Historians who say Prime Minister Stephen Harper got a one-sided perspective on Second World War atrocities when he visited a museum in Ukraine last month jumped the gun, according to the museum's former director.

Volodymyr Viatrovych, a historian popular with Ukrainian nationalists in both his own country and in Canada, was ousted from his job at the Prison at Lonsky museum after Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's pro-Moscow president, took office this year.

Viatrovych was responding, at the request of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, to historians' complaints that Harper was shown only exhibits focusing on atrocities committed in June 1941 by Soviet secret police against Ukrainians, Poles and Jews....

ncient Rome's biggest temple reopened to the public on Thursday after 26 years of restoration work.

The massive Temple of Venus and Roma, in the heart of the Roman Forum and a stone's throw from the Colosseum, was designed and commissioned by the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD.

It was so large that a huge bronze statue of the Emperor Nero – known as the Colossus – had to be moved to another site.

The restoration of the temple was particularly welcome in a week in which a house used by gladiators prior to combat collapsed into a pile of rubble at Pompeii, prompting a national debate on Italy's management of its ancient sites....

EHUD Netzer, one of Israel's best-known archaeologists, who unearthed King Herod's tomb near Bethlehem three years ago, has died after being injured in a fall at the site. He was 76.

Netzer was leaning on a wooden safety rail when it gave way, sending him tumbling six metres. He was taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem with critical injuries and died there three days later.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described his death as ''a loss for his family, for scholars of Israel's history and for archaeology''.

Netzer, who born in Jerusalem, was professor emeritus of archaeology at Hebrew University and led high-profile digs across the country. He had helped educate several generations of Israeli archaeologists....

(Nov. 11) -- In a dilapidated hangar in a faraway corner of Brooklyn, N.Y., veterans -- some of whom served before the age of jet propulsion -- assemble model airplanes.

Very big model airplanes.

The Historic Aircraft Restoration Project, dubbed HARP by its members, is a program that allows former servicemen and aircraft lovers of all ages to spend their days rebuilding and refurbishing antique airplanes, from propeller-powered trainers to Vietnam War-era jets....

There have been storms with more snow. There have been storms with cruel temperature drops, screaming winds and freakish barometer readings, and storms that have killed people and paralyzed the region for days.

But 70 years later, the 1940 Armistice Day blizzard still has a firm hold on the Minnesota imagination, perhaps because it was the last truly old-fashioned blizzard.

"I'm old enough to remember it," said weather historian Tom St. Martin of Woodbury, who recalled snow blowing under the doors and into the kitchen of his family's farmhouse in western Minnesota. "The forecasts of the day were just not good. People were unprepared for it.

"My guess is, like most historical events, it will fade a bit as time goes on," he said. "But as far as I know, it was one of the last ones with significant casualties."...

Oranienburg has more unexploded bombs in its soil than any other German town or city. This week, another bomb was removed from its soil, a reminder to residents that they still live with lethal remnants from the war.

On a grey November morning, Manfred Gellert's red fire brigade car rolled along a cobblestone street in Oranienburg.

The streets were eerily empty, and there was no one to be seen in the well-kept gardens and houses in this eastern German town.

This was good news for the 57-year-old deputy head of Oranienburg's fire brigade, since it meant local residents had obeyed orders that required them to evacuate this part of town as of 8 o'clock that morning.

Residents were generally "calm and composed in view of the evacuations," he said.

After all, it was the 159th bomb that has had to be removed in 20 years, and since this time about 4,500 people had to leave their homes "the numbers were not unusually high."

Most went to work as usual, or went to stay with friends and family outside the no-go area. Temporary shelters were arranged for the people with no where else to go in a church and buildings owned by the municipality.

Lethal legacy

During World War II, Oranienburg was the target of massive bombing raids flown by the United States and Britain....

It is unlikely to be high up on your list of holiday destinations for summer 2011, but Iraq is poised to become a tourism hotspot, according to a travel industry report.

Tourism in the troubled Middle Eastern stat is growing rapidly, with airline and hotel capacity on the increase, according to the report released at World Travel Market, a major travel conference being held in London.

Millions of pounds have been invested in Iraq’s tourism infrastructure since the end of the US-led war in 2003.
Seven hundred new hotels are expected to have opened in the country by 2014.

Airlines, including Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines, have also started flying to the Middle Eastern country.

Iraq boasts some of the finest archaeological sites in the world and some of the holiest places in Islam....

John Demjanjuk says he's in too much pain to follow his trial on charges he served as a guard at a Nazi death camp.

The 90-year-old told the Munich state court in a rare statement Tuesday that he belongs "in the hospital and not the courtroom."...

Fifty years ago today, John F. Kennedy won election to the White House, beating Richard Nixon by one-tenth of one percent. The youngest person and only Catholic ever elected president, Kennedy captured the imagination of Americans with this dashing good looks and beautiful wife, Jackie. While his 1,000 days in office are well-documented, Life magazine has just released never-before-published photos that cover the campaign of 1960....

A war is being waged on two fronts to save two pieces of the Wilderness Battlefield from being lost forever.

This Civil War battlefield straddles Spotsylvania and Orange counties in Virginia. It's where Civil War giants Grant and Lee clashed for the first time. Now there's a modern day clash - Walmart versus concerned citizens.

The battle will play out in court in January. A lawsuit was filed to stop Walmart from building a superstore on land that an expert says was part of the Civil War battlefield. But Walmart contends the land is not part of the site....

For 66 years, the brave young Spitfire pilot’s final resting place had been a mystery.
Flight Lieutenant Henry Lacy Smith was shot down by the Germans five days after D-Day on a mission supporting the Allied invasion in Normandy.

His last radio message to comrades was: ‘I’m going to put this thing down in a field.’

But the Australian’s plane then nose-dived into the sea and he was designated ‘missing believed killed’.

Now, however, the puzzle has been solved after locals spotted something sticking out of the mud in the Orne estuary near Caen at low tide and decided to investigate....

No-one will ever know who the man who fell at the Seelow Heights outside of Berlin was. Denied an honourable burial as five million men of the Red Army marched on the Nazi capital in 1945, he was disinterred last month to be plundered of his papers and army insignia.

He fell victim the first time to a Soviet shell blast; the second to vultures who are at work plundering the graves of fallen warriors like him for money.

Thousands of German and Russian corpses recovered from the battlefields around Berlin have been stripped of medals, papers, rank badges, ID discs and other items to feed a worldwide multi-million pound military souvenir industry....

Nazi-era insignia and papers are much sought after. Medals, particularly Iron Crosses, are torn off to fetch up to £500 a time....

Britain's enigmatic "headless Romans" lost their heads far away from home, according to a multi-isotopic analysis of the 1,800-year-old skeletal remains.

Unearthed between 2004 and 2005 in a cemetery in York, England, the remains belong to 80 individuals, almost all males, who died violently at ages ranging between 19 and 45.

At least 46 of them had been carefully decapitated, with their heads placed by or between their legs or pelvis.

Believed by some to be gladiators, losing their heads after their last fight, the heavily built men were buried in one of the most prestigious cemeteries of York during the 2nd and 3rd century A.D....

Croatian President Ivo Josipović has stated that he did apologize for the Serb victims in Paulin Dvor near Osijek and that some media were "twisting the facts".

Commenting on reports that he, unlike Serbian President Boris Tadić, did not apologize for the victims, Josipović said he was glad that such media were few.

“I think they weren’t listening carefully, watch the recording again,” he added.

The Croatian president repeated that Tadić’s visit to Vukovar and Paulin Dvor was extremely successful and pointed out that Croatia deserved good neighbors and that they deserved good Croatia....