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: Telegraph (UK)
February 1, 2010
Volcanic activity may have led to nearly a third of marine life being wiped out around 100 million years ago, research suggests.
It is thought that sulphur produced by volcanoes erupting led to oxygen disappearing from large areas of the oceans.
This caused up to 27 per cent of ocean life being destroyed, according to a report published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
It is feared that a similar effect is being witnessed today as rising sea temperatures a
Source: The Northern Echo (UK)
February 1, 2010
NEW light is being shed on Adolf Hitler’s taste in interior design by a chance discovery in the archives of one of the region’s museums.
A fragment of the carpet from Hitler’s bunker has been found in the archives of the Green Howards Regimental Museum, in Richmond, North Yorkshire. As part of the regular cycle of refurbishment at the museum, the rooms where the archives are stored have been emptied.
And one of the items to turn up as staff moved cabinets and boxes was
Source: Washington Post
January 29, 2010
Culpeper County public school officials have decided to stop assigning a version of Anne Frank's diary, one of the most enduring symbols of the atrocities of the Nazi regime, after a parent complained that the book includes sexually explicit material and homosexual themes.
"The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition," which was published on the 50th anniversary of Frank's death in a concentration camp, will not be used in the future, said James Allen, director of in
Source: AFP
January 31, 2010
Japanese and Chinese scholars published the results of a three-year joint study Sunday which showed they could not resolve differences on controversial modern events including the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.
In a government-backed project aimed at soothing strained ties, 10 historians from each country have reviewed the history of China-Japan relations over 2,000 years.
The 549-page report showed both sides agreed that the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese War was an "act of aggression
Source: Daily Democrat (Woodland, CA)
February 1, 2010
Bill Petty's father fought for voting rights in North Carolina the 30s, and Petty fought to buy a house in Woodland after fighting in World War II.
For Petty, black history is an integral part of his life, and he's lived to tell about some of it.
"It's not Black History Month; it's American history that was left out of the history books," Petty likes to say....
Petty helped write Yolo County's Affirmative Action Plan when the Conciolo brought a di
Source: BBC
February 1, 2010
"He was just in a green uniform with 25 others - he was there for half a minute, and then gone."
This is all Maurice Sangan remembers of the German prisoner who traded him a hand-carved wooden pipe for tobacco.
He got in touch with BBC Guernsey when he heard the A History of the World project was looking for your objects....
Maurice still has the pipe to this day - having only smoked it once.
"Well I didn't want to damage it - di
Source: NYT
January 30, 2010
Before there was a Super Bowl, there was Super Bowl hype.
The A.F.L.-N.F.L. championship game was a hard sell in 1967, when the leagues were separate and unequal. N.F.L. Commissioner Pete Rozelle needed a prestigious championship game to legitimize a newly minted merger with the less-established American Football League. So Rozelle, a former public-relations specialist, used his marketing expertise to surround the game with hype, or hoopla or ballyhoo, as it was called at the time.
Source: Time
January 31, 2010
The Jerusalem syndrome is a psychological disorder in which a visit to the holy city triggers delusional and obsessive religious fantasies. In its extreme variety, people wander the lanes of the Old City believing they are biblical characters; John the Baptist, say, or a brawny Samson, sprung back to life.
Archaeologists in the Holy Land like to joke that their profession is vulnerable to a milder form of the syndrome. When scientists find a cracked, oversize skull in the Valley of
Source: The Canadian Press
January 31, 2010
Egypt will soon reveal the results of DNA tests made on the world's most famous ancient king, the young Pharaoh Tutankhamun, to answer lingering mysteries over his lineage, the antiquities department said Sunday.
Speaking at a conference, archaeology chief Zahi Hawass said he would announce the results of the DNA tests and the CAT scans on Feb. 17. The results will be compared to those made of King Amenhotep III, who may have been Tutankamun's grandfather.
The effort is
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 30, 2010
A portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, part of the Royal Collection, has been moved in preparation for an exhibition showcasing the Royal couple's love for art.
The exhibition, including more than 400 items from the Royal Collection, aims to challenge the image of Victoria as a melancholy widow, revealing her as a passionate young woman.
The exhibition will celebrate ''one of history's great love stories'' and reflect the royal couple's mutual delight in colle
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 31, 2010
Diana, Princess of Wales, told her divorce lawyer that she should never have married into a “German family”, he has claimed in a new book.
Anthony Julius, who represented the Princess in legal proceedings against the Prince of Wales, said she was trying to empathise with him as Jew.
Mr Julius’s book, Trials of the Diaspora, examines the history of anti-Semitism in England
Source: CNN
January 30, 2010
A new book about former Sen. John Edwards paints him as a cold, calculating and reckless politician willing to deny fathering a daughter, risking his marriage and putting the Democratic Party in potential political jeopardy -- all in the name of trying to win the presidency.
In "The Politician," former Edwards' aide Andrew Young details his efforts to conceal an ongoing extra-marital affair and the birth of a child out-of-wedlock.
On Friday, John Edwards' law
Source: CNN
January 30, 2010
An unknown World War I soldier was buried in Fromelles, France, on Saturday, the first of some 250 bodies recovered from a string of mass graves dating back to a bloody -- and largely pointless -- battle that claimed thousands of lives in a single night.
The soldier buried Saturday has not been identified, but DNA samples have been recovered from many of the bodies, often from the teeth, said Peter Jones, the DNA consultant on the project.
Some 800 people from Britain
Source: CNN
January 29, 2010
It's now apparent that among the earthquake's widespread destruction were museums, galleries and other places that contained Haiti's artistic treasures, including Exil's work.
The earthquake's blow to Haitian art is staggering: The Centre d'Art, which launched the Haitian arts movement in the 1940s, is severely damaged.
The Musee d'Art Nader, which housed more than 12,000 pieces from the largest private collection in Haiti, collapsed. Murals in the Trinity Cathedral,
Source: CBS News (video)
January 20, 2010
As some musicians prepare for the upcoming Grammy awards, it took one nominated group about 140 years to get there. Randall Pinkston has the story of one college gospel choir's journey to the Grammys.
Source: Spiegel Online
January 28, 2010
As a young woman, Annette Schücking-Homeyer served as a Red Cross volunteer on the Eastern Front in Ukraine. In an interview with SPIEGEL, the retired judge discusses the horrors committed against the Jews there, how everyone knew about them and why, even after the war, most people just wanted to forget.
SPIEGEL: After World War II, most Germans denied having known about the Holocaust. From 1941 to 1943, you were a volunteer with the German Red Cross behind the lines on the Eastern
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
January 30, 2010
California laid a historical claim to over 100 objects left behind on the moon Friday when the State Historical Resources Commission voted unanimously to name the objects a state historical resource.
The action is mostly symbolic, but is intended to show that objects on the moon might need protection from commercial exploitation. It also draws attention to California's role in the development of space exploration.
The first landing on the moon by humans,
Source: BBC News
January 29, 2010
The Islamic movement Hamas claims that the death of one its senior commanders, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, is the latest in Israel's history of assassinating individuals it believes to have been behind attacks on its citizens....
Among the best documented of Israel's assassinations were a wave of killings of pro-Palestinian militants in Paris, Nicosia, Beirut and Athens, carried out in response to the hostage crisis at the Munich Olympics in 1972 which resulted in the deaths of 11 Israelis.
Source: UCL
January 30, 2010
[University College London] will mark Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans History Month with a series of events, talks, film screenings and lectures from 8–12 February.
The majority of events will be open to the public and media.
Peter Tatchell, who has been campaigning for human rights, democracy and global justice since 1967, will be speaking on ‘The global struggle for queer rights – fighting political and religious fundamentalism worldwide.’
John Johnstone of th
Source: AP
January 30, 2010
...Violating a social custom as rigid as law, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond sat near an older white woman on the silver-backed stools at the F.W. Woolworth. The black students had no need to talk; theirs was no spontaneous act. Their actions on Feb. 1, 1960, were meticulously planned, down to buying a few school supplies and toiletries and keeping their receipts as proof that the lunch counter was the only part of the store where racial segregation still rule
