This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: WaPo
April 29, 2010
President Barack Obama eulogized fallen civil rights leader Dorothy Height Thursday as a humble but tireless force for equality and justice.
Speaking to hundreds of mourners gathered in the stately Washington National Cathedral, Obama recounted Height's quiet perseverance during decades of work, mostly behind the scenes while the men of the movement got more attention and fame.
"She never cared about who got the credit," the president said. "What she care
Source: Jewish Chronicle
April 29, 2010
A controversial book which argues that the idea of a Jewish people descended from the ancient Israelites is a Zionist myth, has been shortlisted for British Jewry's main literary award.
The Invention of the Jewish People by Tel Aviv University Professor Shlomo Sand is one of four books up for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize.
But the choice has already come under fire. Mark Gardner, the communications director for the Community Security Trust, who has previou
Source: National Security Archive at GWU
April 29, 2010
Previously unpublished documents from inside the Kremlin shed new light on how Soviet and American scientists breached the walls of Soviet military secrecy in the final years of the Cold War.
The documents were first disclosed in a new book by by David E. Hoffman, The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. The book was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. The documents are being posted today in English translation by the N
Source: WaPo
April 29, 2010
Jimmie Rice has seen a lot in the nearly 80 years since the Great Depression forced his family to move from University Park to the more affordable Mount Rainier, which is celebrating its centennial this year.
He has seen dirt roads turned into pavement, the advent of metal piping and the city age and be revitalized.
"I've been in lots of places in my three years in the Army [during World War II], and Mount Rainier is the place to be," said Rice, 92, who is one
Source: The Independent (UK)
April 29, 2010
A collection of Roman sculptures that was due to be sold at Bonhams auction house in London yesterday has been withdrawn amid concerns that the statues may have originally been illegally excavated.
The concerns were raised by Cambridge researcher and archaeologist, Christos Tsirogiannis and Dr David Gill, reader in ancient history at Swansea University. Bonhams's lot 137 – a first or second century AD Roman marble figure of a youth – was sold at Sotheby's in 1986, as stated by Bonha
Source: Kalamazoo Gazette
April 29, 2010
Someone broke into a display case at Waldo Library at Western MichiganUniversity and stole a pair of Native American gloves sometime between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, the WMU Department of Public Safety said.
The gloves, which were in a display case on the main floor of the library, were a historical artifact from the 1930s, police said.
Anyone with information on their whereabouts is asked to call the WMU Department of Public Safety at 269-387-5555, or S
Source: Sea coast online
April 29, 2010
German submarines swarmed to American waters when the United States formally declared war on Germany and Italy on Dec. 11, 1941. By the following June, 171 American vessels had been torpedoed off the east coast of the Unites States. Coastal Mainers, many of whom made their living from the sea, felt like sitting ducks.
Maine's director of civilian defense, Col. Francis H. Farnum, announced on May 22, 1942, that foreign agents both male and female had already landed on the coast of Ma
Source: Azzman
April 28, 2010
Iraqi archaeologists have received 13 artifacts dating to the Third Dynasty of Ur, which flourished in southern Iraq more than 4,000 years ago.
The artifacts were illegally dug up by an Iraqi man from an unprotected ancient site in the southern Province of Dhiqar of which the city of Nasiriyah is the capital.
Dhiqar covers the area where the ancient Sumerian civilization thrived with its magnificent capital, Ur.
Ancient Ur, known by its fabulous ziggurat, o
Source: Herald (Ireland)
April 28, 2010
IRISH archaeologists have been left baffled by the 'bizarre' discovery of a 1,150-year-old Viking necklace in a Burren cave.
The necklace is the largest Viking necklace to be discovered in Ireland.
Dr Marion Dowd, of Sligo IT, is leading the excavation of Glencurran Cave in the Burren National Park, which she described as a "treasure trove" for archaeologists.
The necklace was one of the major items discovered in the dig and is described as a &quo
Source: BBC News
April 28, 2010
John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to the Beatles song A Day in the Life are expected to make up to $700,000 (£460,000) at auction.
The double-sided sheet of paper with notes written in felt marker and blue ink will go under the hammer at a sale in New York on 18 June.
The lyric sheet also contains some corrections and some other notes penned in red ink.
The song is the final track on the band's 1968 Sgt Pepper album.
Rolling Stone magazine liste
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 29, 2010
Russia had initially planned to display the posters as part of the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, but the news prompted a backlash from human rights activists.
The posters will now not be placed outdoors as initially planned but will be mounted instead at indoor locations, such as war museums, Moscow deputy mayor Lyudmila Shvetsova told the Kommersant daily.
"The posters will be mounted in places where veterans gather most often and most actively.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 28, 2010
The museum that includes the house where Anne Frank hid and wrote her diary during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam is launching an online virtual tour of the secret rooms.
For two years, Anne Frank, her family and other Jews hid in a cramped clutch of rooms tucked into the back of a canal house in Amsterdam.
Anne, who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 but lived on through her famous diary, described in poignant detail what life was like hiding from t
Source: Fredericksburg.com
April 28, 2010
Confederate Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill was killed 145 years ago, but it appears that Culpeper's favorite Civil War son isn't going to rest in peace.
At least his portrait isn't.
Nine years ago, amid considerable controversy, Hill's portrait was removed from the county courthouse and put on display at the Museum of Culpeper History.
During all that time, further controversy swirled around ownership of the painting and who had the right to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 28, 2010
A Congolese man is trying to get controversial cartoon book Tintin Au Congo banned in Belgium over its racist and offensive depiction of Africans.
Bienvenue Mbutu, a Congolese national living in Belgium, has asked the Belgian courts to ban the book, but has said he would accept a ruling that the book must display a warning about its content.
Mr Mbutu has also tried to have the book banned in France.
"Tintin's little (black) helper is seen as stupid an
Source: AP
April 28, 2010
Nearly all of Anne Frank's diary went on display Wednesday for the first time at the house where she wrote it during the two years the Jewish teenager was in hiding from the Nazis.
The notebooks and pages that comprise the World War II diary have been moved into the Anne Frank House museum to mark 50 years since it opened its doors to the public.
Dutch Queen Beatrix was opening the exhibition later Wednesday.
The original red plaid diary in which Anne began
Source: Times-Georgian.com
April 27, 2010
Confederate battle flags, placed on the graves of Civil War veterans in the Abilene Baptist Church Cemetery, keep disappearing. Church officials and members, who deem the flags offensive, have been removing them.
Rev. Gregory Drake, pastor of Abilene Baptist Chuch, said members of the church have taken the flags down each year for the past 20 years, in part because groups like the Ku Klux Klan have given a negative connotation to the flag.
He said the cemetery, located
Source: The Outer Banks Sentinel
April 28, 2010
While State archaeologists try to determine the logistics needed to move the remains of a shipwreck from Corolla to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, the identity of the colonial-period vessel seems more uncertain.
Initially, it was thought that the pegged hull could be what is left of the HMS Swift, which went aground off of Virginia in 1698 and later ended up coming ashore in Currituck, where it was scavenged by locals. If that was found to be the case, it would ma
Source: U.S Army
April 28, 2010
They came, they dug, and they sifted through thousands of years of European history.
With construction crews chomping at the bit to lay the foundations for a new $133 million U.S. Army housing area just outside Wiesbaden Army Airfield, time is running short for German archaeologists seeking to uncover remnants of past settlements.
After having spent several months in the fall and spring sifting through soil which revealed several Roman wells, the foundations of a villa
Source: Wisconsin State Journal
April 27, 2010
Burning your toast in the morning may not seem like the best way to start your day, but it just might prove interesting to posterity.
In 2002, while excavating a site called Alden’s Corners in Dane County, archaeologists uncovered several pieces of what appeared to be the oldest toast in Wisconsin. They unearthed the fragments of bread, which are at least 130 years old, during an excavation of the town post office, dating them somewhere between 1850 and 1880. The slices are composed
Source: Discovery News
April 28, 2010
The Dallas-Fort Worth skies were once dominated by Aetodactylus halli, a new toothy genus and species of pterosaur, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The 95 million-year-old flying reptile, also known as a pterodactyl, lived during the Cretaceous Period when most other pterosaurs were toothless. As you can see in the below, Aetodactylus halli was an exception to that toothless trend.
It's one of the youngest members of t
