Neville Chamberlain read and annotated Hitler’s Mein Kampf in its original German before he embarked on his policy of appeasement, says a new biography.

The former prime minister, who acquired a 1933 copy of the book, highlighted sections that he thought revealing of the German dictator’s mindset, and even added exclamation marks alongside some passages.

Chamberlain was struck by sections that underlined Hitler’s anti-Semitism, his faith in Aryan superiority and his sense of racial affinity with the British....

Jimmy Ruck, a Stanford University junior, wakes up at 5:20 a.m. so he can make the 15-mile journey to Santa Clara University, where he attends training as part of the Reserve Officer Training Corps, or R.O.T.C. It begins at 6:15. Promptly.

“They have a saying in the Army — ‘If you’re on time, you’re late, and if you’re five minutes early, you’re on time,” Mr. Ruck said.

He has to get up early because there is no R.O.T.C. program at Stanford. The university has not had one on campus since 1973, when the Army and the Navy terminated their programs after years of opposition from students and faculty during the height of national turmoil over the Vietnam War.

The 15 or so Stanford students who participate in R.O.T.C. programs now go to University of California, Berkeley; San Jose State; or, like Mr. Ruck, Santa Clara.

But that may change. For a while, Stanford officials have been discussing bringing back R.O.T.C. An apparent prerequisite for its return is a repeal of the current law barring openly gay people from serving in the military....

For more than 66 years, Ruth Garmong has thought daily of her beloved Bill, the high school sweetheart she wed just before he left for World War II and died in a plane crash in Burma.

Garmong, now 85, was pregnant when Staff Sgt. William C. Fetterman perished in 1943. She remarried and had two more children, but her late second husband, with whom she shared most of her life, "always knew he was second choice."

Because of a second tragedy, though, Garmong was never able to bury Fetterman. In 1946, his remains were unearthed along with about 40 other American war dead buried in Burma by Japanese occupiers. They were put on a plane headed to India en route to the U.S. for a stateside burial, but that aircraft crashed too and was never found.

Never, that is, until three months ago, when Arizona adventurer Clayton Kuhles located its wreckage in the jungle of the eastern Indian state of Tripura. Researchers took the serial numbers he found and matched them last month with government records to determine that this was, in fact, the C-47 that had carried Garmong's husband's body.

It was, by far, the largest and most significant find for Kuhles, 55, since he began his one-man mission in 2000 to locate American planes that went missing during World War II across south-central Asia. He's located 16 never before found wrecks in India, Myanmar and China and provided an accounting of the whereabouts of the remains of at least 100 service members. But this C-47 discovery has the potential to resolve lifelong questions for dozens of grieving families.

But on NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?’’ celebs with perfectly hued hair including Sarah Jessica Parker and Brooke Shields will be seeking their own genealogical roots. The new show, which premieres tonight at 8 on Channel 7, represents the reality-TV extension of the urge that Alex Haley stoked in the mid-1970s with “Roots’’ and that now flourishes on websites such as ancestry.com, genealogy.com, and myheritage.com. People remain driven to understand who they are in terms of where they came from, to feel a sense of grounded identity in this relentlessly fast-paced, present-tense, and digitized world.

Based on a popular British series with the same title, “Who Do You Think You Are?’’ is the People magazine version of PBS’s “Faces of America With Henry Louis Gates Jr.’’ Each episode is devoted to a single star, as he or she travels from expert to historian to family member for factual ancestral information. Tonight, Parker traces her family tree back and back, traveling from New Jersey, where we meet her mother, to Cincinnati to California to, finally, Boston and Salem. Turns out Parker may be related to someone involved in the Salem witch trials.

True to its reality-TV roots, “Who Do You Think You Are?’’ is presented in heavily dramatized terms. The narration is over-baked and, at times, unintentionally funny, such as when the narrator announces, “Coming up, Sarah Jessica finds out whether her ancestor was accused of being a witch.’’ The soundtrack music and montages are also manipulative and intrusive. And each discovery Parker makes is an opportunity for her to appear stunned, blown away, moved, and touched - to perform just a little bit.

Like swallows returning to Capistrano, Congress’s annual determination to debate the history of the Ottoman Empire is a sign of spring. The Turkish government’s approach to the American Jewish community to help sink the proposed congressional resolution officially recognizing the horrific killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the early 20th century as genocide is a similar ritual. Unlike the swallows, however, both Congress and the Turks are out of their habitat.

During the flowering of Turkish-Israeli political and security relations, it was easy for representatives of the “organized” Jewish community to speak on behalf of its Turkish friends and against the resolution. As the Turkish government began to slide—and then rush—away from its relationship with Israel and slide—and then rush—toward new accommodations with Syria and Iran, the Jewish community has become less inclined to use its organizational skill on behalf of the agenda of a country that is less inclined toward the Western side of the great divide. It doesn’t help that the Turkish “request” for “help” has begun to sound more like a threat of damage yet to come....

To the extent that either side believed opposition to the resolution was a test of loyalty, or tied it to extraneous issues, they made a mistake. The Armenian resolution—driven largely by the Armenian American community—should be opposed and defeated. But the reasons stand without regard to the (increasingly difficult) behavior of the Turkish government and without regard to (increasingly difficult) Turkish-Israeli or Turkish-American relations....

The massive 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile may have changed the entire Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet, a NASA scientist said Monday.

The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, hit Chile Saturday and should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to research scientist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis," NASA officials said in a Monday update.

The computer model used by Gross and his colleagues to determine the effects of the Chile earthquake effect also found that it should have moved Earth's figure axis by about 3 inches (8 cm or 27 milliarcseconds).

The Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis, which it spins around once every day at a speed of about 1,000 mph (1,604 kph).

The figure axis is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced. It is offset from the Earth's north-south axis by about 33 feet (10 meters).

Strong earthquakes have altered Earth's days and its axis in the past. The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, should have shortened Earth's days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches (7 cm, or 2.32 milliarcseconds).

Alonzo Cushing - one of four brothers for which an elementary school and city park are named for - will be posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for gallantry during the Battle of Gettysburg in which he was killed on July 3, 1863, according to U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin).

Secretary of Army John McHugh notified Feingold's office last week that Cushing would receive the country's highest military honor, according to Matt Nikolay, veterans' affairs case worker and regional coordinator in Feingold's La Crosse office.

Nikolay credited local historian Margaret Zerwekh with initiating a campaign seven years ago to have Cushing awarded the medal posthumously. Nikolay said several other constituents had also urged Feingold to recommend Cushing for the award.

"It was a big surprise. It has been a slow process," Nikolay observed....

So who was Scotland's first female MP?...

Katharine (Kitty) Murray, the Duchess of Atholl and the MP for Kinross and West Perthshire from 1923 to 1938.

She certainly seems to be a woman of contradictions at first sight.

She maintained a woman's place was in the home, even speaking against votes for women - but ended up in the most prestigious boys' club of them all, becoming our first MP....

When she first entered Westminster she was one of only eight women elected as MPs from across Britain....

Another batch of non-historic trees is being cut down to bring the Gettysburg Battlefield closer to its 1863-appearance.

And the trees on a half-acre parcel south of the West End Guide Station on Route 30 could open the view to another place that could eventually be changing its appearance - the Gettysburg Country Club.

The area, northwest of the borough, saw significant fighting on the first day of the three-day battle. The Park Service also plans on thinning trees along Willoughby Run, where the Union Iron Brigade made its famous stand on the first day of the battle. So will there be trees blocking the view from the battlefield of whatever might come to the country club property?

The answer is yes and no, according to Park Service officials.

"I think it's a little early to say," said park spokeswoman Katie Lawhon....

It is fairly commonplace throughout history for soldiers and civilians directly involved in a conflict to gather "souvenirs" of sorts.

These could include uniform parts salvaged from a battlefield, buttons, bits of ammunition and weapons from the enemy. These relics were frequently kept in a family for generations as memorials to fallen family members or of past heroic actions.

The War of 1812 was no different, soldiers who fought picked up souvenirs of certain places and actions.

In addition to those souvenirs picked up at the time of the War of 1812, in the 19th century when visiting a War of 1812 battlefield

was commonplace, relics were picked up, including musket and cannon balls, buttons, shako plates and every day items such as spoons and forks.

Many of these relics were passed down in a family from generation to generation and eventually a number of these ended up in museum collections, both in Canada and around the world. A large portion of the War of 1812 collections at the Niagara Falls Museums came from local family collections....

Every day thousands of cars rush by the stone monument just off King Street in Stoney Creek, oblivious to the cannons that point down at them.

The memorial fortification -- with corks at the end of each muzzle to keep the coffee cups and cigarette butts out -- acknowledges fallen soldiers from the bloody Battle of Stoney Creek on what is known as Smith's Knoll.

It's an island of reflection in a sea of urban sprawl that gives the impression that the horrible chapter of history has long since been laid to rest.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

Three years before the 200th anniversary, many are saying that generations of Stoney Creek citizens should feel ashamed about the handling of soldiers' remains after the battle.

Hamilton councillor Brad Clark, who represents Stoney Creek, calls it "200 years of neglect....

In a letter addressed to parents and community members, a South Los Angeles elementary school principal apologized Thursday for “questionable decisions” about which prominent African Americans to highlight in a parade marking the culmination of Black History Month.

Lorraine Abner’s letter did not name the individuals. But her apology came after three teachers at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School were suspended while the Los Angeles Unified School District investigates allegations that they had their first-, second- and fourth-grade students carry pictures of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul at last Friday’s event.

“Unfortunately, questionable decisions were made in the selection of noteworthy African American role models,” the letter said. “As the principal, I offer my apology for these errors in judgment.”

Abner could not be reached for comment Thursday.

LAUSD spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said Simpson appeared on a school-approved list of Black History Month figures, which dates back to 1985. But she said the names of Rodman and RuPaul, among others, were added in pencil when teachers were selecting which prominent African Americans their classes would honor in the parade.

Pollard-Terry said the principal did not see the amended list, which LAUSD Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines called a lack of oversight. Some civil rights activists and groups, including the Los Angeles branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, protested Wednesday that those choices made a mockery of black history and reinforced racial stereotypes at a school that is predominantly Latino. They want the teachers, who are white, to be fired and the principal, who was not on campus last Friday, to be reprimanded....

Michael Foot, Labour leader during one of the most tumultuous periods in the party's history has died, it was announced today.

Foot led the party from 1980 to 1983, presiding over the party during the formation of the breakaway Social Democratic party. He quit after Labour slumped to a stunning defeat in the 1983 election. A distinguished writer and journalist, as well as a cabinet minister in the Wilson and Callaghan governments, he was an MP from 1945 to 1992.

Tony Benn, his cabinet colleague and occasional nemesis, said today: "He was one of the great figures of the Labour movement."

Ken Livingstone said: "It's amazing that somebody that nice got to the top of the Labour party but not surprising that he didn't win the election."

Foot was a founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and an editor of Tribune.

With Canadians basking in the glow of Olympic hockey glory - and still savouring Nova Scotia-born Sidney Crosby's overtime winner in Sunday's gold-medal match against the U.S. - two sports historians from Sweden have made a discovery that could cement the Maritime province's controversial claim to being the game's birthplace.

Researchers Patrick Houda and Carl Giden, members of the Canada-based Society for International Hockey Research, have unearthed a brief reference to an 1811 ice game played with skates, sticks and a ball on the frozen surface of Pictou Harbour in north-central Nova Scotia.

Now comes the zinger: The original source and central figure of what may now be Canada's earliest documented account of a hockey game is a muscle-bound 22-year-old Nova Scotian who defends his nation's honour in a dramatic showdown with an intimidating U.S. visitor to this country.

Sound familiar?...

A congressional committee voted Thursday to label as "genocide" the Ottoman-era slaughter of Armenians, shrugging off a last-minute warning from Obama administration officials worried about alienating Turkey, a key ally in the Middle East.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on the eve of the hearing to express concern, administration officials said. In addition to straining U.S. relations with Turkey, the resolution could also endanger a recent rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia, State Department officials said.

But the committee voted 23 to 22 to adopt the measure. It calls on President Obama to use the annual presidential statement on the tragedy next month to "characterize the systemic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide." The non-binding measure could now be taken up by the full House.

The issue is awkward for the Obama administration, which had said little publicly before the vote. As senators, Obama, Vice President Biden and Clinton had all called on the White House to condemn the killings as genocide. As president, however, Obama has not done so.

Turkey strongly denies the genocide charge. It has been a key U.S. ally, allowing use of one of its bases to move supplies to Iraq....

Until now, paleontologists have generally believed that the closest relatives of dinosaurs possibly looked a little smaller in size, walked on two legs and were carnivorous. However, a research team including Randall Irmis, curator of paleontology at the Utah Museum of Natural History and assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah has made a recent discovery to dispel this hypothesis.

The team announced the discovery of a proto-dinosaur (dinosaur-like animal) - a new species called Asilisaurus kongwe (a-SEE-lee-SOAR-us KONG-way), derived from asili (Swahili for ancestor or foundation), sauros (Greek for lizard), and kongwe (Swahili for ancient). The first bones of Asilisaurus were discovered in 2007, and it is the first proto-dinosaur recovered from the Triassic Period in Africa. Asilisaurus shares many characteristics with dinosaurs but falls just outside of the dinosaur family tree-living approximately 10 million years earlier than the oldest known dinosaurs.

The description of the new species Asilisaurus kongwe appears in the March 4 issue of the journal Nature in a paper co-authored by an international team, including Irmis, Sterling Nesbitt, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences, Christian A. Sidor (Burke Museum and University of Washington), Kenneth D. Angielczyk (The Field Museum, Chicago), Roger M.H. Smith (Iziko South African Museum, South Africa), and Linda A. Tsuji (Museum für Naturkunde and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)....