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: WaPo
May 31, 2010
When he came home in 1967, he gathered everything from that time -- clothing, photographs, letters to his mother that she had carefully saved -- and he threw it all out. He set out to forget.
But as he got older, he wondered how much he had really moved on. He began to think that the path to healing might lie not in forgetting but in a meandering journey through all 50 states, visiting hundreds of memorials dedicated to those who had died and to those who had lived only to face oth
Source: National Parks Traveler
May 31, 2010
Memorial Day will see tens of thousands of people converging on the National Mall in our nation's capital. Many will visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and its iconic deep-vee black marble wall bearing the names of more than 58,000 American casualties.
nearly $9,000,000
Money contributed for construction of the memorial by corporations, foundations, unions, veterans, civic organizations, and more than 275,000 individuals. No federal funds were needed.
4,43
Source: BBC News
May 31, 2010
A lost ancient Egyptian tomb has been rediscovered by archaeologists in the desert sands south of Cairo.
The 3,300-year-old tomb is believed to belong to a mayor of the ancient capital of Memphis.
It was originally discovered by artefact hunters in the 19th Century, who then lost the tomb's location.
The tomb was located by a team of Egyptian researchers after a five-year search and they are hopeful mummified remains are still inside.
Nile hunt
Source: digital emunction
May 30, 2010
For nearly four decades, there’s been an open question about the 1971 coup that brought dictator Hugo Banzer Suárez to power in Bolivia: was the U.S. government involved? Thanks to newly declassified documents, we now have an answer.
Banzer was a dictator of Bolivia from 1971-8 and a democratically elected president from 1997-2001. His three-day coup in August 1971 was significant not only for the fighting that accompanied it, which left 110 dead and 600 wounded, but for the seven-y
Source: Reuters
May 30, 2010
Mexican soldiers on Sunday paraded the bones of the heroes of the country's Independence War down the capital's most famous street before scientists begin trying to solve a century-old mystery by identifying the bones.
"Thanks to them, Mexico exists," President Felipe Calderon said at a ceremony involving hundreds of soldiers, a 100-piece military band and watched by thousands of Mexicans.
Army cadets dressed in formal 19th-century style uniforms gingerly carr
Source: BBC
May 30, 2010
A council is to seek millions of pounds-worth of funding to reopen a 12th Century abbey in Berkshire.
Reading Abbey has been closed to the public for more than a year because the structure is too unsafe.
Reading Borough Council said a study to find out what work needed doing would cost £90,000 while the cost of repairs was estimated to reach about £3m.
If the funding bids are successful the abbey could be closed for up to five years while the work is comp
Source: AP
May 30, 2010
Tudor Parfitt has spent years chasing a theory that a lost tribe of Jews wound up in Southern Africa. But his latest leap has landed him in a minefield.
The subject at hand is this British scholar's contention that the remains of a 700-year-old bowl-shaped relic which he tracked down in a Zimbabwe museum storeroom in 2007 could be a replica of the Ark of the Covenant that carried the Ten Commandments.
According to African legend, white lions of God and a two-headed snak
Source: AP
May 30, 2010
Archaeologists have discovered the 3,300-year-old tomb of the ancient Egyptian capital's mayor, whose resting place had been lost under the desert sand since 19th century treasure hunters first carted off some of its decorative wall panels, officials announced Sunday.
Ptahmes, the mayor of Memphis, also served as army chief, overseer of the treasury and royal scribe under Seti I and his son and successor, Ramses II, in the 13th century B.C.
The discovery of his tomb ear
Source: Telegraph (India)
May 30, 2010
Archaeological excavations at Boxanagar in Sonamura subdivision of West Tripura have unearthed a large Buddhist complex, including relics of a stupa, teaching centre, a bronze image of Buddha and seals in Brahmi script, triggering a controversy over the history of the state.
The excavation commenced in 2003 under the supervision of Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI) Guwahati circle.
In the second phase under archaeologists Bimal Sinha and B.K. Pande, remains of wall
Source: Guardian (UK)
May 30, 2010
Picasso is admired for his shifting perspectives and rebellious spirit, but last week the great artist played another posthumous trick on historians. Although his political sympathies are known to have lain with the hard left, it turns out he was not above breaking bread with Franco's regime. In 1956 the dictator's representatives made a concerted, but secret, effort to woo Picasso into agreeing to the staging of a prestigious retrospective in fascist Madrid.
It's hard to believe th
Source: The Independent (UK)
May 30, 2010
The Dunkirk spirit is alive and well in George Kay. George, aged 90, climbed into his car in south London last week and drove (alone) to Dover. There, he boarded a ferry, and sailed for free, courtesy of Norfolk Lines, to Dunkirk. He was repeating, in reverse, for the first time in 70 years, a journey that he last made when he was one of 198,229 British soldiers who crossed the Channel under attack from German Stuka dive bombers and Messerschmitt fighters.
A makeshift cross-Channel
Source: ADN (Alaska)
May 30, 2010
On Kiska Island, anti-aircraft guns still point at the sky. Rusting barrels aim for targets that have not crossed their sights in almost 70 years.
Gray lakes fill craters blown into the tundra by bombs that once rained through the clouds. Around them lie the silent husks of war: a submarine, a war plane, tracked transports, tent pegs, ships and shells -- some yet waiting to explode.
Here stand mute witnesses of the long dissipated tension and tumult that wracked the wor
Source: Science Daily
May 30, 2010
Michael J. Ryan, Ph.D., a scientist at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, has announced the discovery of a new horned dinosaur, Medusaceratops lokii. Approximately 20 feet long and weighing more than 2 tons, the newly identified plant-eating dinosaur lived nearly 78 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Montana. Its identification marks the discovery of a new genus of horned dinosaur.
Ryan, curator and head of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Museum,
Source: World Bulletin
May 30, 2010
Experts unearthed an Arabic text from 8th century during the excavations under Marmaray project in Istanbul, a Turkish newspaper said.
The text, consists of 13 lines, was written on an animal's scapula. Ottoman manuscript expert from Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Gunay Paksoy, examined the text and there is no exact statement that it was a letter or an amulet, Bugün said.
Another two similar texts were found but it is not possible to read them, experts said.
Source: AP
May 30, 2010
Tudor Parfitt has spent years chasing a theory that a lost tribe of Jews wound up in Southern Africa. But his latest leap has landed him in a minefield.
The subject at hand is this British scholar's contention that the remains of a 700-year-old bowl-shaped relic which he tracked down in a Zimbabwe museum storeroom in 2007 could be a replica of the Ark of the Covenant that carried the Ten Commandments.
According to African legend, white lions of God and a two-headed snak
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 30, 2010
The secret of the strength and longevity of the Great Wall of China lies in the sticky rice that was used as its mortar, Chinese scientists have found.
Workers built the Ming dynasty sections of the Great Wall about 600 years ago by mixing together a paste of sticky rice flour and slaked lime, the standard ingredient in mortar, said Dr Zhang Bingjian.
The sticky rice mortar bound the bricks together so tightly that in many places weeds still cannot grow. However, ther
Source: AP
May 30, 2010
Archaeologists have discovered the 3,300-year-old tomb of the ancient Egyptian capital's mayor, whose resting place had been lost under the desert sand since 19th century treasure hunters first carted off some of its decorative wall panels, officials announced Sunday.
Ptahmes, the mayor of Memphis, also served as army chief, overseer of the treasury and royal scribe under Seti I and his son and successor, Ramses II, in the 13th century B.C.
The discovery of his tomb ear
Source: AP
May 30, 2010
Israel's Army Radio on Sunday played parts of an interview given by Israel's most famous spy, marking 45 years since his capture and execution.
In the 1962 interview on Damascus Radio, Eli Cohen is in character as businessman Kamal Amin Thabit. He comments on Arabic music and society, but the sound quality of some of the excerpts heard Sunday was unclear.
The broadcast came as tensions between Israel and Syria have been on the rise, as each side charges that the other i
Source: AP
May 30, 2010
In a somber military ceremony, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico escorted skulls and bones believed to be the 200-year-old remains of 12 independence heroes from downtown crypts to a historic hilltop castle where they will be examined for authenticity.
The remains, deposited in crypts under the landmark Angel of Independence statue in 1925, were removed Sunday morning by gloved soldiers carrying five ornate gold and wooden boxes. Several skulls were visible through the boxes' glas
Source: Independent (UK)
May 29, 2010
A year ago this month, the haunting faces of unknown British and Commonwealth soldiers of the Somme emerged from the mists of time and battle to gaze from the pages of The Independent Magazine. The lost Somme photographs – 400 glass negatives of Tommies, Aussies and Canadians of the period 1915-16 rescued from a rubbish heap in northern France – generated extraordinary interest all over the world. The images were by far the most visited item on The Independent website in 2009 – and over the past
