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: History Today
August 22, 2008
A devastating moorland fire has exposed archaeological remains in North Yorkshire on an unprecedented scale. The six-day fire in September 2003 destroyed the plants and soil covering Fylingdales Moor to reveal over 100 rock art depictions and Bronze Age field boundaries. English Heritage will now make the area, which covers two-and-a-half square miles and was abandoned around 1000BC, open to the public. Stone Age flint tools, 18th century industrial tracks, Second World War training foxholes and
Source: NPR
August 18, 2008
About two years ago, National Park Service employees stumbled upon a fascinating and largely untold piece of American history.
It involves a secret World War II interrogation camp at Fort Hunt, Va., not far from the Pentagon. During and right after the war, thousands of top German prisoners were questioned there about troop movements and scientific advances.
Soldiers at the site also prepared special "care packages" for American POWs that they sent overseas. T
Source: Salon blog: War Room
August 20, 2008
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com published a short, sidebar analysis in the latest issue of the New Republic showing that in recent decades the candidate with the larger post-convention poll bounce invariably wins the national popular vote. That is, Al Gore out-conventioned George W. Bush, as did the other outright presidential winners. (TNR requires a subscription, but its link to Silver's analysis and accompanying chart is no longer available anyway; however, here is a more technical post fr
Source: Christian Science Monitor
August 21, 2008
As the two big parties that govern America ready for their quadrennial conventions, the question on the minds of many political pros is … well, OK, it’s who the vice presidential picks will be. But they’re also wondering something else: What’s happened to the bounce?
Historically the hoopla and media attention of conventions give nominees a boost in the polls. But in 2004, President Bush got an unimpressive 2 percent bounce following the GOP week-long party. The comparable figure f
Source: Times (UK)
August 21, 2008
The Vatican has for the first time published the prayer the Knights Templar composed when "unjustly imprisoned", in which they appealed to the Virgin Mary to persuade "our enemies" to abandon "calumnies and lies" and revert to "truth and charity".
L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said the prayer was further proof that the order, which was dissolved in the fourteenth century, was not heretical. The knights were innocent of the charg
Source: History Today
August 22, 2008
A devastating moorland fire has exposed archaeological remains in North Yorkshire on an unprecedented scale. The six-day fire in September 2003 destroyed the plants and soil covering Fylingdales Moor to reveal over 100 rock art depictions and Bronze Age field boundaries. English Heritage will now make the area, which covers two-and-a-half square miles and was abandoned around 1000BC, open to the public. Stone Age flint tools, 18th century industrial tracks, Second World War training foxholes and
Source: BBC History Magazine
August 21, 2008
Archaeologists have lifted the lid on Roman history in the North-East of England. I’m not punning for the sake of it: they have literally lifted the lid off two coffins that have been discovered on a building site in ewcastle. You can see a video of the actual event on the BBC News website . Given the parlous state of our summer you won’t be surprised to note that the coffin in question was brimful of muddy water once they craned the heavy stone top away. You might have thought that such an ingr
Source: Atlantic.com
August 12, 2008
One does not normally see 2000 lb. statues in marble and bronze playing musical chairs. But that’s what has been happening at the Natural History Museum in London, with Charles Darwin and his main adversary as the only players.
The museum was designed in the Victorian era as “a temple to nature,” and it feels like a cathedral. There’s a main hall that looks a lot like a nave, and at the far end, there’s a statue on a stairway landing below a stained glass window, in a position that
Source: New Zealand Herald
August 21, 2008
Saddam Hussein's private luxury train, equipped with chandeliers and Italian-made curtains, is being put into public service next month to help ease a train shortage, Iraqi rail officials said yesterday.
The 23-carriage French-built train was kept at a secret location for three decades and shielded from the widespread looting that followed the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Starting next month, the train will ferry passengers between Baghdad and the souther
Source: Tehran Times
August 21, 2008
The Cultural Center of Khorramshahr Sacred Defense recently donated a dozen stamps to the Brest Fortress Defense Museum, Belarus.
Head of the center, Nader Daryaban, said that the stamps bear the images of Iranian martyrs and aim to transfer the concept and values of Iran’s Sacred Defense era (Iran-Iraq 1980-1988 war), the Persian service of IRNA reported.
“The stamps bear images of the commanders including Mohammad-Ali Jahan-Ara, Abdorreza Musavi, Behruz Moradi, Ahma
Source: Independent
August 22, 2008
The paintings are not only priceless, but they have been among the star attractions at New York's Museum of Modern Art and the city's equally renowned Guggenheim Museum for more than four decades. Both are early Picassos painted at the beginning of the 20th century – before the two world wars that would engulf Europe and ultimately lead to the current blockbuster of a legal battle.
One of the canvases is Le Moulin de la Galette, a Picasso painted in 1900 that, unlike the artis
Source: The Times
August 21, 2008
The Vatican has for the first time published the prayer the Knights Templar composed when "unjustly imprisoned", in which they appealed to the Virgin Mary to persuade "our enemies" to abandon "calumnies and lies" and revert to "truth and charity".
L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said the prayer was further proof that the order, which was dissolved in the fourteenth century, was not heretical. The knights were innocent of the char
Source: NYT blog
August 21, 2008
Back when Jimmy Carter was running for president in 1976, his brother Billy had a tendency to mouth off and act so colorfully that a reporter suggested to him that, well, perhaps he was a little strange. “Look,” Billy replied, “my Mama was a 70-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in India, one of my sisters goes all over the world as a holy-roller preacher, my oldest sister spends half her time on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and my brother thinks he’s going to be president of the United States. Whic
Source: AP
August 20, 2008
One hundred years ago, nearly half a million people
cheered as 16 white-painted American warships cruised into Sydney Harbor,
forging an alliance between the United States and the fledgling Down Under
nation.
On Wednesday, it was a small group of Australian and American military
officials and diplomats who welcomed the USS John S. McCain into the
harbor in a commemoration of the 1908 visit of the Great White Fleet.
A military band on shore at the navy's fleet base played"Walt
Source: International Herald Tribune
August 21, 2008
Kneeling on the dining room floor, Evan Lattimer sliced open a cardboard box and braced herself for what might be inside: a lock of human hair, a half-smoked cigar, an arcane torture device, perhaps? Her face broke into a smile as she peeled away the bubble wrap: a dinosaur egg.
"You just never knew with Dad," she said.
When her father, John Lattimer, died in May 2007 at the age of 92, Evan Lattimer knew her inheritance would include more than the family tea s
Source: NYT
August 21, 2008
Fires in the 47-story office tower at the edge of the World Trade Center site undermined floor beams and critical structural columns, federal investigators concluded Thursday, as they attempted to curb still-rampant speculation that explosives or fuel fires were responsible for the building’s collapse of Sept. 11, 2001.
The long-delayed report by engineers here at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in suburban Washington is intended to solve one of still lingering ce
Source: LiveScience
August 12, 2008
Roman temple ruins from the 2nd century A.D. have emerged from excavations at the ancient Jewish capital of the Galilee in Israel.
The discovery shows that the city of Zippori housed a significant pagan population which built a temple in the city center during the Roman period.
The central location of the temple lies within a walled courtyard, and may help archaeologists better understand the urban layout of Zippori in the Roman era.
Source: Bloomberg News
August 21, 2008
Le Van Lua, the first North Vietnamese that Lieutenant Commander John McCain encountered in 1967, says he greeted the American aviator with the biggest kitchen knife he could find. He'd like to welcome McCain back as president of the United States.
He isn't alone. Former prisoner of war McCain has some unlikely supporters in Vietnam, a country he bombed 23 times. Like Le, many Vietnamese are cheering for the self-confessed ``air pirate,'' absolving McCain-the-bomber and embracing th
Source: Independent
August 21, 2008
An exiled teacher of Kim Jong-il has revealed how he first met an 'ordinary' student who turned into the monster that rid Pyongyang of the disabled – and ordered his entire family killed.
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It seemed an ordinary moment, repeated in thousands of schools worldwide. On one side, a shy boy "with puffy, red cheeks" who stammered through a translation test in the principal's office. On the other, a tutor hired by the boy's father to put him through his paces.
Source: Vlad Jecan in a special report for HNN
August 21, 2008
[Vlad Jecan is a science journalist and can be contacted via his personal website http://www.vladjecan.com.]
Archaeologists digging at the ancient site of Sagalassos, in Turkey, found a huge marble head of Faustina the Elder, wife of Emperor Antoninus Pius.
Initially, archaeologists have correlated the finding to Vibia Sabina. She was forced at the age of 14 to marry Hadrian and died in 136-137 AD. This assumption was eventually ab
