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: Guardian (UK)
May 6, 2010
A mayor in north Devon is attempting to help rewrite American history by proving that people from his small port town settled in the US 30 years before the Pilgrim Fathers set sail.
Andy Powell hopes to find funds for DNA tests that might help demonstrate Bideford's "pivotal" role in the history of modern America. If he can find the proof, the town might find itself at the centre of a tourism boom.
At the centre of the saga is the story of the "lost colon
Source: Daily Press
May 6, 2010
An attorney seeking to block a Walmart Supercenter near an endangered Civil War battlefield wants to get the retailer into a courtroom.
A judge ruled last week that a preservation group and residents who live near the Wilderness Battlefield in northern Virginia can challenge Orange County's approval of the store last August.
While Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was not a party to that legal challenge, an attorney representing the plaintiffs wants to add the retailer as a defendan
Source: Ria Novosti
May 6, 2010
Nazi collaborators Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych were awarded honorary citizen status in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankovsk on Thursday, UNIAN reported.
The city council specially introduced the status of honorary citizen shortly before taking the decision....
Source: National Security Archive at GWU
May 6, 2010
Washington, D.C., May 6, 2010 - Internal documents reveal that in the final years of the Cold War the top leadership of the Soviet Union debated the cover-up of their illicit biological weapons program in the face of protests from the United States and Great Britain.
The documents, first disclosed in a new book by David E. Hoffman, The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy, are being posted in English translation today by the National Securit
Source: Press Release
May 6, 2010
Oxford University Press (OUP) is honored to have been selected by the Organization of American Historians to be the publisher of the Journal of American History and the Magazine of History.
“History lies at the very core of our publishing program and mission, and we therefore welcome the pre-eminent journal in American history and the innovative Magazine of History with open arms, and with many ideas about how we can work together to increase their already formidable influence,” n
Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
May 5, 2010
Melanie Trubey got the e-mail early one morning.
A stranger from the Netherlands was asking about her family. And he offered some startling news of his own.
"Being a collector of WW II items and stories and, in the first place, a great admirer of the American soldiers that liberated our country at the end of WW II, I found while using my metal detector a Dog-Tag with the name: Milton S. Reese written on it,'' wrote a man called Felix de Klein.
Is she
Source: BBC
May 5, 2010
Cornwall's fire service says that work has been carried out to preserve the archive of a local historian who died in a fire at her home.
The body of Joan Rendell MBE, 89, was found after her bungalow at Yeolmbridge caught fire on Tuesday.
Miss Rendell wrote more than 30 books and was appointed a Cornish bard by Gorseth Kernow, the organisation which promotes the study of Cornish literature, art, music and history.
She was also an avid collector of matchbo
Source: BBC
May 5, 2010
University of Ulster divers have been passing on their expertise to maritime archaeologists in the historic Egyptian port of Alexandria.
Staff from the UU's maritime archaeology centre conducted a 10-day training workshop for 15 archaeologists from north and east Africa who wanted an insight into the challenges of working underwater.
During their stay the UU divers were granted a rare opportunity to explore the underwater remains of the famous Pharos lighthouse - one o
Source: BBC
May 5, 2010
Schoolchildren in Denbighshire have been at the premiere of a film they have helped produce as part of Britain's Cultural Olympics.
For the last year pupils at five schools have studied the Bronze Age landscape and artefacts of north Wales.
It includes the Golden Cape which was discovered in Mold in 1833.
The resulting short film was shown at the Scala cinema in Prestatyn, helping to explain the life and landscape in north east Wales 4,000 years ago.
Source: BBC
May 5, 2010
A statue of RAF hero Sir Keith Park has been taken down from the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Sir Keith commanded RAF squadrons that defended London and the South East from World War II Luftwaffe attacks in 1940.
The 16.4ft (5m) tall glass-fibre sculpture had been on the plinth in central London for the past six months.
A permanent, bronze statue of Sir Keith will now be erected in Waterloo Place on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain on 1
Source: BBC
May 5, 2010
The scout hat worn by the founder of scouting, Lord Baden Powell, is expected to fetch up to £1,000 when it goes under the hammer in East Sussex.
The wide-brimmed felt hat, with leather headband and buckle, is being auctioned as part of a collection of memorabilia owned by sculptor Bryan Mickleburgh.
Other items in the collection include a white Stetson and gloves which belonged to cowboy actor Roy Rogers.
The sale is being held on Thursday at Wallis and
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 5, 2010
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's President, has denied reports that Osama bin Laden is in Tehran and insisted that the al-Qaeda leader is, in fact, in the US capital of Washington.
Without backing up the claim, the Iranian leader said he had "heard" that bin Laden was in the US capital.
He added that, at any rate, US officials ought to know the extremist Islamic leaders whereabouts
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 5, 2010
India is to ban schoolchildren from wearing leather shoes because they are seen as a "vestige of British colonial rule."
Instead canvas plimsolls will replace uncomfortable and "environmentally hazardous" leather shoes.
The move by the country's school boards follows a campaign by Maneka Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's widowed daughter-in-law, who is now an member of parliament for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. She is one of India's leading animal
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 5, 2010
One of Poland's most famous and controversial pop stars faces two years in gaol after suggesting that the Bible was written by drunks and people with a fondness for "herbal cigarettes".
Dorota Rabczewska, famed for an unabashed attitude when it comes to flaunting her flesh, and a string of hits, has been charged by Warsaw prosecutors with insulting religious feeling for comments she made in a television interview a year ago.
Source: Art Daily
May 5, 2010
Six giant figureheads at Chakanbakan Archaeological Zone, Quintana Roo, considered the greatest and among the earliest in the area, will be restored by specialists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
Created more than 2,300 years ago, these sculptures remind the Olmeca style, which represented deities with jaguar faces, revealing the adoption by Maya of elements from earliest cultures.
Intervention to figureheads made out of stucco, clay and
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 5, 2010
An interview in which a Soviet commander admitted how close Moscow came to defeat by Germany during the Second World War has been broadcast in Russia for the first time.
The Soviet Union nearly lost the war in 1941 and suffered from poor planning, according to Marshal Georgy Zhukov in the frank television interview that has been banned since it was recorded in 1966.
Zhukov, the most decorated general in the history of both Russia and the Soviet Union, admitted that Sovi
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
May 5, 2010
They chronicle Winston Churchill's life in extraordinary detail - from baby to wartime Prime Minister.
Rarely seen photographs, revealing letters, his engagement diary from the Second World War and even an unsmoked cigar all form part of this astonishing private collection of memorabilia.
Amassed over 30 years by American Malcolm S Forbes Jr, grandson of Forbes magazine founder BC Forbes, it is expected to raise well over £1million when sold at auction.
Announcin
Source: BBC News
May 5, 2010
On 5 May 1980, the world looked on as the SAS brought the Iranian embassy siege to a bloody end in London.
Six days earlier, Met police Ch Insp Max Vernon had received a phone call summoning his hostage negotiation skills. Here, he relives the events of 30 years ago:
"I was part of the fraud squad in Holborn at the time the siege started but I had done the negotiation course and so it happened that I was pulled in.
"I had no idea what had happened
Source: BBC News
May 5, 2010
A Pablo Picasso painting has set a new record for the most expensive art work sold at auction, fetching $106m (£70m).
The Spanish artist's 1932 picture Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was sold at Christie's auction house in New York.
It had belonged to the late Los Angeles collectors Frances and Sidney Brody since the 1950s.
The winning bid was made by an unnamed telephone bidder. It breaks the record held by Giacometti's Walking Man I, which sold in February f
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 5, 2010
For years New Zealand has sought the return of Maori heads kept in collections abroad, many of which were obtained by Westerners in exchange for weapons and other goods.
Dozens of museums worldwide, though not all, have agreed to return them. Maori, the island nation's indigenous people, believe their ancestors' remains should be respected in their home area without being disturbed.
France's National Assembly voted 437-8 on Tuesday to give back the 16 heads counted in F
