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: Central PA News
March 14, 2010
Battle lines are being drawn again in Gettysburg.
It's economic development vs. historic preservation as philanthropist and former Conrail CEO David LeVan again tries to win a license for a casino on the outskirts of town.
A casino proposal four years ago was unsuccessful, in part because of heavy community opposition....
With pro-casino and no-casino camps disputing the most basic claims of the other, an undercurrent of division snakes through this histori
Source: AP
March 12, 2010
For more than 55 years, Savannah counted Ellis Square among its lost historic treasures.
Of the city's 22 public squares, Ellis Square was one of the first plotted in 1733. Since 1872, it was home to the City Market where farmers sold crops directly to shoppers.
Then came the wrecking ball. Ellis Square and the market were demolished in 1954 to make way for a new four-story parking garage. The loss was a flashpoint that galvanized citizens to organize Savannah's histor
Source: AP
March 15, 2010
A town in Arizona is missing a 25-year-old bottle of brandy.
When officials in Somerton opened a time capsule Saturday, they discovered mementos from 1985 — but didn't find a bottle of Mexican brandy that was supposed to be in the capsule.
Somerton street and solid waste supervisor Pancho Soto was part of the crew that buried the time capsule....
Source: National Geographic News
March 12, 2010
The tomb of a headless man adorned with jade has been discovered beneath an ancient Mexican chamber famously painted with scenes of torture.
Found under the Temple of Murals at the Maya site of Bonampak, the man was either a captive warrior who was sacrificed—perhaps one of the victims in the mural—or a relative of the city's ruler, scientists speculate (interactive map of the Maya Empire).
Whoever he was, "the place of the burial tells us that the person buried th
Source: New York Times
March 13, 2010
Visitors from around the world have turned an isolated ravine in central Russia into a pilgrimage site in recent years. They arrive to gaze at the unadorned earth where the Bolsheviks, in one final act to defile the dynasty that they toppled, are believed to have dumped the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family in July 1918.
But now the site is being threatened by an unlikely opponent: the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, which to this day has not acknowledged that the bones r
Source: Discovery News
March 15, 2010
Scientists were able to identify neurons and cerebral cells from the brain preserved from the 13th century.
An international team of researchers has identified intact neurons and cerebral cells in a mummified medieval brain, according to a study published in the journal Neuroimage.
Found inside the skull of a 13th century A.D. 18-month-old child from northwestern France, the brain had been fixed in formalin solution since its discovery in 1998.
Source: BBC
March 5, 2010
A relative of a Swansea soldier whose story helped inspire a memorial to the tunnellers killed in World War I has been traced ahead of its unveiling.
Historians were desperate to invite any descendents of Thomas Collins, who was buried alive below No Man's Land, to the ceremony in France later this year.
But until a public appeal earlier this month they were unsure if any existed.
Not only have they traced Pte Collins's nephew John Abraham, they also now
Source: BBC
March 15, 2010
A fire which destroyed a church in the fenland area of Cambridgeshire is being treated as suspicious.
The fire broke out mid-morning at the 19th Century church of St Mary's at Westry on the outskirts of March.
Only the external brickwork remains and the building has been deemed structurally unsound.
Source: BBC
March 15, 2010
A war hero's Battle of Britain medals have been gifted to a museum on the site of the former Cambridgeshire airfield he was based at.
Wing Commander George Blackwood served at RAF Duxford during World War II with the 310 Squadron - the first completely Czech fighter squadron.
He received the Defence Medal, George Star, Aircrew Europe Star and Czech War Cross and Czech Military Medal.
His family gave the collection to Imperial War Museum Duxford later.
Source: BBC
March 15, 2010
Raoul Wallenberg was a heroic Swedish diplomat who made history by assisting and saving thousands of Jews in Budapest during the Holocaust. But Wallenberg was arrested by the Soviet Union and disappeared into the Gulag, never to return home to his family, or his own future.
One of the most admired figures from Holocaust history, Raoul Wallenberg is also one of the most enigmatic. Why did this scion of Sweden's most important family go to Budapest to save Jews during the Holocaust? A
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 15, 2010
A raft of alleged inconsistencies in the evidence surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, has been published in a book by an investigative journalist.
Australian journalist John Morgan claimed he was disclosing a “tidal wave of evidence” that undermined the official conclusion that her death was an accident.
The inquest into the death of the Princess concluded that she and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed were unlawfully killed through a combination of the gross ne
Source: Metro (UK)
March 15, 2010
A treasure trove of 200 World War II propaganda posters is being auctioned after being found in an old printing factory.
The posters, with famous slogans such as Keep Calm And Carry On and Careless Talk Costs Lives, were described by the Imperial War Museum as a ‘once in a lifetime’ find.
They lay gathering dust until an employee took them home. ‘They are quite a find and as minty as can be. I can remember seeing quite a few of them myself during the war,’ said Roy Butler,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 15, 2010
Germany hatched a plan during World War Two to infiltrate the Vatican with spies disguised as monks, according to secret MI5 intelligence reports.
A Nazi sympathiser living in Rome came up with the idea and it was quickly seized upon by officials in Berlin who saw it as the ideal opportunity to keep up with Allied activity in the city.
The plan is revealed in MI5 reports held at the National Archives in Kew and which have now been declassified - and it comes just days a
Source: BBC News
March 14, 2010
Nearly 30 years after Britain and Argentina went to war over the Falkland Islands, a pilot project has begun to rid the territory of some of the 20,000 landmines left behind and clean up land that has been off limits since the conflict, as the BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani reports.
Through the chill wind and rain, we drive up a rugged track to a craggy peak then clamber over rocks and down through soft muddy undergrowth, past sodden rain-filled trenches once used by fighting troops.
Source: BBC News
March 15, 2010
English Sporting icons don't come much bigger than Wembley Stadium but few realise that it owes some of its splendour to the labour of German prisoners of war .
The news, which follows an investigation by BBC Radio 4's Document programme, may come as a shock to many England fans who view Germany as their fiercest sporting rivals.
In 1948 the stadium was to host the Olympics and the area around needed to be redeveloped.
The trouble was that the carnage of WW
Source: BBC News
March 15, 2010
The internet celebrates a landmark event on the 15 March - the 25th birthday of the day the first dotcom name was registered.
In March 1985, Symbolics computers of Cambridge, Massachusetts entered the history books with an internet address ending in dotcom.
That same year another five companies jumped on a very slow bandwagon.
It took until 1997, well into the internet boom, before the one millionth dotcom was registered.
"This birthday is
Source: BBC News
March 15, 2010
Israel's ambassador to the US has said that relations between the two countries are at their lowest point for 35 years, Israeli media have reported.
Last week Israeli officials announced the building of 1,600 new homes in occupied East Jerusalem while US Vice-President Joe Biden was visiting.
The move was seen as an insult to the US. Palestinian leaders say indirect talks with Israel are now "doubtful".
But Israel's PM said Jewish settlements did
Source: NYT
March 12, 2010
After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.
The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.
Source: NYT
March 12, 2010
At Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s funeral, one of his grandsons, an Army captain also named Augusto Pinochet, gave a eulogy so defiant and aggressive that he was cashiered the next day. Earlier, as the general lay in state in his dress uniform and Chileans filed by his casket to pay their last respects, the grandson of another general, assassinated by Pinochet’s secret police, spat on the former dictator’s cadaver full in the face.
That was barely three years ago, and it suggested that the
Source: NYT
March 12, 2010
Brash and young though it is, the Tea Party movement has already added something distinctive to contemporary political discourse. It has made the Constitution central to the national conversation.
The content of the movement’s understanding of the Constitution is not always easy to nail down, and it is almost always arguable. But it certainly includes particular attention to the Constitution’s constraints on federal power (as reflected in the limited list of powers granted to Congre
