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: Telegraph (UK)
October 14, 2008
Nguyen Tien Tran said: "We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded."
Mr McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, who was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam war, regularly refers to his experiences after being captured when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967.
He was taken to Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton"
Source: Spiegel Online
October 14, 2008
A new computer program will allow the curious to see Cologne, Germany's fourth-largest city, as it was almost 2,000 years ago, when it was a major northern outpost of the Roman Empire.
"Now, for the first time, people will be able to visualize what an amazing city Cologne already was in antiquity," said Hansgerd Hellenkemper, the director of the city's Romano-Germanic Museum.
The city's history stretches back to 38 B.C. After Julius Caesar pushed the empire n
Source: BBC
October 14, 2008
Khem Ngoun had swaggered into Phnom Penh's Municipal Court as if he were considering buying the place.
He stood slightly apart from the other four defendants and held a fuchsia-coloured hand towel to mop his brow.
Even his blue, prison-issue pyjamas were of a different design and a better fit than those his former Khmer Rouge colleagues were wearing.
His initial appearance at the court earlier this month suggested that Khem Ngoun still saw himself as a p
Source: BBC
October 14, 2008
A valuable engraving by the Spanish master Francisco de Goya has been found a month after it was stolen from an exhibition, Colombian police say.
The work, entitled Sad Premonitions, was found in a Bogota hotel room after a tip-off, investigators said.
The engraving is part of Goya's "Disaster of War" series which he created between 1810 and 1820.
It was on loan from Spain and reportedly insured for 80,000 euros($108,000; £64,000).
Source: NYT
October 12, 2008
At the turn of the 20th century, toward the end of a brutal and surprisingly difficult victory in the Second Boer War, the people of Britain began to contemplate the possibility that theirs was a nation in decline. They worried that London's big financial sector was draining resources from the industrial economy and wondered whether Britain's schools were inadequate. In 1905, a new book — a fictional history, set in the year 2005 — appeared under the title, "The Decline and Fall of the Brit
Source: Times (UK)
October 10, 2008
The London auctioneers Bonhams are under pressure to withdraw several of the prized pieces from its forthcoming antiquities sale after a senior Italian politician raised questions over their provenance.
Francesco Rutelli, the former Italian Minister for Culture and Deputy Prime Minister, told the Italian Parliament he had believed that some of the antiquities to be auctioned in London next week had been exported illegally from Italy.
In an "urgent question" to
Source: http://www2.tbo.com
October 12, 2008
The giant Confederate flag at Interstates 4 and 75 will be replaced with a larger version.
The Confederate battle flag hoisted at what is planned to be a memorial park for Confederate soldiers was raised amid controversy by a local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The original flag measures 30 feet by 50 feet, or 1,500 square feet. The new flag is 30 feet by 60 feet, or 1,800 square feet.
Source: NYT
October 13, 2008
Has John McCain fallen too far behind, too late in the presidential campaign, to overtake Barack Obama?
That is the question facing strategists in both parties three weeks before Election Day. History suggests that the answer is probably so.
Obama has already made history as the first African-American to become a major-party nominee for president. But his breakthrough represents a wild card that could yield election returns at odds with poll results. Beyond that, McCain
Source: FoxNews.com
October 12, 2008
In the beginning, there was a boy, a girl and an apple.
He was a teenager in a death camp in Nazi-controlled Germany. She was a bit younger, living free in the village, her family posing as Christians. Their eyes met through a barbed-wire fence and she wondered what she could do for this handsome young man.
She was carrying apples, and decided to throw one over the fence. He caught it and ran away toward the barracks. And so it began.
As they tell it, they
Source: NYT
October 14, 2008
TWAIN HARTE, Calif. — Strange where a road trip can begin: a dorm room, a bar stool or Page 283 of the W.P.A. Guide to California.
It is on Page 283 that a reader can find the barest mention of The Order of E Clampus Vitus, one of the oldest and oddest entities in a state known for having a few, a Gold Rush-era organization whose goofball sensibilities are offset by a single, serious pursuit: a tendency to plaque all things historical, an obsession that continues to this day.
Source: NYT
October 13, 2008
The government’s plan to prop up banks large and small — along with recent bailouts as well as guarantees to support business loans, money markets and bank lending — represents the most sweeping government moves into the nation’s financial markets since the Great Depression, and perhaps ever, according to economists and finance experts.
The high-stakes program is intended to halt the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. If successful, it could long be studied by historians as a t
Source: Canada.com
October 12, 2008
A rare print of a 396-year-old map of Canada created by French explorer Samuel de Champlain - and billed by Sotheby's as "perhaps the most important single map" in Canadian history - is to be auctioned next month in Britain for up to $80,000.
But the newly offered copy of Champlain's richly illustrated rendering of Canada's geography as it was understood in 1612 - just four years after the founding of New France at Quebec City - is drawing special attention from experts at
Source: International Herald Tribune
October 13, 2008
This month Moscow blocked off two streets to make way for a small Communist demonstration. It was a march in memory of about 150 people who were killed in October 1993, when hard-line deputies in the Parliament tried to wrest power from Boris Yeltsin and halt the lurching course he was steering toward constitutional democracy and capitalism.
The whole, vast mass of Russia seemed to teeter for a few days. Sympathizers flocked to Moscow's White House, where the deputies were barricade
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 13, 2008
In a sign of her influence over her husband's decision-making, the Italian-born First Lady - along with her sister - convinced the French president to drop a court order to deport exiled Red Brigades terrorist Marina Petrella to Rome.
Her personal intervention and the presidential u-turn sparked anger in Italy, which has been seeking Mrs Petrella's extradition from France since she fled after being freed on bail in 1986.
A group representing victims of the Red Brigade
Source: WaPo
October 13, 2008
You want to talk dirty politics? Oh, we'll talk dirty. We'll talk about . . . 1800!
Thomas Jefferson was attacked by ministers who accused him of being an "infidel" and an "unbeliever." A Federalist cartoon depicted him as a drunken anarchist, and the president of Yale warned that if Jefferson came to power, "we may see our wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution." A Connecticut newspaper warned that his election would mean "murder, r
Source: Dallas Morning News
October 12, 2008
Even though the Lincoln landscape already is populated with many books, several authors have found new ground to cover ahead of the 200th anniversary of his birth in February.
Here are some highlights:
Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer. Fred Kaplan.
Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief. James M. McPherson.
New Perspectives on Lincoln and His World. Edited by Eric Foner.
Source: National Parks traveler Online
October 9, 2008
If you can prove that "George Washington Slept Here," your house is
Historic with a capital "H". Washington really did sleep at the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The house is the focal attraction of Longfellow National Historic Site, which celebrates its 36th anniversary October 9.
Nearly everyone has heard of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). Sure, you know him. He's the literary genius who wrot
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
October 11, 2008
For years, Quinten Massys' portrait of 'An Old Woman' in the National Gallery [in London] has captivated audiences with her unattractive looks.
Looking at her upturned nose, wrinkled cleavage and beady eyes, one would wonder why the Flemish artist would choose to paint such an ugly woman.
After much investigation and debate, art experts believe they have found out why the woman looked like she did and have authenticated the masterpiece.
Medical research on
Source: National Parks traveler Online
October 11, 2008
First Ladies National Historic Site, which was established on October 11, 1980, has a prime location in Canton, Ohio, yet attracts scarcely more than 10,000 visitors a year. Why is that, and does it really matter?
There are lots of national parks, including not a few historic sites, whose annual attendance is low enough to raise eyebrows. These units are in the National Park System despite visitor appeal factors, not because of them. We justify their existence as national parks beca
Source: BBC
October 9, 2008
In October 1929 shares on Wall Street fell sharply following a speculative boom during the "Roaring Twenties".
In two days the Dow Jones industrial average fell by 25% (ending on Black Tuesday, 29 October).
The volume of stocks traded set a record that was not broken for 40 years.
When it finally reached its record low in July 1932, the Dow Jones had fallen 89%, and it did not recover to 1929 levels until 1954.
WHAT WAS THE CAUSE?
