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
January 24, 2009
The film Valkyrie tells the story of an attempt on Hitler's life by an army colonel, Claus von Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise. In Germany the question whether it does justice to the German Resistance is being fiercely debated, as Dan Payne discovered.
In an opinion poll in 1956, only 20% of people agreed with the idea of naming a school after Stauffenberg.
Speaking to me at an exhibition on the Colonel's life in Stuttgart's Altes Schloss, Dr Dowe said it was an unc
Source: Times (UK)
January 22, 2009
The Pope is preparing to cancel the excommunication of four traditionalist Catholic bishops including one who believes the Holocaust never happened and the gas chambers were a myth.
Pope Benedict XVI has already signed the decree lifting the excommunication of the four bishops of the ultra-conservative Society of St Pius X, according to well-sourced reports in the Italian press today.
One of the bishops, Richard Williamson, an English former Anglican and graduate of W
Source: Library of Congress website
December 23, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009, will take the oath of office on a Bible from the Library of Congress’ collections that is steeped in history — the same Bible upon which Abraham Lincoln swore March 4, 1861, to uphold the Constitution.
The first Lincoln Inaugural is rife with historical significance, coming at a time when the survival of the United States was never more endangered, according to Clark W. Evans, an expert on Lincoln who heads the Reference Services Sectio
Source: AP
January 23, 2009
A full federal appeals court won't hear a lawsuit by three Tennessee students threatened with suspension if they wore Confederate flag T-shirts.
A three-judge panel ruled in August that Blount County, just south of Knoxville, could ban the clothing. On Friday, the judges denied a request for a hearing by the full federal appeals court in Cincinnati.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
January 18, 2009
The controversy over one of the most notorious spy scandals in British history will be reignited later this year with the publication of the memoirs of Sir Anthony Blunt, the art adviser to the Queen who was exposed as a Russian agent.
Blunt's account of his role as the 'fourth man' in the Cambridge spy ring – which included Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Kim Philby – will be revealed in July.
He died in 1983 and his memoirs were locked up in the British Library the fo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 25, 2009
Bomber crews based at the Oxfordshire airfield won the RAF's first two Victoria Crosses of the war, and the Halifax heavy bomber made its maiden flight from the base, which was also home to Mosquitos and Bristol Blenheims.
More than 60 years on, RAF Bicester - the most complete surviving wartime bomber base - is at the centre of a fresh battle, as a group of enthusiasts tries to save the historic site for the nation instead of it being sold off to developers.
Bomber Com
Source: Observer (UK)
January 25, 2009
Under new laws, key parts of inquests into the deaths of people killed by British security forces in Northern Ireland during the Troubles will be held in secret, without the scrutiny of juries.
The revelation has prompted outrage among human rights groups, who have accused the British government of seeking to suppress evidence of collusion between paramilitary organisations and the security forces.
The proposal that some parts of inquests held in England and Wales shoul
Source: Observer (UK)
January 25, 2009
Historians face a "black hole" of lost material unless urgent action is taken to preserve websites and other digital records, the head of the British Library has warned.
Just as families store digital photos on computers which might never be passed on to their descendants, so Britain's cultural heritage is at risk as the internet evolves and technologies become obsolete, says Lynne Brindley, the library's chief executive.
Writing in today's Observer, Brindley
Source: Spiegel Online
January 23, 2009
It's no secret: Munitions dating from the Second World War are buried under the airfield at Tegel Airport and could pose a threat to planes veering off the runway. Berlin's Senator for Urban Development, Ingeborg Junge-Reyer said work on cleaning up the remaining grenades and bombs will start in the spring, the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper reported on Friday.
The excavation work is to bring the airport in line with standards from the United Nation's International Civil Aviation Org
Source: Deutsche Welle
January 25, 2009
The remains of an estimated 1,800 World War II war victims have been unearthed after construction workers laying the foundations for a hotel discovered a mass grave in Malbork near the northern coast of Poland last October.
Malbork, known previously as Marienburg, had been part of the German Reich's former eastern territories, which became part of Poland after the war. Today the town's main tourist attraction is a castle built by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century.
Source: Chicago Tribune
January 18, 2009
SIU loses archives to Mississippi State University
The University of Virginia has Thomas Jefferson, Columbia University has Alexander Hamilton. And for more than 40 years, Southern Illinois University had Ulysses S. Grant.
But that honor came to an unceremonious end last month, when the Carbondale campus was forced to relinquish the world's largest collection of Grant papers.
Following a nearly yearlong conflict with the school, the Ulysses S. Grant Associa
Source: Telegraph(UK)
January 24, 2009
About 60 mortar rounds from the Second World War have been discovered under the American embassy in the Philippines.
The last thing workers digging in the grounds expected to discover, therefore, was a huge cache of bombs buried in the embassy's grounds.
The Philippine capital, Manila, was the scene of terrible fighting at the end of the Second World War, when American forces tried to liberate the country from Japanese occupation.
The rusted, mud-covered r
Source: Telegraph(UK)
January 24, 2009
Sir Walter Raleigh, the famed explorer of the Americas, adopted a native boy he brought back to England from his travels, it has emerged.
Parish records show that Sir Walter brought a young, black boy with him from Guyana when he returned to England following one of his voyages of discovery.
A baptism register discovered in the London Metropolitan Archives shows that the boy was baptised in the Parish of Saint Luke, in Chelsea, on February 13, 1597.
The
Source: BBC
January 24, 2009
The Pope has lifted the excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church of four bishops appointed by a breakaway archbishop more than 20 years ago.
One of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's appointees, Briton Richard Williamson, outraged Jews by saying the Nazi gas chambers did not exist.
Israel's envoy to the Vatican said the papal decision would "cast a shadow on relations with Jews".
The Vatican said the excommunications had been lifted after the b
Source: http://www.orangenews.com
January 22, 2009
Despite a high profile effort to prevent a Wal-Mart from locating near Civil War battlefields close to the intersection of Route 20 and Route 3 in Orange County, the big-box store is moving forward with planning.
The national retail giant announced plans months ago to build a 140,000-square-foot retail and grocery store, but progress was delayed as project engineers worked to iron out traffic plans.
The store, as proposed, will take up 19 acres of a 50-acre parcel on the nor
Source: http://blogs.tampabay.com
January 16, 2009
The News Service of Florida reports that advocates of a proposed "Confederate heritage" specialty license tag in Florida will file a lawsuit against the state because the Legislature last session failed to include the controversial tag in a list of new plates.
A complaint expected to be filed Tuesday with U.S. District Court by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Florida Division, alleges that legislative inaction is unconstitutional. The group claims it submitted the necess
Source: AP
January 23, 2009
The Vatican's relations with Jews risked a new crisis Friday after an excommunicated British bishop — reportedly in line for rehabilitation — said that historical evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed" during World War II.
Two Italian newspapers reported Thursday that Pope Benedict XVI planned to lift the excommunication of Richard Williamson and three other bishops punished for having been consecrated without papal consent 20 years ago
Source: National Security Archive
January 23, 2009
When the 9/11 hijackers crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S. nuclear bomb squad was out of the country on its first foreign deployment since 1998, at a British air base in the Cotswolds, according to the new book "Defusing Armageddon" and key primary sources posted today in the National Security Archive's Nuclear Vault by Archive senior fellow Jeffrey T. Richelson.
The after-action report from that deployment, "DOE EXERCISE 03-01 JACKAL CAVE,
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
January 21, 2009
On January 21, in one of his first official acts, President Barack Obama revoked the Bush administration’s Executive Order 13233 that severely limited access by the public to presidential records. Click here to see a copy of President Obama’s new executive order.
Source: Fox 13 (Salt Lake City)
January 22, 2009
A recently discovered diary is shedding insight into early Mormon history. The dairy belonged to William McLelling, a controversial and excommunicated apostle. The dairy was revealed by a Provo collector and historian. Its pages have anecdotes or early Mormon life and people, and parts of the dairy are also critical of the Mormon faith. McLlenin is said to have remained a believer of The Book of Mormon, but lost faith in the Church's founder. FOX 13's Max Roth reports.
