Name of source: National Geographic
A hundred years ago in Peru, a tall history professor from Yale University left his camp in a valley northwest of Cusco, and walked through cloud forest to a mountain ridge more than 7,500 feet above sea level. There, high above the roaring Urubamba river, he found an ancient stone citadel; sculpted terraces of temples and tombs, granite buildings and polished walls that were covered in centuries of vines and vegetation.
Hiram Bingham had stumbled across the Inca site of Machu Picchu, the site he believed to be the ‘Lost city of the Incas’. ‘Machu Picchu might prove to be the largest and most important ruin discovered in South America since the days of the Spanish conquest,’ he wrote in the 1913 edition of the National Geographic.
But his words were misleading. Bingham hadn’t ‘discovered’ Machu Picchu. Nor was it ‘lost’. He may have alerted it to the western scientific world – for there were no accounts of it in the chronicles of the Spanish invaders – but local tribes must have been aware of its existence. Yet Christopher Heaney, a Fellow at the University of Texas and author of a book on Hiram Bingham, claims the historian was amazed to discover an indigenous family close to the citadel. ‘When he climbed the mountain he was very surprised to find an Indian family at the top of the ridge,’ he said. Why Bingham was surprised is bewildering in itself....
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 09:14
Name of source: WaPo
The Dow Jones industrial average is one of several market indexes created by Dow Jones Co. co-founder Charles Dow (pictured). It is named after Dow and statistician Edward Jones and includes the stocks of 30 large U.S. companies....
The Dow was originally set up to gauge the well-being of the industrial sector, but these days few of the 30 component stocks have to do with heavy industry. When the Dow was created in 1896, it contained only 12 stocks....
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 07:46
They came from as far away as Hawaii, silver-haired heroes converging on their nation’s capital to celebrate their place in history.
But the fact that there were so many fewer of them this year was painfully obvious to the heroes.
They once numbered 15,000 — 992 pilots, 200 navigators, bombardiers and administrators, as well as legions of crew members and support and medical personnel who came to be known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
Seventy years later, their ranks have fallen precipitously. Only a few more than 100 of the “originals” from the Tuskegee days were among those who came to Washington this week for the 40th annual convention of Tuskegee Airmen Inc. at National Harbor’s Gaylord hotel.
“We are losing so many that it is hard to keep track,” said Col. Charles H. McGee, 91, of Bethesda, who is perhaps the most famous of them and has logged more combat hours (1,151) than any U.S. pilot.
McGee and the rest of the Tuskegee Airmen were pioneering aviators who broke the color barrier for black pilots in the U.S. military during World War II....
Thursday, August 4, 2011 - 21:46
Name of source: DNA India
His journeys across mountain ranges and deserts opened the eyes of medieval Europe to the exotic wonders of China and the Silk Road, establishing him as one of history's greatest explorers.
But a team of archaeologists believe Marco Polo never even reached the Middle Kingdom, much less introduced pasta to Italy after bringing it back from his travels, as legend has it.
Instead they think it more likely that the Venetian merchant adventurer picked up second-hand stories of China, Japan and the Mongol Empire from Persian merchants he met on the shores of the Black Sea, thousands of miles short of the Orient....
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 07:44
Name of source: Chicago Tribune
For decades, Howard Bergman has clung to the "absolutely atrocious" memories of his boyhood in Poland, when his family was herded into Nazi labor camps and his father and brother were murdered.
Susan Nesher and her sisters had spent years wondering about a mystery from their father's past: the family they'd heard he lost in the Holocaust before he married their mother, a part of his history he would not discuss.
In recent months, Bergman, 83, of Skokie, has learned details about his father's death that had eluded him for more than 65 years. Nesher, 56, of Highland Park, has been able to fill in some of the blank pages in her family's history, including the names of her two half-siblings.
They are among the innumerable Holocaust-era secrets that have been unlocked through the International Tracing Service, through which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., helps survivors and others search thousands of wartime documents....
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 07:43
Name of source: Civil War Librarian
Maintenance workers at the Gettysburg National Military Park cutting through a fallen oak tree have discovered bullets fired during the famed Civil War battle. The crews came across the bullets earlier this month, while working on Culp's Hill, which served as the right flank of the Union Army on July 1st, 2nd and 3rd in 1863. "Culp’s Hill is one of the areas on the Gettysburg battlefield that saw intense fighting in July 1863," says Park Superintendent Bob Kirby. "One hundred years ago it was commonplace to find bullets in Gettysburg trees but this is a rarity today."
Two sections of the tree trunk where the bullets were found have been moved to the park's museum collections storage area. They will be treated to remove insects and mold and then added to the park's artifacts collection. According to the National Park Service, a number of witness trees on the battlefield have been frequently pointed out during battlefield tours.
Other previously unknown Witness Trees are often identified during preparatory work for battlefield rehabilitation efforts, where the park re-opens historic meadows and farm fields to restore the historic integrity of the 1863 battlefield and to improve the visitors’ understanding of what happened during the clash between Union and Confederate forces.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 07:42
Name of source: BBC News
Sweden's royal family has rejected allegations of links between the German-born queen's late father and the Nazi regime in Germany.
Queen Silvia has published a report she commissioned in response to claims her father took over a factory from a Jewish businessman.
The report concluded that Walter Sommerlath had in fact helped the Jewish man escape from Germany.
But a Holocaust survivors' group dimissed the findings as a "whitewash"....
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 07:41
Name of source: AP
TOKYO (AP) — The United States sent a representative for the first time Tuesday to the annual memorial service for victims of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, one of two nuclear attacks that led Japan to surrender in World War II.
The U.S. bombing of Nagasaki 66 years ago killed some 80,000 people. Three days earlier, the U.S. had dropped another atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing up to 140,000.
U.S. Charge d'Affaires James P. Zumwalt, the first American representative to attend the Nagasaki memorial service, said in a statement that President Barack Obama hoped to work with Japan toward his goal "of realizing a world without nuclear weapons" — a commitment Japan has made repeatedly since the war.
Obama last year sent Ambassador John Roos to the 65th anniversary of the bombing in Hiroshima, and Roos visited Nagasaki twice last year on other dates, according to the U.S. Embassy in Japan....
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - 13:43
The F.B.I. says DNA found on the tie of the hijacker D. B. Cooper does not match a new suspect. Special Agent Fred Gutt cautioned that the test did not necessarily rule out the suspect because investigators did not know whether DNA on the tie is that of Cooper’s....
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - 10:01
Nine former soldiers and officials have turned themselves over to a court in El Salvador after being indicted in Spain in the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests and two other people during the Central American country's civil war.
The Defense Department said Monday the nine soldiers turned themselves in at a military base and were handed over to a Salvadoran court.
A tenth suspect in the Spanish case has since died, and 10 other suspects have not been located....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 22:21
There are girls with ribbons in their hair, boys in short pants or wool jackets (one even wears a discarded Hitler Youth uniform). There are teens and toddlers. There are kids who look happy, sad, scared, tense and relieved — greatly relieved.
There are few hints in the photos, aside from some weary eyes or bony arms, of the hardships they endured to get to this moment: hiding in strangers' homes, stealing scraps of bread to survive, gasping for air in cramped cattle cars.
These are children who'd come through the fire, survivors of the Holocaust photographed by social service agencies across Europe soon after World War II. There are more than 1,100 pictures, long stashed away and forgotten in the mists of history.
Until now.
More than 65 years later, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is reaching out around the world to find the people in these extraordinary photos. It has posted the pictures online and spread the word that the search is on....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 15:17
CAIRO – Nineteen artifacts taken from the tomb of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun will be returned to Egypt next week after more than half a century at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Egypt's antiquities authority said Saturday.
The trove includes a miniature bronze dog and a sphinx-shaped bracelet ornament, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.
The move, scheduled for Tuesday, is the result of an agreement between the two institutions last year to return the objects to Egypt....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 09:29
Name of source: Fox News
In 1979, as the U.S. was reeling from skyrocketing interest rates, high unemployment and an energy crisis, President Jimmy Carter delivered a televised address that would later infamously be labeled, “the malaise speech." He never used the word, but rather blamed the poor economy in part on a "crisis of the American spirit."
In hindsight, that speech now seems like a hard lesson on the political liabilities of the blame game -- something critics say President Obama has failed to grasp more than 30 years later.
Obama has suggested that blame for the stagnant U.S. economy lies in places other than the Oval Office. The latest example occurred Monday, when the president said, "There will always be economic factors that we can't control, earthquakes, spikes in oil prices, slowdowns in other parts of the world.”
This tactic from the Obama administration is not new. Five days ago, the president suggested "messy democracy” bore some blame for economic stagnation. "When I said, ‘change we can believe in,’ I didn't say ‘change we can believe in tomorrow,’” the president said....
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - 13:41
In 1979, as the U.S. was reeling from skyrocketing interest rates, high unemployment and an energy crisis, President Jimmy Carter delivered a televised address that would later infamously be labeled, “the malaise speech." He never used the word, but rather blamed the poor economy in part on a "crisis of the American spirit."
In hindsight, that speech now seems like a hard lesson on the political liabilities of the blame game -- something critics say President Obama has failed to grasp more than 30 years later.
This tactic from the Obama administration is not new. Five days ago, the president suggested "messy democracy” bore some blame for economic stagnation. "When I said, ‘change we can believe in,’ I didn't say ‘change we can believe in tomorrow,’” the president said.
Perhaps most daunting to Obama is that the tide of bad news this summer is not limited to the economy. Months after President Carter delivered his "malaise speech,” the media was saturated with images of Carter's failed hostage rescue mission in Iran. Pictures of burned American bodies and wrecked planes in a Middle Eastern desert left many Americans with a vivid image of a nation whose better days had passed. It helped seal the fate of a doomed presidency.....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 22:18
Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis believed Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination of her husband, according to tapes recorded by the former first lady just months after President John F. Kennedy's death, the Daily Mail reports.
The tapes, which are set to be released by ABC News, reportedly reveal that Kennedy-Onassis believed then-vice president Johnson, along with businessmen in the South, planned the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of her husband in Dallas, Texas.
The tabloid reports about the content of the tapes are totally erroneous," an ABC News spokesperson said in a statement to FoxNews.com....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 15:48
Name of source: NYT
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Military secrecy was a bit lax during the Civil War, by today’s standards, but contractor deadlines were a lot tighter.
The technology that revolutionized naval warfare began with a five-sentence message delivered to The New York Times 150 years ago, on Aug. 9, 1861, and the information was not exactly classified. It was an advertisement placed by the Union Navy, to appear the following six days, under the heading “Iron-Clad Steam Vessels.”
“The Navy Department will receive offers from parties who are able to execute work of this kind,” the ad announced, describing its desire for a two-masted ship “either of iron or of wood and iron combined. The plans had to be submitted by early September, giving designers less than a month.
Less than six months later, a shipyard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, launched not merely an ironclad but an entirely new kind of warship. The U.S.S. Monitor had no masts and no line of cannons. It was essentially a submarine beneath a revolving gun turret, something so tiny and bizarre-looking that many experts doubted the “cheese box on a raft” would float, much less fight....
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - 09:32
NAGASAKI, Japan — In 1945, Masahito Hirose saw the white mushroom cloud rise from the atomic bomb that incinerated this city and that left his aunt to die a slow, painful death, bleeding from her nose and gums. Still, like other survivors of the attacks here and in Hiroshima, he quietly accepted Japan’s postwar embrace of nuclear-generated power, believing government assurances that it was both safe and necessary for the nation’s economic rise.
That was before this year’s disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan confronted the survivors once again with their old nightmare: thousands of civilians exposed to radiation. Aghast at the catastrophic failure of nuclear technology, and outraged by revelations that the government and power industry had planted nuclear proponents at recent town hall-style meetings, the elderly atomic bomb survivors, dwindling in numbers, have begun stepping forward for the first time to oppose nuclear power.
Now, as both Hiroshima and Nagasaki observe the 66th anniversary of the American atomic attacks at the end of World War II, the survivors are hoping that they can use their unique moral standing, as the only victims of nuclear bombings, to wean both Japan and the world from what they see as mankind’s tragedy-prone efforts to tap the atom....
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - 09:31
HAVANA — The hair and accents were wrong, but the audience cared about just one thing: the house band was singing the Beatles, here, in a new bar called the Yellow Submarine, in Cuba, where such an act might have led to arrests in the mid-1960s.
Better yet, perhaps because of that history, the band played like rebels. Fast and raw, they zipped up and down the bass lines of “Dear Prudence” as if the song were new. They raced through “Rocky Raccoon,” and when they reached the opening words of “Let It Be” — “When I find myself in times of trouble” — the entire crowd began singing along, swaying, staring at the band or belting out the chorus with their eyes closed in rapture.
“If there’s no Beatles, there’s no rock ’n’ roll,” said Guille Vilar, a co-creator of the bar. “This is music created with authenticity.”
Maybe so, but Cuba’s revolutionaries were not sure what to make of it when it first came out. Though today the bonds between counterculture rock and leftist politics are well established, back then, Cuban authorities — at least some of them — saw anything in English as American and practically treasonous. The Beatles, along with long hair, bell-bottom jeans and homosexuality, were all seen as cause for alarm or arrest at a time when green fatigues were a statement of great importance.
Cuba in the ’60s and early ’70s, says Mr. Vilar, a trained musicologist, “was a very serious place.”...
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 12:50
Double dip may be back.
It has been three decades since the United States suffered a recession that followed on the heels of the previous one. But it could be happening again. The unrelenting negative economic news of the past two weeks has painted a picture of a United States economy that fell further and recovered less than we had thought....
If this is the beginning of a new double dip, it will have two significant things in common with the dual recessions of 1980 and 1981-82.
In each case the first recession was caused in large part by a sudden withdrawal of credit from the economy. The recovery came when credit conditions recovered.
And in each case the second recession began at a time when the usual government policies to fight economic weakness were deemed unavailable. Then, the need to fight inflation ruled out an easier monetary policy. Now, the perceived need to reduce government spending rules out a more accommodating fiscal policy....
Thursday, August 4, 2011 - 21:43
ON this summer afternoon, the Andy Warhol’s New York City Tour does not begin at any location where the artist lived, worked or partied. Instead, it starts at 1060 Park Avenue.
That is where Truman Capote was living with his mother in 1952, and where a young worshipper from Pittsburgh, Andy Warhol, could once be spotted, standing outside.
“Capote was an overnight sensation,” said Thomas Kiedrowski, the tour guide. “Andy Warhol was thinking, ‘This guy has my life.’ So Andy did what he could to be friends with Capote. He sent him postcards. He became friends with Capote’s mother. I could just see Warhol lingering here, waiting to meet him.”
To say that Mr. Kiedrowski has a passion for all things Warhol would be an understatement. Bald and beaming, he owns close to 175 books about the artist, who would have turned 83 on Saturday. He has just published his own addition to the pile: “Andy Warhol’s New York City: Four Walks, Uptown to Downtown.” Vito Giallo, who ran an antiques store frequented by Warhol, contributed illustrations....
Thursday, August 4, 2011 - 08:27
SEATTLE — Marla Cooper stepped forward Wednesday to claim that her uncle Lynn Doyle Cooper was the famed “D. B. Cooper” who mesmerized the world by hijacking a plane almost 40 years ago and bailing out somewhere over the rugged terrain of southwest Washington. His body was never found.
If Ms. Cooper is correct, it could mean that the hijacker survived the jump from 10,000 feet and that a four-decade-old mystery is solved.
Or not.
After Ms. Cooper told her story to ABC News and CNN, law enforcement officials advised caution. Over the past 40 years, they said, many similar accounts have been reported. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has received tips on more than 1,000 suspects in the case and has yet to find a lead that pans out....
Thursday, August 4, 2011 - 08:24
WASHINGTON — In a rare symbolic strike against unnecessary government secrecy, the government’s former classification czar has filed a formal complaint against the National Security Agency and Justice Department seeking punishment of officials who classified a document that he says contained no secrets.
The former official, J. William Leonard, said that in his 34 years with the federal government he saw routine overclassification of government documents, rarely saw it challenged and never saw it punished. But now that the Justice Department is seeking to imprison government workers for leaking classified information to the news media, Mr. Leonard said, it is especially critical to make sure that only genuine secrets are protected by law.
“If you’re talking about throwing someone in jail for years, there absolutely has to be responsibility for decisions about what gets classified,” said Mr. Leonard, who directed the Information Security Oversight Office from 2002 to 2007....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 15:47
PALMDALE, Calif. — Tucked away here in the Mojave Desert, the assembly plant for the high-flying Global Hawk jet resembles a giant hobby shop.
Work tables surround a handful of fuselages, and an unusually long wing — needed to slip through the thin air at 60,000 feet — is ready to be bolted into place. Open panels await controls for cameras and eavesdropping gear, and bright blue tool bins and parts vats are scattered around the concrete floor.
Just 50 people work in the factory and a test hangar, and only five of the drones will be built this year. But despite a spate of delays, second-guessing and cost overruns, the Global Hawk is once again on track to replace one of America’s most noted aircraft: the U-2 spy plane, famed for its role in the cold war and more recently Afghanistan....
The U-2 was created in the 1950s to monitor Soviet nuclear sites. It is still used, as the Global Hawk will be, to supplement satellites by gazing into North Korea and Iran from outside their borders.
But the towering heights have also enabled the U-2 to survey so much territory in Afghanistan, and scoop up so many Taliban phone calls, that it has become one of the best sources of tips for where to send the Predator and Reaper drones, which fly at lower altitudes and fire missiles....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 10:54
Name of source: BBC
New research has cast doubt on the theory that 97 infants were killed at a Roman brothel in Buckinghamshire.
In 2008, the remains of the newborn babies were rediscovered packed in cigarette cases in a dusty museum storeroom by Dr Jill Eyers from Chiltern Archaeology.
They were excavated from the remains of a lavish Roman villa complex in Buckinghamshire almost 100 years earlier, but had remained hidden ever since.
She has now carefully plotted the infant burials and the associated artefacts from The Yewden Villa at Hambleden.
This revealed that all those infants that could be dated were buried between 150AD and 200AD, meaning all their deaths look like they took place in a 50-year period.
And she said she now had a whole host of other evidence from studying the landscape around the villa site to support her brothel theory...
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 23:00
In March 1938, a Church of England chaplain set out to save the lives of hundreds of desperate Austrian Jews facing persecution by the Nazis by baptising them as Christians, to help them flee the country.
The controversial work of the Reverend Hugh Grimes - which began the day after Nazi Germany annexed Austria - is little recognised yet it led to what could be called Britain's own "Schindler's list".
It all began with the Anschluss (annexation), when Hitler made Austria part of the Third Reich just before the start of World War II.
The Reverend Hugh Grimes was chaplain of Christ Church in Vienna, a little piece of England in Austria.
Concerned about what he saw happening around him, he came up with a plan.
Before long, the trickle of baptisms at his church - which mainly catered for British embassy staff and other expatriates in the city - turned into a flood.....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 22:54
From feral child to "human pet" at court in Georgian England, Peter the Wild Boy caused a sensation. And new analysis of his portraits may have solved the mystery of his unusual characteristics.
No-one knows if his name was really Peter - he couldn't talk. Nor did he walk, preferring to scamper on all fours, picking the pockets of courtiers and stealing kisses.
Peter had been found living alone and naked in a German forest in 1725, presumably abandoned by parents who struggled to cope.
There was much fanciful speculation that he had been raised by wolves - or perhaps bears - and this was why he ate with his hands, disliked wearing clothes and could not be taught to speak, says Lucy Worsley, curator of Historic Royal Palaces.
New analysis of this portrait suggests Peter had a rare genetic condition known as Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome, indicated by:
- His short stature
- Lustrous mop of thick curly hair
- Hooded eyelids
- Cupid's bow mouth, with a pronounced curve to the upper lip
- He disliked clothes, but was wrestled daily into a green suit
- Pictured holding acorns and oak leaves - symbolic of living wild in the woods - and some fingers on his left hand (not seen) were fused.....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 22:44
Two former US security contractors may sue former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his role in their alleged torture in Iraq, a court has ruled.
US citizens Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel said they were held for months by US troops under harsh conditions.
They said they were detained in retaliation for efforts to reveal illegal activities by their employer.
A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld had no immunity in the case....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 22:41
The sole survivor of one of the US Army Black Hawk helicopters shot down by Somali militiamen in Mogadishu in 1993 says the deaths of 18 of his comrades should not have prompted the end of the military mission to restore order.
Pilot Michael Durant told Radio 4's Broadcasting House that today's famine can be traced back to that decision to withdraw.
It was 3 October 1993, and Mr Durant's Black Hawk was taking part in an operation to capture close associates of the local warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid.
Since the fall of Somalia's government in 1991, Mr Aidid had been waging a bloody clan war and hampering United Nations efforts to deliver relief supplies to a civilian population facing starvation....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 22:39
A chance discovery of coins has led to the bigger find of a Roman town, further west than it was previously thought Romans had settled in England.
The town was found under fields a number of miles west of Exeter, Devon.
Nearly 100 Roman coins were initially uncovered there by two amateur archaeological enthusiasts.
It had been thought that fierce resistance from local tribes to Roman culture stopped the Romans from moving so far into the county.
Sam Moorhead, national finds adviser for Iron Age and Roman coins for the PAS at the British Museum, said it was one of the most significant Roman discoveries in the country for many decades....
Sunday, August 7, 2011 - 20:35
The tail wheel of a WWII Spitfire has finally made it home to the runway it took off from 70 years ago.
In 1941 an American RAF pilot was returning to base after an afternoon sortie when he had to jettison from his Spitfire as its engines failed.
The pilot landed safely, just 13 miles from his intended destination - RAF Eglinton, now City of Derry airport.
His spitfire crashed into the peat bog of the Inishowen peninsula, County Donegal, and remained there until earlier this summer....
Sunday, August 7, 2011 - 20:23
A very well-preserved 33,000 year old canine skull from a cave in the Siberian Altai mountains shows some of the earliest evidence of dog domestication ever found.
But the specimen raises doubts about early man's loyalty to his new best friend as times got tough.
The findings come from a Russian-led international team of archaeologists.
The skull, from shortly before the peak of the last ice age, is unlike those of modern dogs or wolves.
The study is published in the open access journal Plos One..... .....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 21:57
...As the Soviet Union consolidated its control on Sakhalin in the late 1940s, life was extremely difficult for the Japanese citizens left behind. The Furihato family lived in one room in an old barracks.
Occasionally, by agreement, the Japanese government would send a ship to collect some stranded citizens, but the Furihatos were often unaware of the sailings.
On one occasion they did hear about a boat, but one of the children had a badly broken leg and could not travel. Ms Furihato's mother, Yo, decided that all the family should stay behind.
Sakhalin is no longer a flashpoint in Russia-Japan relations, but the two countries are still locked in a poisonous dispute over some of the islands in the nearby Kuril chain. Sakhalin's prospects have been severely hampered by the row.
Transport links between Japan and Sakhalin are few - just two flights and two ferries a week in summer. And trade in the area is limited - consisting mostly of natural gas going from Russia to Japan, and old ships piled high with used cars going in the other direction....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 21:50
A Dundee student is going on a quest to find a legendary Incan city of gold that has been eluding explorers for hundreds of years.
Ken Gawne, from Northern Ireland, will be part of a four-man team searching for Paititi on a journey through remote Peruvian rainforest.
According to legend, Paititi is where the Incas hid their treasures from the Spanish conquistadors.
The explorers will spend three weeks in Peru looking for the lost city.
The trip is the latest in a series of adventures for Mr Gawne, 28, who has been on an expedition to China and crossed the Sahara Desert in west Africa - using the journeys to make an Indiana Jones tribute film called Treasure of the Templars.
The Dundee University psychology student said the plan to look for Paititi came from a conversation with his Norfolk-based team mate Ian Gardiner, who will be the expedition leader in Peru....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 21:44
France has confirmed it will extradite Manuel Noriega to Panama, where he is wanted over human rights violations during his rule in the 1980s.
The former Panamanian military leader is currently serving a prison sentence in France for money laundering.
Prior to that, he spent 20 years in prison in the US after being convicted there of drug-trafficking charges.
It is expected that Noriega will be sent next month to Panama, where courts have already convicted him in absentia.
He was found guilty of three charges of human rights violations. Each conviction carried a 20-year prison sentence.
The 77 year old will have a month to launch an appeal to prevent his extradition. However, his lawyer has said he wants to return to Panama.....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 21:39
Four former Guatemalan soldiers have been sentenced to life in prison for the massacre of more than 200 people during the country's civil conflict.
The court said the four had committed crimes against humanity when they were part of a counter-insurgency unit which carried out the killings in the village of Dos Erres in 1982.
They received a sentence of 30 years for each of the 201 victims.
They are the first former soldiers to be convicted for human-rights abuses.
Daniel Martinez, Manuel Pop Sun, and Reyes Collin Gualip were sentenced to 6,060 years in prison each for murder and crimes against humanity...
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 21:36
Name of source: Telegraph (UK)
Hundreds of folders of historical documents chronicling pivotal moments in British history have gone missing from The National Archives.
Among the 1,600 folders of documents reported missing since 2005 are letters from Sir Winston Churchill to General Franco, the Spanish dictator; minutes of Harold Wilson's meetings with the Queen; and documents from the courts of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Charles I.
Dozens of regimental diaries, medal records and squadron and battleship logbooks have also seemingly disappeared.
Some of the files, many of which contain the sole copies of historical documents, have not been seen since the early 1990s and fewer than a half have been recovered, according to a register of missing items released under freedom of information laws.
Historians have accused the National Archives, which is overseen by the Ministry of Justice, of "administrative laxness"....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 22:57
The excavation of an ancient drainage tunnel beneath Jerusalem has yielded a sword, oil lamps, pots and coins abandoned during a war here 2,000 years ago, according to archaeologists.
The tunnel was built two millennia ago underneath one of Roman-era Jerusalem's main streets, which today largely lies under an Arab neighbourhood in the city's eastern sector.
After a four-year excavation, the tunnel is part of a growing network of subterranean passages under the politically combustible modern city.
The tunnel was intended to drain rainwater, but is also thought to have been used as a hiding place for the rebels during the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 22:26
Nearly 500 years after Florence ditched Michelangelo’s grand design for the exterior of San Lorenzo Basilica, the city’s mayor wants to finally realise the artist’s vision.
It is one of the oddest looking churches in Europe, its rough, unfinished facade of bricks resembling giant slabs of crumbling biscuits.
Matteo Renzi has called for a referendum to be held in which Florentines can vote on whether to dust off plans for the church’s facade which last saw the light of day in 1515, when they were presented by Michelangelo to Pope Leo X, one of the Medici popes.
The project was shelved by the pontiff because of concerns over cost - Michelangelo wanted to use expensive Carrara marble rather than cheaper marble from the hills near Florence.
Realising Michelangelo’s design for the basilica’s facade down to the last detail would not be difficult — thanks to rigorous Florentine document keeping, numerous sketches and at least two wooden models of what it would have looked like still exist....
Sunday, August 7, 2011 - 20:14
In a twist the Master of Suspense himself would have been proud of Alfred Hitchcock's earliest surviving movie has been found languishing in a vault in New Zealand.
All copies of The White Shadow, a silent feature film released by Hollywood in 1924, had been thought lost to posterity, and cinema historians have described the discovery as "priceless".
Three dusty reels containing the first half of the film – about 30 minutes of footage – had been stored deep in the bowels of the New Zealand Film Archive, where the search is continuing for the other three reels.
The acclaimed director was 24 when he worked on what was billed as a "wild, atmospheric melodrama" starring actress Betty Compson as twin sisters, one angelic and the other "without a soul". He was credited as assistant director and also wrote the scenario, designed the sets and edited the footage.
At the time silent Hollywood films were distributed worldwide and, while many prints were discarded and lost in the US, others survived abroad where they were kept after runs in cinemas had finished....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 21:30
Name of source: Huffington Post
WASHINGTON -- Nearly a year after two alpha males on Capitol Hill slew a bill to allow a National Women's History Museum here, the head of the nascent project has quietly taken steps to placate conservative critics.
A former executive director of the Eagle Forum, which led the fight to defeat an Equal Rights Amendment for women, is among several conservative women who have been added to the museum's board....
"We have an obligation to represent a wide range of voices, to be inclusive," Joan Wages, NWHM's president, told The Huffington Post in an interview. "We're hoping we took steps to address their issues."
Wages was referring to Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina. The two men slapped a hold on a bill that would have allowed the museum to use private funds to buy an oddly shaped lot off Independence Avenue -- straddling a busy expressway leading under the National Mall. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the sale would have generated up to $60 million for the federal government....
Monday, August 8, 2011 - 14:12
A 14,000 year old carving found in a cave on the Gower peninsula, a part of South West Wales, may be the oldest example of rock art in Britain. The carving of a reindeer is an example of Upper Paleolithic rock art, the second discovery of the kind in the British Isles.
Dr. George Nash of the University of Bristol discovered the carving in September of 2010 while with students and members of the Clifton Antiquarian Club. The deer-like motif is hidden in the recesses of the cave and was carved with a sharp tool, possibly made of flint....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 09:08
Name of source: MSNBC
It may not be a $500 million golden hoard, but underwater archaeologists are nevertheless excited about finding what they believe are traces of the five ships that British privateer Henry Morgan lost off the coast of Panama in 1671.
The discovery was made at the mouth of Panama's Chagres River, near another underwater site where six iron cannons were found. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the three-century-old story of Captain Morgan's lost fleet is finally near its conclusion.
By the time he died in 1688, Morgan was seen as one of the most bloodthirsty (and most successful) pirates in the Americas. His exploits inspired enough pirate tales to fill a dead man's chest, including the Errol Flynn movie "Captain Blood" and the James Bond novel "Live and Let Die."
Any riches that may have been on Morgan's ships are thought to be long gone, thanks to treasure hunters who have plucked gold coins and other booty from the shallow waters of the Lajas Reef. But a team of U.S. archaeologists has been working to locate Morgan's ships and help the Panamanian government preserve the remaining artifacts....
Sunday, August 7, 2011 - 20:37
Name of source: ABC News
One of the worst droughts in Texas history is helping archaeologists unearth a small piece of American history, a graveyard for freed slaves.
While the heat may be taking a toll on crops, livestock and people's livelihoods, it has helped archaeologists uncover two graves that are believed to have been buried for more than a century.
Cemeteries were marked and moved before the Richland Chambers Reservoir in Navarro County, Texas, was filled in the 1980s, but this small cemetery without tombstones went unnoticed.
Human remains were initially discovered in 2009 by boaters when the water level was low, but the water rose quickly and archaeologists and historians have been waiting ever since for the reservoir to reveal the cemetery again....
Sunday, August 7, 2011 - 20:33
Name of source: Live Science
It's not easy to study the elderly in a society where life was all too often cut short by disease, childbirth and injuries. But new research on people living in the Bronze Age suggests the elderly began to gain power over a 600-year period in Austria.
The findings rely on skeletal aging and a comparison of objects placed in graves of individuals of different ages. As time passed in the small farming hamlets of lower Austria, researchers reported online July 15 in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, older men began to be buried with copper axes, a privilege not granted to younger men. That might indicate that in some ancient societies, the elders were in charge, said study researcher Jo Appleby, a research fellow in archaeology and anthropology at the University of Cambridge....
Studying the social status of the elderly is difficult, because scientists have a hard time pinning down the age of older adult bones. You can determine that a person was elderly, Appleby said, but it's hard to tell whether "elderly" meant 65 or 85.
Researchers often assume that in ancient societies, the elderly had power. But Appleby noted that in modern life, older people are often shunted aside. We assume they're forgetful or degenerating, she said. The question was whether our ancestors would have thought the same, or whether they really did respect their elders.
Appleby used data from two cemeteries in the Traisen valley of Austria. These cemeteries were the final resting places for Bronze Age farmers that populated the region about 4,000 years ago. The older cemetery was used between 2200 and 1800 B.C., while burials at the more recent cemetery took place between 1900 and 1600 B.C.....
Sunday, August 7, 2011 - 20:32
Name of source: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today welcomed the White House announcement of a new presidential directive aimed at strengthening the U.S. government’s ability to prevent genocide and mass atrocities.
“This directive has the potential to save countless lives in the future,” said Tom Bernstein, Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. “Tragically, during the Holocaust, no such mechanisms existed, and in the many decades since then, the United States and other governments have lacked the policies, structures and political will to prevent such unspeakable crimes from being committed again. Today’s presidential directive is an important step that the U.S. is taking toward realizing the vision of Never Again,” he continued.
In the Presidential Directive on Mass Atrocities, President Obama noted that “sixty-six years since the Holocaust and 17 years after Rwanda, the United States still lacks a comprehensive policy framework and a corresponding interagency mechanism for preventing and responding to mass atrocities and genocide.” The directive seeks to address this through the creation of a standing interagency Atrocities Prevention Board. This board would have the authority to develop prevention strategies and assure that threats of genocide are elevated to the very top levels of the government. The president also recognized that preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a “core national security interest” of the United States.
“We are gratified by the recognition that stopping genocide is not only a moral imperative but a crucial element of U.S. national security interests. Taking such a bold step firmly establishes America’s leadership in the world on this critical issue,” said Michael Chertoff, Chairman of the Committee on Conscience that directs the Museum’s genocide prevention program, and a former secretary of Homeland Security.
Such a presidential statement and a new interagency process for preventing mass atrocities were key recommendations of the 2008 Genocide Prevention Task Force (GPTF) co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and William Cohen, and convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the U.S. Institute of Peace and The American Academy of Diplomacy. The co-chairs today issued a statement commending the directive.
Other recommendations of the Task Force, a nonpartisan group of policy experts and former government officials, that have been adopted include the creation of a high-level position in the White House on mass atrocities, greater planning for mass atrocities at the Pentagon and State Departments and increased focus on threats of genocide in the intelligence communities.
Bernstein commended the Administration for taking the GPTF recommendations seriously but also noted that the true test will come in making sure a strong Atrocities Prevention Board is not only created, but that it is effectively used to address future threats of genocide. “We are hopeful that the new structure will give this and future administrations the tools they need to prevent mass atrocities, and that they will wisely use them to save lives—which is the ultimate test,” he said.
Part of follow up efforts to the GPTF is the working group on the Responsibility to Protect, also co-sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the U.S. Institute of Peace, along with the Brookings Institution, and co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and former Special Envoy to Sudan, Ambassador Richard Williamson.
A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to promote human dignity, confront hatred, and prevent genocide. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanent place on the National Mall, and its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by generous donors. For more information, visit www.ushmm.org.
Thursday, August 4, 2011 - 13:50
Name of source: Guardian (UK)
On 9 June, the General Services Administration threw Modesto's downtown post office onto the auction block. Like so many other postal facilities, the Renaissance-style palazzo had long served as an anchor for downtown stores of the California town, a public space where citizens met to exchange news as well as transact business in an ennobling lobby of polished travertine and marble beneath murals of local farming activities.
The federal government once designed its post offices to elevate and inspire the public whose assets it is now selling. An architectural journal in 1918 spoke of the tutelary value of post offices:
"They are generally the most important of the local buildings, and taken together, [are] seen daily by thousands, who have little opportunity to feel the influence of the great architectural works in the large cities."
President Hoover's administration built facilities such as Modesto's in a last-ditch effort to end the Depression, before Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal unleashed a far greater torrent of public works that succeeded where Hoover had failed (pdf). In less than a decade, the Roosevelt administration built over 1,100 post offices, distinguished by fine architecture, materials and detailing, as well as by a lavish programme of public art that, for the first time, reflected back to patrons and workers their regional identity.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 09:31
Name of source: Daily Mail (UK)
A crazy plan to make German footballers in World War Two play a 'Blitzkrieg' game that copied the tactics of battlefield warriors has been found in a German archive.
Devoted Nazi Karl Oberhuber accused the national team trainer Sepp Herberger - the coach for 28 years who led postwar West Germany to its first World Cup win in 1954 - of being 'too Jewish' in his training methods.
In 1940, when the Nazi armies overran France, Belgium and Holland with lightning war tactics, Oberhuber was chief adjutant to the Nazi gauleiter of Bavaria and in charge of sport in the state.
This made him a powerful and dangerous man to have as an enemy....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 09:24
Name of source: Boston Globe
Poland’s government has earmarked funds to improve accessibility to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp memorial for visitors and to develop educational programs about the notorious Holocaust site.
At a session on Tuesday, the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk pledged almost 34 million zlotys ($12 million) to local authorities to be spent between 2012 and 2015 on developing access roads leading to the museum and other infrastructure....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 09:20
Name of source: Polskie Radio
Representatives of several European countries have been taking part in events commemorating WWII's Roma genocide by Nazis and their allies, to coincide with the 67th anniversary of the liquidation of the so-called 'Roma camp' at Auschwitz-Birkenau on 2 August 1944.The meetings are being promoted under Poland's presidency of the EU Council.
Meetings in Krakow and at Auschwitz began on Monday, with guests including leading specialists on the fate of the Roma community in wartime Europe.
Last Friday, the Polish parliament passed a resolution confirming 2 August as the official Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 09:18
Name of source: Gulf Times (Qatar)
Sirens wailed, traffic drew to a halt and pedestrians stood in silent tribute yesterday, as Poland’s capital marked the ill-fated 1944 Warsaw uprising against occupying Nazi Germany.
The sirens sounded at 5pm (1500 GMT), the exact time that the Polish resistance launched Europe’s largest World War II revolt on August 1, 1944.
The brief siren ceremony was the cornerstone of dozens of events to mark the start of the 63-day uprising, which sparked bloody Nazi reprisals and the destruction of Warsaw.
At a memorial monument, President Bronislaw Komorowski paid tribute to resistance veterans, whose number has dwindled to around 3,000....
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 09:12
