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: The Guardian (UK)
April 4, 2010
A Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks TV series about the second world war's brutal Pacific campaign begins tomorrow – a story surprisingly little told because, for years, the public has preferred to turn away from its dark undertone of racism and savagery.
When Tom Hanks was making Saving Private Ryan, the writer Nora Ephron sent him a book that weighs in at almost 2,000 pages: the Library of America's Reporting World War II. It was a thoughtful gift, appropriate to his then role as an
Source: Times (UK)
April 6, 2010
Recent visitors to Kilinochchi, the former capital of the Tamil Tigers, had noticed something unusual — there was a single, new building standing among the bombed-out ruins of the abandoned city in northern Sri Lanka.
It was a whitewashed Buddhist shrine, strewn with flowers. “We thought it strange because there was no one there except soldiers — the civilians had all fled,” one of the visitors said.
Officers told them that the shrine had been damaged by the Tigers and
Source: Latin American Herald Tribune
April 6, 2010
The World Monuments Fund announced Monday the donation of $1 million to Peru for preservation of the Huaca de la Luna site, the WMF’s biggest-ever donation to a project in Latin America.
The grant coincided with the formation of a committee for conservation of Peru’s heritage sites under the leadership of Marcela Perez de Cuellar, the wife of former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.
“World Monuments Fund has been working in Peru for more than 10 years and
Source: AP
April 5, 2010
Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.
Gonzalez, now 16 with closely cropped black hair, is shown serious-faced with fellow youth delegates during last weekend's congress at a sprawling and drab convention center in western Havana. The images were posted Monday on Cuban government Web sites, then widely picked up by electronic, state-controlled media.
Source: BBC Newsq
April 6, 2010
A predatory Velociraptor has been caught in the act of eating another larger plant-eating dinosaur.
Palaeontologists have uncovered fossil fragments of Velociraptor teeth alongside scarred bones of the large horned herbivore Protoceratops .
The teeth of the predator match marks on the herbivore's bones, suggesting Velociraptor scavenged its carcass.
The discovery is further evidence that predatory dinosaurs both hunted and scavenged their plant-eating relat
Source: Irish Times
March 27, 2010
WHILE roads and domestic plumbing were both high-profile casualties of the recent cold spell, some of our historic outdoor artefacts also felt the worst effects of the weather. The high cross known as Muiredach’s Cross in Monasterboice, Co Louth, was recently reported to be in increasing peril having suffered a hairline fracture, caused by water seeping into the sandstone and expanding when the cold spell hit. Muiredach’s Cross dates to the 10th century, and was built in honour of an abbot who l
Source: BBC News
March 30, 2010
An ancient chapel has revealed a new mystery with the discovery of a 600-year-old hive built into the stones.
Builders renovating Rosslyn Chapel, which was made famous in The Da Vinci Code, found the "unprecedented" hive while dismantling a rooftop pinnacle.
The bees entered the hive through a hole in a carved flower crafted by the chapel's master stone masons.
The 15th Century Midlothian building is undergoing a £13m conservation and site improve
Source: Hampoton Roads Pilot
March 31, 2010
State engineers and volunteers plan to salvage what could be the oldest shipwreck remains known on the North Carolina Outer Banks.
Plans are to move the wreck next week from its precarious place in the sand and surf to a plot near the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla, keeper Meghan Agresto said.
Some are concerned the ship would go to pieces and disappear if left alone.
The ship is believed to be about 400 years old. State underwater archaeologists mea
Source: Kearney Hub (NE)
April 3, 2010
At first glance, the stone house doesn’t look like much.
The two-story structure nestles at the bottom of a muddy pasture on Highway 89 west of Orleans. The roof is crumbling and full of holes. The ceiling between the two stories has collapsed, and the floor is covered in dirt and debris.
It doesn’t look like much more than an old shed, but the stone house may be an important key to the area’s history.
“Initially, we did a self-guided history tour brochure
Source: Old Northwest News
April 3, 2010
When U.S. and Mexican soldiers fought May 8, 1846, on the prairie land of Palo Alto at the southern tip of Texas, it was the match that ignited a two-year war between the two countries.
The battlefield itself faded into American history, but not the legends. In June 1992, a law was passed creating Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park, preserving the 3,400-acre scene of the fighting, ten miles north of the Rio Grande River in what is now Cameron County.
"T
Source: Iceland Review Online
April 5, 2010
One of the things that makes Iceland unique in Europe is the fact that Icelanders know the year the first settler, Ingólfur Arnarson, came to Iceland from Norway. The Icelandic script, Íslendingabók (Book of Icelanders), written by Ari the wise, tells of the first men coming to Iceland on explorations.
Three expeditions came to Iceland, but the first men who came to Iceland to live there permanently were Ingólfur and Hjörleifur. The two came to Iceland in 874. Hjörleifur was killed
Source: Science News
April 2, 2010
If bones could scream, a bloodcurdling din would be reverberating through a 500-year-old cemetery in Peru. Human skeletons unearthed there have yielded the first direct evidence of Inca fatalities caused by Spanish conquerors.
European newcomers killed some Inca individuals with guns, steel lances or hammers, and possibly light cannons, scientists report online in the March 23 American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Surprisingly, though, no incisions or other marks c
Source: CTV Montreal
April 6, 2010
A Montreal store has come under fire from Jewish groups for selling Nazi memorabilia, including a bar of soap that is rumoured to be made from the remains of Holocaust victims.
Inside a cramped collectibles shop on St. Laurent Blvd., Abraham Botines claims he bought the bar of soap off a Canadian soldier who found it in a concentration camp.
Described as yellowish and adorned with a swastika, his son, Ivan, who owns the store, said its ingredients are uncertain, but pot
Source: The Sun (UK)
April 6, 2010
ONE of Hitler's closest surviving relatives has been tracked down by The Sun - living on a cattle farm.
Gerhard Koppensteiner looks remarkably like the Führer.
But he is desperate to play down the connection as he quietly rears his cows in a remote village in northern Austria....
Neighbours in the mountain village near the Czech border know of the link. But one said: "You can't hold Hitler's crimes against them."
Source: CBC News
April 6, 2010
Activist Tamaki Matsuoka is challenging Japanese perceptions of the country's war record with a new documentary on the atrocities known as the Rape of Nanking.
Her film, Torn Memories of Nanjing, combines the memories of Japanese war veterans with accounts by Chinese survivors of the massacres of 1937-38, after Japan captured the former capital city of Nanking.
The film was shown at the Hong Kong International Film Festival on Sunday in its first screening outside Japan
Source: Medieval News
April 6, 2010
A recent article has shed new light into a Welsh rebellion against English king Edward I in 1294-5. It reveals the only surviving document issued by one of the Welsh leaders during the revolt.
"The Penmachno Letter Patent and the Welsh Uprising of 1294-95" by G. Rex Smith appeared in the most recent issue of Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies. The article details a letter patent signed by Madog ap Llywelyn, one of the main leaders of the revolt, in December 1294. Smith provi
Source: Fredericksburg.com
April 6, 2010
The lonely tombstone of U.S. Colored Cavalryman Nelson Ballard stands near a parking lot at Sentara CarePlex and is often missed by passers-by.
But according to the Contraband Historical Society, the tombstone is part of a cemetery site for slaves that marks an important chapter in the history of Hampton and the United States.
The society is stepping up its efforts to secure a cemetery on the grounds of Sentara CarePlex hospital as a public memorial to the slaves who su
Source: Steve Aftergood at Secrecy News
April 6, 2010
The origins and development of North Korea’s military forces, from the vantage point of 1952, are described in a declassified U.S. Army intelligence report (large pdf).“Although the North Korean Army was not officially activated until 8 February 1948, the backbone of the armed forces was forged in 1946 under the mask of Central Peace Preservation Units and Youth Training Organizations. Using battle-hardened Ko
Source: The Root
March 31, 2010
The United States is playing a leading role in the meeting at the United Nations this week, where countries will announce their commitment to help rebuild Haiti. The involvement of the United States with Haiti is not new, and it has not always been benign. The two countries have had consistent interactions since the mid-18th century. Take a look at The Root's timeline of important Haiti/U.S. relations.--1492 Dec. 5, after "discoverin
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 5, 2010
Sir Winston Churchill called battlefields "the punctuation marks of history", but the Battle of Hastings is more like a full-blown chapter. On the grassy slopes of Senlac Hill, with the leafy Sussex countryside unfolding below, the future path of English government was decided on October 14, 1066.In a conflict lasting from early morning to late afternoon, the crop-headed army of Duke William of Normandy put paid to Harold and his "womanish" Saxons, with their flowing moustach
