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: Knox News
Jun 6, 2010
For most, Fort Sanders is a neighborhood of Victorian homes, hospitals and college housing near the University of Tennessee. But for historians and Civil War enthusiasts, it's the site of an 1863 battle that helped seal the Confederate defeat in East Tennessee.
"So many people I talk to think it's just the name of a neighborhood like you'd name a subdivision," says East Tennessee Civil War Alliance President Steve Dean. "I am not exaggerating when I say that when I sp
Source: LA Times
Jun 6, 2010
You'd think there would be at least one Republican pragmatist running for governor — a pragmatic conservative.
Some wannabe governor willing to spend big for a worthy cause, raise taxes if needed, protect the environment from exploiters chanting "economic growth," be tolerant on social issues, even support amnesty for hard-working illegal immigrants.
Too bad such a gubernatorial candidate probably couldn't be nominated by GOP voters in California.
Source: Science Daily
Jun 6, 2010
The Yangtze River in China is 40 million years older than was previously thought, according to new research.
A study of minerals by a team led by Durham University reveals that the Yangtze River began to cut the Three Gorges area around 45 million years ago, making it much older than previously believed.
The Yangtze River, the third-longest river in the world, has played a central role in the development of Chinese culture, and the Three Gorges, which separate the Sichu
Source: Independent
Jun 6, 2010
Archaeologists investigating an ancient Roman burial site in Britain have identified what may be the world's best preserved remains of gladiators and other arena fighters who entertained audiences through bloody confrontations with wild animals.
Eighty skeletons have been unearthed at the site in Driffield Terrace, south west of the centre of York, over the past decade. One man appears to have been killed by a large carnivore – almost certainly a lion, tiger or bear. Others have wea
Source: BBC
Jun 6, 2010
A special service has been held in Kent to thank the people of south Wales who took in hundreds of child evacuees from the South East of England during World War II.
More than 100 former evacuees attended the thanksgiving event at St Mary The Virgin Church in Cannon Street, Dover.
The congregation sang the Welsh hymn Cwm Rhondda and waved Welsh flags during the service on Sunday.
Hundreds of children were evacuated from Kent in the summer of 1940.
Source: BBC
Jun 6, 2010
One of Britain's rarest stamps has been sold for £400,000 by a Jersey-based stamp dealer.
The 1904 6d Pale Dull Purple (I.R. Official) was sold to an anonymous private buyer by Stanley Gibbons Investment.
The stamp was issued on 14 March 1904, but was withdrawn almost immediately after issue.
Only 19 sheets were ever printed and on withdrawal, almost all were destroyed.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 6, 2010
A Tiananmen square activist has been released by Japanese authorities after he was arrested for allegedly trying to force his way into the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo on the anniversary of the military crackdown.
Wu'er Kaixi, 42, who allegedly jumped over a small steel fence in front of the embassy on Friday, was quickly overpowered by Japanese police and arrested.
A Tokyo police spokesman confirmed the release of Wu'er, now a Taiwanese citizen, but declined to give furth
Source: AP
Jun 6, 2010
Despite sharing the chancellor's East German past and devotion to democracy, the opposition pick to be Germany's next head of state, Joachim Gauck, is turning out to be Chancellor Angela Merkel's latest threat.
Although the 70-year-old former priest from the gritty port city of Rostock is the underdog in the race for Germany's presidential office, it was his deeply lined face, not that of the chancellor's candidate featured in the nation's most influential news weeklies on Sunday.
Source: CNN
Jun 6, 2010
Protestors gathered in lower Manhattan mid-day Sunday to demonstrate against plans to build a mosque near the site of Ground Zero, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by Islamist hijackers on September 11, 2001.
Protest organizer Pamela Geller, a conservative blogger, and her group, "Stop the Islamicization of America," planned the event because, according to the group's website, "Building the Ground Zero mosque is not an issue of religious
Source: Aol News
Jun 6, 2010
The long-standing mystery over exactly what famed poet Walt Whitman saw streaking though the sky 150 years ago has apparently been solved by a team of bookworm astronomers.
Following a trail that began with a 19th century painting and led to hundreds of newspaper reports, the researchers discovered that the "strange huge meteor-procession" mentioned in Whitman's noted collection "Leaves of Grass" indeed refers to a rare procession of earth-grazing meteors that oc
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 5, 2010
More than a million Second World War documents are to be made available to the public for the first time, it was announced today.
Files from Bletchley Park, the UK's wartime code-breaking headquarters, are to be digitised and put online in a large-scale project expected to take up to five years to complete.
Undercover mathematicians and military operatives produced high-level intelligence at the Milton Keynes base during the war, providing crucial assistance to the All
Source: Irish Times
Jun 5, 2010
...The stars and stripes are a ubiquitous symbol in American life, but the flag-waving reaches its paroxysm on Memorial Day, May 31st, which honours those killed in war, and on July 4th....
“In most European countries,” notes Prof Philip Golub of the University of Paris, “extreme, overt displays of nationalism tend to be confined to the far right.”
Dr Golub, who is American, has just published Power, Profit Prestige; A History of American Imperial Expansion, which exami
Source: Boston Globe
Jun 5, 2010
The late Edward M. Kennedy, a champion of liberal causes who represented Massachusetts in the US Senate for 47 years, was remembered fondly today in a ceremony at the state Democratic convention.
"The simple truth is this: His greatness was that he fought for the people and the principles of Massachusetts. And in that half-century where he never grew tired and he never gave in, he became one of those few, one of those rare and happy few, who bend the course of history itself,&q
Source: CNN
Jun 5, 2010
Ray Midgett hunts the Corolla beaches on the Outer Banks of North Carolina almost every day.
Midgett drives his pickup truck right onto the beach using the access road near the Currituck Beach Lighthouse. With a metal detector and shovel in tow, he's uncovered everything from antique coins to wedding rings.
Yet his biggest discovery came in December when he located the remains of a historical shipwreck.
The wreckage, hidden under the sand for centuries,
Source: BBC
Jun 5, 2010
Millions of documents stored at the World War II code-breaking centre, Bletchley Park, are set to be digitised and made available online.
Electronics company Hewlett-Packard has donated a number of scanners to the centre in Milton Keynes so volunteers can begin the ground-breaking task.
Many of the records at the once-secret centre have not been touched for years.
During the war, it was home to more than 10,000 men and women who decoded encrypted German
Source: AP
Jun 5, 2010
A few notes scribbled in the margins, some brief e-mails and occasional memos help paint only a faint picture of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan when she served as a domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton.
There's a rough outline, but little definition. And as with many faded or blurry pictures, there's just enough material for people to see what they want in the woman President Barack Obama has tapped for the Supreme Court.
Discussing the effects of the 19
Source: BBC
Jun 4, 2010
Vandals have targeted the ancient Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire by spraying part of it purple.
Officers from Thames Valley Police were called to the 3,000-year-old chalk monument at about 2200 BST on Thursday.
They found the head and eye of the horse had been sprayed with purple paint. A banner that read "fathers 4 justice stop the secret family courts" was recovered from the scene.
New Fathers 4 Justice and Real Fathers for Justice both
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jun 4, 2010
The National Archives recently released for public comment a draft prioritization plan for the National Declassification Center (NDC) . The plan focuses on moving the approximately 408 million pages of accessioned Federal records to the open stacks and clearing referrals in the Presidential Libraries Remote Archives Capture (RAC) program.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jun 4, 2010
On June 4, the William Clinton Presidential Library opened approximately 46,500 pages of files relating to U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s tenure at the White House Domestic Policy Council. The additional release of papers from the approximately 160,000 pages of material will be made available on the Clinton Library website in batches as soon as the records ar
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Jun 4, 2010
On Wednesday, June 9, 2010, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee will hold a hearing entitled, “Strengthening the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.” The hearing will take place at 2:00 p.m. in room 2154 Rayburn House Office Building. Witnesses from a number of the National Coalition for History’s historical and archival membership organizations are scheduled to testify.
This is the
