House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hammered Republicans on Thursday for kicking off March — Women’s History Month — with a vote on legislation she claims would curtail women’s access to contraception.

As part of a sweeping transportation bill, Senate Republicans forced a vote Thursday on an amendment, sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), to repeal President Obama’s new birth-control mandate for employers.

Pelosi and the Democrats are highlighting the legislation in hopes of portraying Republicans as out-of-touch with women’s healthcare needs — a message Pelosi pressed Thursday.

“Instead of talking about jobs … we’ve moved on to the Blunt amendment — a blunt, sweeping overreach into women’s health,” Pelosi said during her weekly press briefing in the Capitol....

During the 1968 federal election, a campaign team working for an underdog Conservative candidate in New Brunswick decided to deface a bunch of their candidate's lawn signs.

The reasoning was that Char-lie Thomas might get some sympathy votes if people saw "Vote Liberal" scrawled across his signs, indicating he likely was the victim of dirty tricks by his opponents.

Their scheme - as told in Leaders and Lesser Mortals, a 1992 book about backroom politics - ultimately was found out by the police. No charges were laid because it was their own property the campaign workers had damaged. Thomas ended up winning his seat, despite the Tories losing that general election to the Liberals under Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

The past 10 days have seen a public outcry over revelations that misleading phone calls were made to voters during last year's federal election campaign in an alleged attempt to suppress the vote in some ridings....

For tourists to Fuzhou, capital city of southeast China's Fujian province, there is the oft dismissed area of the Three Workshops and Seven Lanes, an area that has been invaded by commercial development but one still rich in ancient beauty.

Located in the heart of Fuzhou's commercial center, the site consists of historical buildings dating back to the Ming dynasty, and it is said to be one of the best preserved architectural wonders in China. The ancient housing in this area was entirely authentic until the restoration project that began six years ago.

Now with a mix of original and imitation, the site has become a haven for tourists. On both sides of the overlapping pedestrian lanes, there are shops selling traditional Fujian lacquer handicrafts and Chinese paintings....

Protesters interrupted a celebration of Chicago’s 175th birthday Sunday at which Mayor Rahm Emanuel spoke by blasting his budget plan to close six mental health clinics, contending the plan will make it harder for people to get help and cost lives.

“History will judge,” the small group shouted as Emanuel stood by a birthday cake with children and others gathered at the end of the Chicago History Museum celebration program Sunday.

The museum hosted a day-long program on the city’s founding, a children’s choir, a panel discussion on the city’s identity and with actors dressed as historical figures, including founder Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable.

Emanuel spoke on the city’s history and future. “We have come to forks in the road . . . and yet we have never shrunk from our challenges,” Emanuel said. “And this is a story of the city and it’s a story still being written.”...

If you want to break the boredom of a late winter Sunday, you could raise a cup of cheer to the memory of President William Henry Harrison, the nation's ninth president, who was sworn into office 171 years ago today.

I'm also certain the details of Harrison's brief tenure as the nation's chief executive — he is better known as an Indian fighter (the Battle of Tippecanoe) and a general in the War of 1812 — are not on the tip of everyone's tongue.

The one thing everyone knows about Harrison is the catchy presidential campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," when Harrison was the Whig Party candidate in the 1840 presidential election with his running mate, John Tyler.

But who cares if Harrison shares presidential obscurity with the likes of Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, and his grandson, Benjamin Harrison? It's still an excuse for a party today.

Get out the cider. (More about that later.)...

(CNN) -- Keith Richards ejects his TV, Ian Fleming creates James Bond, Castro takes on Cuba -- sometimes a hotel room is more than a place to sleep

The best hotel rooms don't just have history, they have stories.

You get a soft bed, an oversized tub and a chance to see through the eyes of some of history's cultural protagonists....

Oscar Wilde arrested: The Cadogan, London, England

It looks genteel enough for your maiden aunt, but The Cadogan, in the heart of London's Knightsbridge shopping district, was struck by scandal within a few years of opening in 1887.

Oscar Wilde was arrested in room 118 on April 6, 1895 for a homosexual act, and subsequently sent to jail. And Edward VII's mistress, the actress Lillie Langtry, continued to sleep in her old bedroom long after her former home had become part of the hotel.

These days, despite being surrounded by foreign brand names like Gucci, Tiffany, Armani and Valentino, The Cadogan feels like a little piece of England forever suspended in the 19th century.

The Cadogan, 75 Sloane St., London, England; room 118 from US$425...

British rule ends in Palestine: King David Hotel, Jerusalem

This hotel has played host to many monarchs and heads of state, and was at the heart of the action during the forging of the state of Israel.

The British Army leased the top floor as an emergency HQ when the Arab revolt broke out in 1936, and a decade later was battling Israeli guerillas, who planted a bomb in the basement, causing 91 deaths.

On May 14, 1948 the Union Flag was lowered, and with independence the hotel regained its place as the city's hotel of choice for visiting heads of state and celebrities.

La Regence, site of the 1946 bombing, is one of Jerusalem's best restaurants, and the huge breakfast room, where hundreds of oranges are hand-squeezed on the spot every morning, is a triumph of art deco architectural splendor.

King David Hotel, David HaMelech 23, Jerusalem; Rooms from US$490.

While the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay has apologized to the Menominee Tribe and the family of a seventh-grader who was punished for using her native language at school, the girl's mother said Tuesday that she still wants her daughter's teacher fired.

Tanaes Washinawatok said Julie Gurta, who teaches at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Shawano, did not accept blame for her actions in a letter that was supposed to be an apology.

Washinawatok said her 12-year-old daughter, Miranda, interpreted the words "Hello" and "I love you" and then added how to say "thank you" when talking to two girls in class Jan. 19. 

She said Gurta overheard and "slammed her hands down on the desk and stated, 'You are not to speak like that. How do I know you're not saying something bad? How would you like if I spoke in Polish and you didn't understand?'"...

In the mid-1880s, the federal government established boarding schools that prohibited Native American students from acknowledging their culture, including language. Students were punished for using their native languages until the 1960s, and many elders still alive are afraid to teach the languages to children....

It's 1918, and wartime aviation is still in its infancy. The airplane is not even two decades old, and dirigibles and hot air balloons are all too easy targets for advancing artillery units. For a brief time on the battlefields of WWI, kites -- the oldest method of aviation -- fill a technological hole in battlefield reconnaissance.  

Compared to the other available modes of aviation, man-lifting kites were lightweight, portable, and quick to the air. Once aloft, the "pilot" could survey the battlefield and signal enemy positions down to the ground. They could be assembled and dissembled quickly, and could be flown at various altitudes.     

The above image depicts an army test flight of a kite system designed by Samuel F. Perkins, a Boston based kite maker and promoter. But even at this time, Perkins was playing catch up with Europe's kite technology. "The American effort was really sporadic," Scott Skinner, founder of the Drachen Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to kite history and education, tells me. "All of the European armies experimented with these systems prior to World War I, and frankly they were a lot more serious about it and a lot more successful at it than the Americans were." The Americans would never use the kites on the battlefield, but the Germans and French had them on the fronts....

Pre-Columbian star war stories have emerged from 23 stone carvings unearthed near the Great Temple in Tenochtitlan, the ancient Aztec center that became Mexico City after the Spanish invasion in 1521.

Providing unique iconographic evidence for Aztec myths, the bas-relief sculptures lay embedded in a strip of floor in front of the Templo Mayor complex, Tenochtitlan's holiest shrine.

Far from being purely decorative, the artistic carvings show symbols of death and crude representations in line with the Aztecs' bloody rituals....