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: Reuters
March 12, 2010
Sotheby's will auction a painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot worth around $1.5 million after it was returned to the heirs of the original owners, Jewish bankers forced to flee Europe in World War Two.
"Jeune femme a la fontaine," which the auctioneer said ranked among the French artist's finest figure paintings of the 1860s and 1870s, will go under the hammer on June 2 in London as part of the 19th century paintings sale.
Sotheby's will be hoping that the
Source: HamptonRoads.com
March 16, 2010
...The Star-Spangled Banner Geotrail combines an activity called geocaching (pronounced GEO-cashing) with the upcoming 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. Designed by three organizations, each with slightly differing motives, the geotrail encircles the Chesapeake Bay and, at one point, pops out to Tangier Island.
Basically, here's how it works: Someone hides a cache in a location significant in the War of 1812. The coordinates of said cache are posted online, along with a few clue
Source: AFP
March 16, 2010
Ruins in northern Israel previously thought to have been a synagogue have now been identified as a 7th century palace used by the Umayyad caliph who started construction of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, archaeologists said on Tuesday.
The site on the shores of the Sea of Galilee is that of the Al-Sinnabra palace, which was described by early Arab historians but whose precise location had long been unknown, according to Tel Aviv University, whose Institute of Archaeology led the rece
Source: BBC
March 16, 2010
Hundreds of Latvian veterans who fought on the side of Nazi Germany in World War II have held a peaceful march in the capital, Riga.
The veterans laid flowers at Riga's Freedom Monument. Police said about 1,000 people took part.
The annual march is a flashpoint for tension between the veterans and ethnic Russians whose relatives fought against the Nazis.
Source: NYT
March 15, 2010
The Texas Board of Education, notorious for its past efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools, has now moved to revise the social studies curriculum to portray conservative ideas and movements in a more positive light and emphasize the role of Christianity in the nation’s founding.
It was a disturbing intervention by the board’s Republican majority into educational decisions best left to the teachers and scholars who have toiled for almost a year to produce t
Source: AP
March 16, 2010
Egypt's Culture Ministry says a team of archaeologists has unearthed two large red granite statues at the mortuary temple of one Egypt's most powerful pharaohs who ruled nearly 3,400 years ago.
A ministry statement Tuesday says the team discovered a 13-foot statue of Thoth, the ancient god of wisdom and the top part of a statue of Pharaoh Amenhotep III standing next to another god....
Source: BBC
March 16, 2010
Three World War II veterans are among those to be given cash to return to their wartime locations after a new round of lottery grants were announced.
The men have received a share of grants of £7,925 from the Big Lottery Fund's 'Heroes Return 2' programme.
Alexander Jackson, from Tranent, Angus Galloway, from Edinburgh and James Peers, from Bearsden, will visit Italy, Canada and London respectively.
This summer marks the 65th anniversary of the end of the
Source: Guardian (UK)
March 9, 2010
Film attempts to recreate the terror of the 1942 Rafle du Vel d'Hiv, in which 13,000 Jews were rounded up in Paris
When, in 1995, Joseph Weismann reflected on the chances of a film being made about the horrors he witnessed in the thick heat of a Parisian summer more than 50 years earlier, his answer was uttered through tears: "I don't think that anyone would ever dare."
Tomorrow, 15 years after his words were broadcast on television, and almost 70 years on fro
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 12, 2010
Two mass graves containing scores of people murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War have been found underneath an army football pitch in Austria, government officials said on Friday.
Some of the remains may be the bodies of US pilots shot down and imprisoned during the war.
Police Col. Rudolf Gollia, an interior ministry spokesman, said his ministry plans talks with the owners of the site to discuss exhumation.
The mass graves are located in bomb crater
Source: BBC
March 16, 2010
A US Congressional committee will vote later on a bill providing long-term healthcare for emergency workers who fell ill after working at Ground Zero.
Campaigners say 800 people died as a result of exposure to toxic materials at the site of the 9/11 attacks, and more than 10,000 are sick.
Thousands of rescue and recovery workers became severely ill after working in the debris.
Many have respiratory diseases and some have developed cancer.
Source: National Parks Traveler
March 16, 2010
There are some memorable living history programs to be found across the National Park System, such as the one you find at Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park. A new one has just popped up at Joshua Tree National Park, one set in the 1940s.
The program, offered at Keys Ranch, offers a first-person look into the life and times of the Keys Family – residents of a remote desert homestead at the end of the Great Depression.
The year was 1940. Europe and Asia were a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 15, 2010
The Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile was created by a special painting technique which tricks the eye into thinking the expression is changing, a study has claimed.
Austrian neurologists say analysis of the masterpiece shows her face appears to shift depending where a person focuses their gaze.
If her eyes are stared at, it appears she has a subtle smile on her lips. But if the onlooker shifts their gaze to her mouth, then the smile disappears.
Professor Floria
Source: BBC News
March 16, 2010
Swedish pop band Abba have been inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with British bands Genesis and The Hollies.
Abba's Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad accepted their trophies, but Bjorn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog did not attend the ceremony in New York.
Andersson said: "I speak for all of us, we are deeply, deeply honoured."
He added that the band, who had hits with Dancing Queen and Waterloo, would never perform togeth
Source: Spiegel Online
March 10, 2010
Germany approved the requisite legislation back in 2002, but many of those who worked in Jewish ghettos during World War II are still waiting for their pensions. Indeed, up to 90 percent of applicants have been rejected. Now, though, a new reading of the law could break the logjam, and cost Berlin up to 2 billion euros.
Abraham Leibenson, born in 1925, was a construction worker from the Lithuanian city of Radviliskis who was imprisoned in the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 16, 2010
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee said too many questions remained unanswered over how much the security services knew about the killers' movements around the time of the dissident republican attack 12 years ago and if police officers were left out of the loop.
Twenty-nine people, including a mother pregnant with twins, were killed when the Real IRA car bomb exploded in the Co Tyrone market town.
No one has been successfully convicted of the murders, but last year
Source: The Mainichi Daily News
March 10, 2010
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which suffered U.S. atomic bombings at the end of World War II, reacted fiercely Tuesday to a government-appointed panel's acknowledgement of the existence of Japan-U.S. secret pacts, including one allowing the introduction of nuclear weapons into the country.
"As the government of the only country to have suffered atomic bombings, I must say it is pathetic. The state must apologize to the people for lying to them," said Sunao Tsuboi, the head of t
Source: The Mainichi Daily News
March 14, 2010
The Koyanagi File -- an extensive collection of testimonies on the Pacific War by former navy ministers and commanding officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy -- will be released to the public for the first time in April.
The file, consisting of some 4,000 pages in 44 volumes, was compiled by the Suiko-kai, an association of retired Japanese naval officials, based on interviews conducted by Vice Admiral Tomiji Koyanagi (1893-1978) with a total of 47 former navy ministers, admirals an
Source: NYT
March 15, 2010
William John Scott is a freshman at Drew University. He studies political science. He plays defense on the lacrosse team. He describes himself on Facebook as a night person who likes to party.
But federal prosecutors say he is something else: a busy archives thief who stole famous letters written by a founder of the United Methodist Church and world leaders, including Abraham Lincoln and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek.
Mr. Scott pilfered the letters while working part time at t
Source: AP
March 15, 2010
Ernest Hemingway's Key West home, where the American author lived in the 1930s, has been designated a literary landmark.
Hemingway, who lived in the Spanish-colonial home with his second wife Pauline and their two sons, owned the property until his death in 1961. It became a museum honoring the Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning author in 1964.
He worked on many of his best-known manuscripts in the Key West property's second-story writing studio.
Source: Syracuse Post-Standard
March 14, 2010
Oswego, NY - Civil War and French and Indian War re-enactors joined politicians and other Fort Ontario supporters at a rally today.
Closing the fort would save the state $110,000, according to the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Closing or reducing services to it and 63 other state parks and historic sites would save the state $6.3 million a year.
The fort built on the site of the current attraction was built by the British in 1755. It was 2
