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: National Parks Traveler
January 21, 2010
From time to time there are cases of folks digging in remote areas of national parks, either for fossils, archaeological artifacts, or whatever. It's seldom that you hear of instances in which treasures were buried at a park site, but that's exactly what seems to have occurred nearly 18 years ago after a theft at San Juan National Historic Site.
Earlier this month some maintenance workers at the historic site were at work developing a new trail extension of the Paseo del Morro trail
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 20, 2010
Dinosaur tracks in Oxfordshire have become the first feature in Britain to be given special protection for its geological features alone.
The trackways, formed 165 million years ago by a herd of Jurassic dinosaurs moving along part of an ancient shoreline, is the first SSSI to be designated purely because of its geological interest.
The site, which includes footprints from large, vegetarian dinosaurs related to Brontosaurus and also from carnivorous dinosaurs similar to
Source: Bloomberg News
January 21, 2010
Late in the evening of Dec. 23, 1888, Vincent van Gogh mutilated his ear. That insane act is the most celebrated case of artistic temperament. But why he did he have his crisis then?
Journalist and Van Gogh scholar Martin Bailey has published an intriguing new clue.
The traditional explanation is that Van Gogh's fraught relationship with Gauguin, who had been sharing his small house in Arles, France, for the previous two months, was the trigger; in particular, Gauguin a
Source: History Today (UK)
January 20, 2010
The University of Bristol announced today, January 20th, the recent discovery of the remains of the Saxon Princess Eadgyth, possibly the oldest member of the English royal family whose remains have survived. They were excavated from beneath an elaborate 16th-century monument bearing her name in Magdeburg Cathedral as part of a wider research project into the cathedral.
Eadgyth of Wessex was born in 910. She was the daughter of Edward the Elder, King of Wessex from 900 to 924, and hi
Source: Artdaily.org
January 21, 2010
From 20 January 2010, Christie’s will host a public exhibition showing masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Natalia Gonchorova that have been unseen in public for nearly 40 years, as well as an outstanding masterpiece by Yves Klein and important works by Henri Matisse, Peter Doig, Rene Magritte, Frank Auerbach, Kees van Dongen and Martin Kippenberger.
These are the leading highlights from the forthcoming series of auctions of Impressionist and Modern Art and Pos
Source: History Today
January 21, 2010
Two weeks ago today, we reported on the upcoming auction of Neville Chamberlain’s British Airways plane ticket to Munich. He flew out on September 29th, 1938, at 8.30am. The following day, Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain and Daladier signed the Munich Agreement. The ticket was auctioned by Mullock’s on Tuesday January 19th. It was expected to fetch between £5,000 and £7,000.
The final selling price was considerably higher than expected. The ticket sold for £9,280.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
January 21, 2010
Descendants of the leaders of the Nazi regime have spoken on camera for the first time about the feelings of pain and revulsion they have for their ancestors.
They include Bettina Goering, great niece of Adolf Hitler's second in command Hermann Goering, who says she has had herself sterilised so she would 'not pass on the blood of a monster'.
Adolf Eichmann's son Ricardo says he simply cannot find a way to explain why his father became the chief architect of the Holoc
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
January 21, 2010
Tony Blair's intelligence chief told the Iraq Inquiry that if the public had been allowed to see all the intelligence on which Britain went to war, they would have said: 'Is that it?'
In a damning assessment of the way the evidence was spun into a case for war, former Cabinet Office Intelligence and Security Co-ordinator Sir David Omand denounced Mr Blair's Downing Street dossier as a 'big mistake'.
He said the claim that Iraq could fire weapons of mass destruction in
Source: Guardian (UK)
January 19, 2010
The first farmers to arrive in Britain outbred the native hunter-gatherer men and have left their mark in modern males' Y chromosome.
Ancient farmers left their genetic mark on modern males by breeding more successfully than indigenous hunter-gatherer men as they made their way west, a study has found.
As a result, more than 60% of British men, and nearly all of those in Ireland, can trace their Y chromosome back to the agricultural revolution, or more precisely the sex
Source: UKPA
January 18, 2010
A 51-year-old man from West Sussex has been arrested by police investigating the alleged plundering of valuable archaeological artefacts.
Police said some of the artefacts were suspected of being stolen by "nighthawking" from an undisclosed site in the Chichester area and elsewhere recently.
The items found so far include medieval and Roman coins, ivory and silver, and one gold Iron Age coin, brooches, buttons and horse equipment of similar ages.
Source: National Geographic News
January 19, 2010
The dreaded wood-eating shipworm is invading northern Europe's Baltic Sea. The animal threatens to munch through thousands of Viking vessels and other historic shipwrecks, scientists warn.
Shipworms, which can obliterate a wreck in ten years, have already attacked about a hundred sunken vessels dating back to the 13th century in Baltic waters off Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, reported study co-author Christin Appelqvist.
Why shipworms are suddenly able to spread there
Source: AP
January 20, 2010
Archaeologists have found evidence that pre-Hispanic groups in Mexico's Baja California peninsula dug up their decomposing dead, dismembered the bodies and then reburied them.
A report by the National Institute of Anthropology and History says Indians at the Conchalito site apparently did that to release the dead from what they considered a state of suffering.
The report says many of the 157 graves studied since 1991 show evidence of the practice. The graves date from a
Source: BBC
December 31, 2069
A row has erupted in Rwanda about the genocide memorial not reflecting the plight of Hutus in the 1994 massacres.
During the 100-day genocide, Hutu militias systematically killed about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
But opposition politician Victoire Ingabire, who has returned to Rwanda for the first time since the genocide, says Hutus were also killed by Tutsis.
Source: NYT
January 20, 2010
The New York Times announced Wednesday that it intended to charge frequent readers for access to its Web site, a step being debated across the industry that nearly every major newspaper has so far feared to take.
Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site without extra charge.
Source: LA Times
January 14, 2010
Was the J. Paul Getty Museum acting in good faith when it purchased one of the finest ancient bronze statues in existence?
That will be the central question before an Italian judge after Friday's closing arguments in a long-running legal battle in Pesaro, Italy.
At stake is a much-coveted work believed by some to have been created by Alexander the Great's personal sculptor and plundered by Roman soldiers around the time of Christ before being lost at sea. A regional pub
Source: Discovery News
January 20, 2010
The so-called "relics of Joan of Arc," overseen by the Archbishop of Tours in Chinon, France, do not contain the charred remains of the Catholic saint.
Rather, the artifacts consist of a mummified cat leg bone and human rib, both dating to the 6th-3rd century B.C., according to a new study.
The "relics," which have fooled onlookers for decades, did resemble burnt bones, in keeping with historical accounts of the death of Joan of Arc (ca. 1412-1431),
Source: BBC News
January 20, 2010
Remains of one of the earliest members of the English royal family may have been unearthed in a German cathedral, a Bristol University research team says.
They believe a near-complete female skeleton, aged 30 to 40, found wrapped in silk in a lead coffin in Magdeburg Cathedral is that of Queen Eadgyth.
The granddaughter of Alfred the Great, she married Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, in 929. She died 17 years later, at 36.
The team aims to prove her identity by
Source: Medieval News
January 20, 2010
A nail-pierced skull believed to belong to the legendary medieval pirate Klaus Störtebeker has been stolen from a museum in the northern German port city of Hamburg, authorities said Tuesday.
The skull was stolen from the Museum for Hamburg History on January 9, but the museum didn't immediately announce the theft so as not to hamper the investigation. It wasn't clear how the exhibit was stolen, or why.
"We are all very upset about the theft," museum director
Source: St. Petersburg Times
January 20, 2010
The Hernando Historical Museum Association is supposed to teach people the truth about our past.
So how can it justify its signature event and primary fundraiser, the annual Brooksville Raid Re-enactment?...
Without context, the museum association's event, with its flags, gunfire and uniforms, is romanticism pure and simple — glossing over history, stirring people up about it, not teaching it. And this starts with the portrayal of the raid itself.
The re-en
Source: Tehran Times
January 16, 2010
Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) director, who is also a vice president, said on Thursday that Iran would cut cultural ties with Britain if they cannot come to an agreement with the British Museum concerning the Cyrus Cylinder loan.
“We are currently talking to them about the issue and if the discussions produce the outcome that Britain doesn’t want to fulfill the previous agreement, undoubtedly, we will cut cultural ties with Britain due to ou
