Virgil, follows a blocked writer who meets a taxidermist writing a play about the Holocaust and has received a number of hostile reviews.
Martel, 46, rejected the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 24, 2010
Getting struck by lightning was a real hazard for British soldiers in the Second Boer War, according to military records put online for the first time.
During the late Victorian conflict 86 men were killed or injured by lightening while serving in southern Africa, the records published online today by genealogy website Ancestry.co.uk show.
On one occasion two soldiers were killed within moments of each other, when lightening struck their base in the appropriately-named
Source: Desoto Times Tribune (MN)
Jun 24, 2010
Hollywood has "Saving Private Ryan," and the History Channel chronicled the story of the five Irish-American Sullivan brothers, who fought and died during World War II.
But for Iven "Bruce" O'Neal of Hernando, the story of six brothers, including himself, who served during World War II, is a story which has never been told until now.
O'Neal served with the 97th Division, U.S. Infantry in Le Harve, France, and in the Rhineland with U.S. General George
