Well, here's another way President Obama has put his historic stamp on the presidency. With no fanfare or media attention, President Obama last month added a new decoration to the Oval Office: a 12 5/8" bronze bust of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

The work, titled "Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)," is by celebrated African-American sculptor Charles Alston -- the first African-American instructor at the Art Students League -- who died in 1977....

When the Smithsonian lent the bust to the President Bill Clinton's White House in 2000 to be displayed in the White House Library, that marked, believe it or not, the very first time that the image of an African-American was displayed in a public space in the White House.

A six-member alliance of regional and national organizations, called the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, is mounting a counter-offensive [to Wal-Mart's effort to build a box store near the Wilderness battlefield]. Not just against Wal-Mart but against what it sees as the inevitable repercussions: congestion, sprawl, and irreparable damage to an important piece of American history.

Preservationists site encroaching gas plant, incinerator.

A proposed trash incinerator and a planned natural gas plant threaten to encroach on two Civil War battlefield sites in Western Maryland, a preservation group warned yesterday.

The Washington-based Civil War Preservation Trust said recent developments have put the Monocacy National Battlefield near Frederick and South Mountain near Middletown on its list of the nation's most endangered battlefields from that war.

Frederick County officials are weighing whether to build a $527 million waste-to-energy incinerator across the Monocacy River from the site of an 1864 clash when Confederate forces marched on Washington. The 350-foot smokestack from the incinerator, which would burn trash from Frederick and Carroll counties, would loom over the National Park Service site. A bill introduced in the Maryland Senate to bar incinerators within a mile of a national park has yet to be heard.

A former arsenal is being partially reconstructed at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park - one that is part of what many historians call the match that lit a fuse on existing tensions that exploded into the Civil War.

The building is along Shenandoah Street in the park's old town area and it was built in 1806, said Marsha Wassel, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service. The structure served as one of two major arsenals in the area, and it housed thousands of weapons.

The match, of course, was John Brown's failed 1859 raid. Brown hoped to obtain the weapons that were stored in the arsenal, Wassel said.

Within a couple of years, the building again became the site of conflict. Early during the Civil War, Confederate troops made off with machinery that was housed in the buildings, and then burned the structures.

In the years that followed, only the ruins of the buildings remained. A new version of the two-story arsenal's foundation is now being built on the site.

Wassel said Park Service officials decided to partially reconstruct the building to enable visitors to learn more about the area and its history. She said the actual foundation remains nearly two feet below ground level.

However, in this instance the Park Service determined that it in order to keep the original foundation safe, it would be better to build a new foundation on top of the old one.

Weather was not the only challenge that workers faced as they prepared the building's new foundation. Water table stones, which stand at the structure's corners, were chiseled by hand.

Significant work was invested in the project even before construction got under way, officials noted. The building's construction was based on the findings of a 1959 archaeological dig performed at the site, said Mia Parsons, supervisory archaeologist at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

Archives were also combed to determine more details about how the arsenal looked during its heyday, Parsons said.

Rudley said it was important to everyone involved in the project that the building be as accurate as possible.

Numerous Native American artifacts dating back more than 800 years have been discovered outside a Kirksville museum. KBIA's Bobby Meeder has more.

Construction workers in Kirksville were working outside of a historical museum on Wednesday when they found some artifacts of their own.

Workers were digging for a water main outside of the Washington Museum of Natural History when museum director Charles Tharp decided to take a closer
look.

The numerous fragments included arrowheads, flint chips, primitive tools, and pottery which were found four feet underground.

Adair County Historical Society expert Pat Ellebracht says the artifacts were a rare find with only two prominent tribes once calling Missouri home, the Sac and the Fox.

A Yemeni archaeologist team has discovered a mosaic statue of a women sitting on a throne with here chest engraved with Musnad letters.

The archaeologists also found other relics including a stone board with faith signs engraved on it.

Two pulls separated by a tree were carved on the stone board, a symbol that was know as "Life's Tree" in ancient Yemeni civilization, director of the authority Ali al-Sanabani said.

The discoveries were revealed during excavations at a site in Dhamar province where the team found buildings that were used to give sacrifices.

California corrections officials released a photograph taken Wednesday of aging convicted mass murderer Charles Manson, replete with receding hairline, fading forehead swastika carving and a thick, heavily graying beard.

The photograph of the 74-year-old cult leader was taken at Corcoran State Prison, where he is serving a life sentence, and is part of periodic updates of inmate images by prison officials, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

President Barack Obama, the best-selling author who received royalties of $2.5 million last year, has signed a deal for a youth-oriented version of his published memoir and a nonfiction book after he leaves office.

Obama reached a deal in early January, shortly before his inauguration, for an abridged version of "Dreams From My Father" that would suitable for middle school or young adult readers. Crown Publishing Group is giving him a $500,000 advance plus 15 percent of the U.S. sales price for hardcover book sales and up to 10 percent for the domestic price for paperback sales.

As part of the deal, he also will deliver a new nonfiction book after he leaves office. Obama didn't indicate how much his deal for the new book might be worth. Terms likely would be negotiated at the end of his term. Former President Bill Clinton got $15 million for his book, "My Life."

On this day, the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent pledged to create an independent homeland, where they could live in accordance with their religious and cultural values.

From 22 to 24 March, 1940, the All India Muslim League held its annual session at Minto Park, Lahore. The session proved to be historical.

On the first day of the session, father of the Pakistani nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah narrated the events of the last few months. And then in an off the cuff speech he presented his own solution of the Muslim problem in India. He said that the problem of India was not of an inter-communal nature, but clearly an international one and must be treated as such.

The 20-year old photo depicts two world leaders - US President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev - in Moscow.

But, according to the man who took the photo, it also captures Mr Putin disguised as a tourist.

Pete Souza, now President Obama's official photographer, captured the moment when he worked for President Reagan during the political thaw that soon ended the Cold War.

Mr Reagan took a stroll around Red Square accompanied by the Russian leader, who then introduced him to a group of tourists.

In an interview, Mr Souza recounted being surprised at the "pointed" questions these supposed tourists asked the US leader.

They included searching enquiries on the state of human rights in the US.

The identity of the man on the left of the photo - complete with camera round his neck - was later revealed and "verified" to Mr Souza as none other than Mr Putin.

The planting of KGB officers as bystanders was a common practice in Soviet times.

A commission established by Brown University in cooperation with the City of Providence and the State of Rhode Island has released a report recommending how the history of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Rhode Island should be commemorated in Rhode Island, Providence, and on College Hill. Topping the group’s six recommendations is a proposal that the Public Arts Committee of Brown be asked to commission a memorial about how slavery was intertwined with the University’s early benefactors.

The commission was established in response to recommendations made by the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, appointed in 2003 by Brown University President Ruth J. Simmons. The steering committee, which included faculty members, students, and administrators, was charged to investigate and to prepare a report about the University’s historical relationship to slavery. The final report, presented in October 2006, concluded that some of the University’s early benefactors were involved in the slave trade and that the University benefited from that involvement. In February 2007, the Brown Corporation endorsed a set of initiatives in response to the Committee’s report. Among the recommendations was that the University memorialize the history revealed by the Committee by creating a “living site of memory, inviting reflection and fresh discovery without provoking paralysis or shame.”

Established in 2007, the Commission on Memorials is composed of members of the Brown Community as well as individuals nominated by the governor of Rhode Island and the mayor of Providence. The 10-member group includes historians, individuals with expertise in memorialization, public art, and community and government affairs. They met on several occasions throughout 2007-08, studying many types of memorials around the world, visiting local monuments and museums, and hearing from individuals who have led similar memorialization efforts.

The commission recommends:

that the Public Arts Committee of the University be asked to commission a memorial that recognizes the University’s ties to slave trading, and as part of the process, the Committee should engage with the wider campus and Rhode Island communities;

that the commission request a meeting with the mayor and governor to urge that they lead a process to explore how the city and state will similarly memorialize the place of slavery in the city and state’s past;

that the director of the Center for Slavery and Justice, when appointed, undertake a discussion of how this history should be represented in the Brown curriculum and how this curriculum can be used to further teaching at the K-12 level;

that the University, through the center, provide funds for ongoing public events, seminars, and lectures on issues that help the community reflect on the history of slavery in Rhode Island and on the importance of similar atrocities around the world;

that a prize be created to recognize research on this subject;

and that this project inform how the University should address the need to memorialize Native American heritage in this region. The Bristol property may provide opportunities in this regard.

The commission agreed that any memorial be designed to inform people about this history and to engage the broader public in an ongoing discussion of its meaning. Members also felt that the emphasis of the project should be “uplifting” and offer access to reconciliation, rather than resurrect shame or pain. The group also asserted several points of importance to the mission and purpose of any memorial project, including “capturing the full extent of the history and the present-day implications of that history,” and “addressing the lingering effects of slavery that manifest themselves in disparate social and economic conditions.” Additionally, the group discussed how to locate a memorial, which will be considered by the University, city, state, and various agencies and organizations during the project’s next phases.

Other actions taken by Brown in response to the Slavery and Justice Report include initiatives to improve public education in the Providence area. The University created a $10-million target for an endowment for Providence Public Schools, called the Fund for the Education of the Children of Providence, and launched the Urban Education Fellows program, which forgives tuition for Brown graduate students who agree to serve Providence-area schools for at least three years after they earn a Master of Arts in Brown’s Urban Education Policy Program or a Master of Arts in Teaching.

Additionally, the University is committed to exploring how best to carry out a major research and teaching initiative on issues of slavery and justice; to recruiting a director of a Center for Slavery and Justice; to making copies of the report and its materials readily available to the public; and to continuing other projects approved by the Corporation in response to the steering Committee’s report.

The full Report of the Commission on Memorials is available online (pdf).

PINGYAO, China It was a time of new wealth, a gilded age in which entire families came into fortunes overnight.

To move the money, businessmen here in this city in northern China opened banks, the first in the nation’s history. Soon branches sprang up across the country, and they began making loans. Money flowed this way and that.

Then, as quickly as it started, the entire system crumbled. The banks shut down and the city fell into ruin.

So went the history of China’s first banking capital, which bloomed here in dusty Shanxi Province in the mid-19th century, during the Qing dynasty. With the global economy now reeling from the banking crisis that began in the United States, and as the explosive economic growth of China begins to slow, the rise and fall of Pingyao could be read by some as a cautionary tale.

But the present-day financial crisis has reinforced the sense of nostalgia surrounding Pingyao, which with its 33-feet-tall Ming dynasty walls is one of the best-preserved medieval towns in the country.

“The banks tell a history of Chinese financial development, like how China started to transform from feudalism to capitalism,” said Ruan Yisan, a retired professor from the architecture department of Tongji University in Shanghai who has been instrumental in the restoration of Pingyao. “The staffs of the banks were trained to be objective and highly responsible to the accounting of the banks. Now, corruption is common and people don’t place much value in moral qualities.”

They lived through the Great Depression, so they knew poverty firsthand: what it was like to sleep four to a bed, make your own noodles for supper or hang your used tea bag on the clothesline to dry so it could be steeped for another day's cup. They remember the long lines to the soup kitchens and how people finagled, bartered, took odd jobs or sold stuff on street corners: an apple for a nickel, a pencil for a penny. • Of course a penny was worth something back then. • And so, it turns out, are their memories.

As today's economic crisis stirs discussion about the Depression, what better way to teach a younger generation about those dire times than to tap into those firsthand accounts?

That's the thought behind the educational partnership evolving between residents of Atria Baypoint Village in Hudson and students in Eric Johnson's history classes at Hudson High.

"These wonderful residents have so much to share with young people," said Lynne Schroeder, the Engage Life director at Atria Baypoint Village. "My experience is that there aren't grandparents living close to their grandchildren, and my thought was that we could highlight these seniors and we could bring out the wonderful experiences from the residents that live here."

Historical remnants from a Civil War-era gunboat will be pulled from the depths of the Pee Dee River by a team of underwater archaeologists looking to preserve and, in the future, display a part of the area’s early history.

The team is preparing to raise three Confederate cannons — each weighing more than 15 tons — from the watery resting places some 150 years after they were sunk by Confederate troops as Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s troops bared down on the Pee Dee, said state underwater archaeologist Christopher Amer.

Amer is leading the team of researchers from the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology who are conducting the project, which is funded in part by a $200,000 grant from the Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation.

The cannons are from the CSS Pee Dee, a 170-foot gunboat constructed at the Confederate Mars Bluff Naval Yard, which was located on the east side of the Pee Dee River. The vessel was launched from the yard in 1865.

Researchers are surveying the river this week to determine the exact location of the cannons, Amer said.

Hopefully, the cannons will be recovered later this year or next spring at a water depth and time that would be ideal for raising the artifacts, he said.

Police officers in northern Scotland have been accused of vandalising a Bronze Age site through ignorance after they removed bones and textiles from the 4,000-year-old burial chamber, apparently because they thought they were investigating a crime scene.

The burial chamber, or cist, was discovered intact, in a field near Oykel Bridge in Sutherland. The area is rich in Bronze Age remains, but this find was of huge importance to archaeologists. Unlike the vast chambered cairns of the earlier Neolithic period, burials from the metal-working people of the Bronze Age are modest affairs with artefacts such as pottery most commonly found.

Inside the cist was a skeleton in the foetal position, an unusual “crouched burial”, and - rarer still - the chamber contained well-preserved items made of woven materials.

Oblivious to the importance of the site - described as unique by one authority - police removed bones and other materials from the grave for forensic analysis, in actions which were described as “clumsy and “incompetent” by critics.

As soon as a mechanical digger pulled back a slab, he realised he was looking into a 4,000-year-old tomb. After punching the air in delight, he secured the site and covered it with a tarpaulin, before contacting National Museums of Scotland and Historic Scotland and, fatefully, notifying the police.

Historic Scotland defended the police actions, and said the force had “an obligation to investigate an unexplained death”, adding that the site was not a scheduled monument, and so was not subject to the heritage organisation's protection.

So it was that New Jersey archaeologist David Braun tempered his excitement after he and other researchers, among them a Rutgers University professor and a group of Rutgers students, found what looked to be very unusual footprints in the ancient sediment of a riverbed in Kenya.

"We knew we might have something special, but we also kept thinking, 'OK, these could be from a baboon,'" Braun said.

Turns out all that caution was unnecessary. Over three summers, Braun and his colleagues unearthed a bit of archaeological gold: what's believed to be the first known footprints of Homo erectus, an ancestor to modern humans. The finding was reported Friday in the journal Science.

The researchers, who included Rutgers professor John W.K. Harris and a team of international experts, determined the feet that left those prints 1.5 million years ago were almost exactly like ours, with nearly identical heels, insteps and toes. Significantly, the big toe ran parallel with the other toes, suggesting a modern upright gait.

The footprints also indicated that those who left them took long strides like modern humans, allowing them to run and travel long distances. That squares with the fossil record, which shows that Homo erectus began migrating out of Africa about 1.8 million years ago.

Only one cluster of older pre-human footprints has ever been found. They were discovered in 1978 in Laetoli, Tanzania, and had been left 3.7 million years ago by Australopithecus afarensis, the small, apelike species to which the famous skeleton "Lucy" belonged.

It was in the summer of 2005 that the researchers made their discovery a few miles east of Lake Turkana, though they didn't know initially how big it would be. The group was cutting into the wall of a bluff to examine the geology of the area when they noticed deformations in the sediment.

"It was odd-looking," said Braun, the son of a Star-Ledger columnist, Bob Braun. "We were looking at it from the side, and it wasn't until we excavated from the top that we realized these were footprints."

A fuller excavation began in the summer of 2006, followed by two more in 2007 and 2008. Their excitement growing, Harris and Braun turned to other experts for help.

Matthew R. Bennett, a professor from Bournemouth University in England, used a digital laser scanner to create three-dimensional images of the footprints in 2007, showing them in detail.

In all, the group found more than a dozen prints on two layers of sediment separated by about 10,000 years. In one layer, they found two trails of two footprints each and one that included seven prints. Three prints were found on the lower layer.

Shortly before President George W. Bush left office, his administration signed an agreement with China that imposed import restrictions on a sweeping range of Chinese art and antiquities in an effort to quash the growing illicit trade in looted artifacts, a volatile issue that has polarized the international art, museum and archaeological worlds and led to several high-profile restitution cases.

The agreement, signed on Jan. 14, covers all of China’s cultural heritage from the Paleolithic period, beginning 75,000 B.C., through the Tang period, ending A.D. 907, in addition to monumental sculpture and wall art that is at least 250 years old. Materials subject to import restrictions include art, furniture, textiles, ceramics, weapons, tools, ornaments, jewelry, coins and musical instruments.

The accord was widely praised in the archaeological community in the United States and elsewhere as an important measure to deter looting of ancient sites and the illicit trade in stolen artifacts. But among Chinese art dealers and museum professionals in the United States there is a widespread belief not only that the agreement is unlikely to achieve its stated goal of stopping looting in China, but also that it will harm legitimate collecting and study of this material.

James J. Lally, a New York dealer in Asian art, also suggested that the agreement would be detrimental to collecting by American museums, and said that because the content of the new regulations and their practical application were not well explained or understood, dealers at home and abroad had become fearful of the “unpredictable power” of individual United States Customs agents to seize objects.

Fine Chinese art held by Japanese or European dealers will not be shown to U.S. museums because the dealers will not wish to risk the chance of problems at Customs,” Mr. Lally said. “A positive cultural activity will be turned into a source of problems.”

But not all collecting of Chinese artifacts by American museums will be affected by the accord, which mostly excludes the last 1,000 years of Chinese history. Acquisitions for the Chinese art collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., for instance, are primarily post-Tang Dynasty, meaning after A.D. 907, so the agreement has little direct impact.

The agreement comes with mutual obligations. In return for the United States’ restricting its imports, China has agreed to take greater measures to crack down on looting and the illicit market for these items within China, believed to be huge, as well as to facilitate greater cooperation with American museums, including more exhibitions, cultural exchanges and long-term loans of archaeological material.

Battlefields in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi are in the top 10 most endangered in the country, according to the Civil War Preservation Trust which released the names at a press conference this morning.

Although being named most endangered might be considered a negative, it actually is embraced by the various sites because the Trust has a proven ability to bring media attention to what are often little known sites or unrecognized threats. A place on the annual list also means the Trust will most likely help raise huge amounts of money in an effort to rescue a battlefield.

Gettysburg, the best known of the country's battlefields, has often been on the Trust's list and each time the threat has either been removed or reduced.

The Trust does not rank the list; the threat follows the name of each site:

Gettysburg, Pa: expanding commercial development including hotels.

Wilderness, Va: proposed Wal-Mart super center.

New Market Heights, Va: none of the land is protected by any preservation group.

Cedar Creek, Va: approval of expanded limestone mining operations.

Monocacy, Md: proposed trash facility.

South Mountain, Md: proposed construction of natural gas compression plant.

Sabine, Texas: damage from two hurricanes and lack of state money for repair

Fort Gaines, Al: land erosion by Gulf of Mexico

Spring Hill, Tn: commercial development

Port Gibson, Ms: proposed road widening through center of the town

The DuMont Media Group in Cologne has become the first newspaper consortium to publish a historical account of its own activities in the Third Reich. The work is a portrait of a dark age for freedom of the press.

The study was written by historian Manfred Pohl and entitled M. DuMont Schauberg: A Newspaper Publisher's Fight for Independence Under the Nazi Dictatorship.

Commissioned by Dumont itself, the study was officially launched in Berlin on Monday, March 16.

The book focuses on the then head of the family-owned publishing company, Kurt Neven DuMont. The author Pohl concludes that DuMont, although a Nazi Party member as of 1937, did not actively support Hitler's regime and indeed tried to help employees threatened by Nazi oppression.

Their achievement stands as one of the greatest military triumphs in history.

It is, frankly, inconceivable to imagine anything as big or audacious as D-Day being attempted ever again: more than 300,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen in a bloody dawn attack which liberated France and Europe and changed the world.

These days, their average age is 84. But the people they liberated from Nazi rule will never forget them - which is why, to this day, the veterans of the D-Day landings find it extremely hard to pay for so much as a drink when they set foot on the Normandy beaches.

For many, this year - the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion of France - will be the last hurrah, the final pilgrimage.

The D-Day chaps are a matter-of-fact bunch. 'We're not getting any younger,' they say with a shrug. Hence, they have decided to close the Normandy Veterans Association later this year. But hundreds of them are determined to go out with a bang, to give June 2009 their best shot, and to get themselves over to France by whatever means possible.

Once there, they will not be disappointed. Led by President Nicolas Sarkozy, the French will make the liberators feel more honoured and appreciated than ever, with parades and medal presentations spread over several days.

Sadly, though, that sort of gratitude is not being reciprocated on this side of the Channel.

While the U.S. and Canadian governments are also organising events for their own D-Day veterans, both in France and at home, the official British position is so curmudgeonly that it is almost hilarious: there will be no further national commemoration of D-Day until the centenary.

Tonight sees the unveiling of a belated 200th-birthday present to Charles Darwin in London's Natural History Museum - a sculpture consisting of a 5mm section of a 200-year-old oak tree, including trunk, roots and branches, installed on the ceiling. Sculptor Tania Kovats dreamed up her work in a camper-van in Patagonia (on a trip round South America, during which she used Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle "as a travel guide - and a surprisingly fresh one").

The future of the New Zealand explorer Sir Edmund Hillary's Auckland home remains unclear after it was sold at auction today.

The house at 278A Remuera Road went to the bid of Auckland estate agent Graham Wall, who purchased it on behalf of clients he would not name.

The selling price of $1.9m was just below the house's government valuation of $1.93m. Planning restrictions allow only one unit to be built on the 1738sq m site.

The 198sq m house was built in 1957 by Sir Edmund, four years after he and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay conquered Mt Everest. Sir Edmund died in January last year.

Susan Hibbert is believed to have been the last British witness to the signing of the German surrender in Reims, in May 1945. She died at the beginning of last month, on February 2nd, aged 84. An obituary was notably published on the website of The Telegraph. The surrender was signed in the temporary headquarters of General Dwight Eisenhower, commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces, in a room in what was Reims’ technical college. At the time, Hibbert was a British staff sergeant in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and working at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), which had been moved to Reims in February 1945. Hibbert was responsible for typing the English version of the Act of Military Surrender. The document itself was allegedly quite short although it included numerous attachments. She was thereafter also given the task to type the signal informing the War Office in London that the war had come to an end - “The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local time, May 7th, 1945”.

Following a stunning breakthrough in a 25-year-old case of political terror in Guatemala, the National Security Archive today is posting declassified U.S. documents about the disappearance of Edgar Fernando García, a student leader and trade union activist captured by Guatemalan security forces in 1984. The documents show that García's capture was an organized political abduction orchestrated at the highest levels of the Guatemalan government.

The dormant case was brought back to life earlier this month when Guatemalan authorities used evidence found in the massive archives of the former National Police to arrest a two police officers (one active duty, one retired), charging them with kidnapping, illegal detention and abuse of duty. Arrest warrants have also been issued for two more suspects, ex-officers with the infamous Special Operations Brigade (BROE), a police unit linked to death squad activities during the 1980s by human rights groups.

The arrests are a testament to the important work being done by investigators in the police archive. Since the discovery of the vast, deteriorating archive in 2005, the files have proven to contain a treasure trove of evidence in some of Guatemala's most notorious cases of human rights atrocities stemming from the country's 36-year brutal civil conflict. According to the Historical Clarification Commission, 200,000 unarmed civilians died in the war, and 40,000 were estimated to have "disappeared."

The U.S. records published today provide illuminating details on the government campaign of terror designed to destroy Guatemala's urban and rural social movements during the 1980s that led to abduction of hundreds of labor leaders, including Fernando García. The posting also includes information on one of Guatemala's first human rights organizations, the Mutual Support Group (GAM), which itself became a target of government violence after its creation in 1984.

The posting also bring attention to the lingering question over Guatemala's missing military archives, which the President ordered released over a year ago. It also provides links to the National Security Archive's Guatemala Project homepage, with information on the death squad dossier, the police archives, and the investigative efforts to provide evidence in international and domestic human rights legal prosecution.

Vice President Joe Biden’s discussed the economy in stark terms at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser Monday night, in contrast with the upbeat tone coming from the White House over the past few days.

In a 20-minute speech in the lobby of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Biden said President Obama "has inherited the most difficult first 100 days of any president, I would argue, including Franklin Roosevelt."

“Let me explain what I mean by that," he added. "It was clear the problem Roosevelt inherited. This is a more complicated economic [problem]. We’ve never ever been here before – here or in the world. Never ever been here before."

Battlefield tree removal in Gettysburg is officially underway this year, with the clearing of 19 acres of woodland along the Baltimore Pike.

Non-historic trees were removed near Colgrove Avenue just south of town, adjacent to the new Battlefield Visitor Center.

The project is part of a multi-year plan to transform the 6,000-acre Gettysburg National Military Park to its Civil War-era appearance.

Archeological studies have indicated that traces of ancient population in Iran's northern province of Mazandaran goes back 5,600 years.

“Archeological excavations and precise date recognition at the historical site of Gohar Tappeh revealed urbanism had entered the region about 4,500 years ago,” says Ali Mahforouzi, head of the excavation team of Gohar Tappeh of Mazandaran.

The discovery has also led archeologists to believe that powerful political and economic systems in the region were established around 5,600 years ago.

Whether for his association with the Civil War or civil rights, another United States President from Illinois is currently getting more attention as the nation draws closer to the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States in 2011.

Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, was elected in 1868 while a resident of Galena, Illinois and visitors to that town may still tour his fully restored home. His two terms in office, spanning the years 1869 – 1877, saw some of the most important civil rights activity the nation would experience for nearly 80 years and have caused some historians to re-evaluate his presidency.

A new book by presidential scholar Alvin S. Felzenberg, The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn"t): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game places Grant in a tie for seventh place among Presidents Zachary Taylor, William McKinley, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. Felzenberg argues that Grant "was the last president before Dwight D. Eisenhower to send federal troops to the South to protect the right of blacks to vote." He also destroyed the earliest version of the Ku Klux Klan, Felzenberg says, and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875.