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: Medieval News
April 26, 2010
Choral music from a unique medieval manuscript, some of which hasn’t been heard for hundreds of years, will be ringing out at The University of Nottingham when an internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble performs at the Lakeside Arts Centre.
The Binchois Consort will be performing a varied programme of choral music, including a selection of chants from the Wollaton Antiphonal, a huge 15th century illustrated medieval service book. They will demonstrate vividly in sound the rich lega
Source: Medieval News
April 27, 2010
Vikings had the same concerns about choosing their children’s names as we do, says a researcher from the University of Leicester who delivered his paper at a recent Viking conference. The sixth Midlands Viking Symposium was held at the University of Nottingham on April 24th, with eight talks by Viking experts.
Dr Philip Shaw, a Lecturer in English Language and Old English, offered his expertise on how the Vikings named their children. He discussed the practice of giving names derive
Source: Medieval News
April 27, 2010
A beautiful and definitive new guidebook on Norwich's outstanding collection of medieval churches has been published this month, celebrating what is the largest collection of urban medieval churches in northern Europe.
The Medieval Churches of the City of Norwich published by Norwich Heritage Economic and Regeneration Trust (HEART) reveals the city's compelling ecclesiastical set, celebrating the churches as medieval works of art and valuable social documents, as well as ancient pla
Source: AP
April 27, 2010
The only man to admit shooting Malcolm X was freed on parole Tuesday, 45 years after he assassinated the civil rights leader. Thomas Hagan, the last man still serving time in the 1965 killing, was freed from a Manhattan prison where he spent two days a week under a work-release program, state Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman Linda Foglia said.
Hagan, 69, has said he was one of three gunmen who shot Malcolm X as he began a speech at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21
Source: CNN
April 7, 2010
Thomas Hagan pleaded his case for freedom: To return to his family, to become a substance abuse counselor and to make his mark on what time he has left in this world.
He was dressed in prison greens as he addressed the New York parole board. He had been before that body 14 other times since 1984. Each time, he was rejected.
He was sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment after being found guilty at trial with two others in 1966. Since March 1992, Hagan has been in a f
Source: Newsweek
April 27, 2010
The iconic images of presidents–the ones printed on our money–are timeless. Or are they? Rather than staying the same, the members of America’s honorable legion look like a fine wine: better with age. They appear cleaner, sharper, and, well, nipped and tucked. The Bureau of Printing and Engraving, the federal agency that designs and prints new bills, claims that redesigns are undertaken solely to thwart counterfeiters. "If there are [cosmetic changes], it was completely unconscious," s
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 27, 2010
The second century Greek trading vessel lies on the sea bed off the coast of Cavtat.
Little remains of the wooden ship but its cargo of earthenware amphora - ceramic vases - still remain stacked row upon row.
The vases, which originally contained olive oil and wine, are still tightly packed into the cargo hold as they were centuries ago.
Its cargo - one of the best preserved from an ancient wreck - has great historical significance and has an estimated val
Source: NYT
April 26, 2010
As Pope Benedict XVI has come under scrutiny for his handling of sexual abuse cases, both his supporters and his critics have paid fresh attention to the way he responded to a sexual abuse scandal in Austria in the 1990s, one of the most damaging to confront the church in Europe.
Defenders of Benedict cite his role in dealing with Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna as evidence that he moved assertively, if quietly, against abusers. They point to the fact that Cardinal Groër left
Source: Star Tribune
April 22, 2010
Nick Clegg, the surprising rising star of British politics, laid some of the groundwork for his career in the year he spent at the University of Minnesota two decades ago.
"He was very personable, smart and articulate," said Kathryn Sikkink, a political science professor who taught Clegg in a graduate seminar. "I'm not surprised he's done well, but this was not a guy you thought was going to someday be the prime minister of Great Britain."
After atte
Source: Stuff (NZ)
April 27, 2010
The widow of the Raglan war veteran who captured a nazi flag during WWII is devastated at its theft from the local museum on Sunday afternoon.
Wyonne Wright's husband, Whitfeld, and his sherman tank crew from the NZ 18th Armoured Regiment claimed the flag from a building evacuated by the Germans in Italy in 1944.
The 66-year-old war relic was on its first ever display at Raglan and District's Museum exhibition entitled Raglan and the Anzac, celebrating the district's i
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 27, 2010
A shipwreck containing £5million worth of ancient treasures is being protected by a cage, creating a giant underwater safe, in Croatia.
The second century Greek trading vessel lies on the sea bed off the coast of Cavtat.
Little remains of the wooden ship but its cargo of earthenware amphora - ceramic vases - still remain stacked row upon row.
The vases, which originally contained olive oil and wine, are still tightly packed into the cargo hold as they were
Source: 960 ABC Hobert
April 26, 2010
A recent archaeological dig on Tasmania's remote west coast promises to shed more light on one of Australia's most notorious penal outposts.
Although it only operated for eleven years before being closed in 1833, Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour had a reputation as one of the British Empire's most hellish prisons.
Hemmed in by impenetrable wilderness, it housed the colony's hardest criminals, including the notorious cannibal Alexander Pearce.
A team of ten
Source: LA Times
April 24, 2010
The Purepecha people of Mexico built a large empire in what is now the western state of Michoacan, beating back the Aztecs at a shared border and resisting Spanish colonization until European diseases ravaged the society. Unique among Mesoamerican peoples in many ways -- their language is said to be most related to Quechua, in far-off Peru -- the Purepecha were skilled in crafting copper and pottery but left few clues otherwise about their history and culture.
Recent work by archeo
Source: Eurekalert
April 26, 2010
High in the Mackenzie Mountains, scientists are finding a treasure trove of ancient hunting tools being revealed as warming temperatures melt patches of ice that have been in place for thousands of years.
Tom Andrews, an archaeologist with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and lead researcher on the International Polar Year Ice Patch Study, is amazed at the implements being discovered by researchers.
"We're just like children opening Chris
Source: BBC News
April 27, 2010
Panamanian ex-leader Manuel Noriega has appeared before French prosecutors after his US extradition and will fight charges against him, his lawyers say.
Noriega will argue French courts do not have jurisdiction to try him as he is immune from prosecution and because the statute of limitations has expired.
He was convicted in France in his absence in 1999 for money laundering but will face a new trial.
He spent more than 20 years in jail in the US on drugs c
Source: BBC News
April 27, 2010
The famous Hollywood sign has been saved from being spoiled by property development by a last-minute donation from Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner.
The soft-porn magnate gave $900,000 (£580,000) to the fund which was set up to stop the site being developed.
The sign is owned by the city, but the property around it belongs to a group of Chicago-based investors.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger described the news as"the Hollywood ending we hoped for".
Governor Schwarzenegger said
Source: Yahoo News
April 26, 2010
Was one of America's most revered popular historians fabricating his own material? That's the explosive charge now levied at Stephen Ambrose, author of numerous bestselling military and presidential histories. The author of "D-Day" and "Band of Brothers" died in 2002, but several authorities have recently questioned the writer's accounts of his research for "Supreme Commander," a massive two-volume biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower. At a minimum, Ambrose's critics s
Source: AP
April 25, 2010
A Colonial-era boundary dispute between two Vermont towns that were never exactly sure where one ended and the other began is finally going to be settled.
But it was old maps, not GPS or Google Earth, that ultimately found the common ground for the towns of St. George and neighboring Shelburne. The process has pointed up the art of trying to read the minds of the original surveyors and land granters to establish where the lines were drawn.
"It's a matter of 'let's
Source: Discovery News
April 26, 2010
Italian archeologists have unearthed the remains of a 6th century BC Greek temple-like building that came with detailed assembly instructions just like an “IKEA do-it-yourself furniture pack."
The elaborate structure was discovered at Torre Satriano, near the southern city of Potenza, in Basilicata, a region where local people mingled with Greeks who settled along the southern coast and in Sicily from the 8th century B.C. onwards.
Much like the instruction booklet
Source: BBC
April 26, 2010
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that Colombians caught up in the civil conflict there are in danger of being forgotten.
Fighting has shifted from densely populated areas to remote regions where the fate of tens of thousands of people is almost invisible, the ICRC says.
ICRC staff recorded 800 alleged human rights violations last year, including murder and sexual violence.
Left-wing rebel groups have fought the Colombian gove
