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: St. Augustine Record
January 19, 2010
Three years after St. Augustine was founded, Alvara de Mendana, nephew of the governor of Peru, set out with two ships and 150 soldiers and sailed west to find gold and a new trade route to China.
Mendana's 1568 voyage found nothing, so he returned to Peru.
But a relentless lust for gold pushed the Spanish to dispatch more colonizing fleets. And one founded a colony somewhere in the Solomon Islands, northeast of Australia.
No one knows its exact location or
Source: Times Online (UK)
January 18, 2010
Evidence for the world’s earliest seafaring has emerged from an archaeological survey in Crete. Tools of Lower Palaeolithic type, at least 130,000 years old, have been found on the Greek island, which has been isolated by the Mediterranean Sea for at least the past five million years, so that any human ancestors must have arrived by boat. At this date, they would have been of a pre-modern species: the earliest Neanderthalers or even Homo heidelbergensis, the species to which Boxgrove Man belonge
Source: Science News
January 30, 2010
Excavations at the Sanctuary of Zeus atop Greece’s Mount Lykaion have revealed that ritual activities occurred there for roughly 1,500 years, from the height of classic Greek civilization around 3,400 years ago until just before Roman conquest in 146.
“We may have the first documented mountaintop shrine from the ancient Greek world,” says project director David Romano of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Source: NYT
January 17, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI, in a visit to Rome’s main synagogue, sought to soothe tensions between Catholics and Jews on Sunday, though he and Jewish leaders aired one main point of contention: whether the church did enough against the Holocaust.
At least one prominent Italian rabbi boycotted Benedict’s visit after a move by the pope last month to advance Pope Pius XII, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958, one step closer to sainthood. Many Jews, especially in Rome, say Pius
Source: AP
January 18, 2010
The NAACP will make a stronger push to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse, the president of the civil rights organization said Monday.
Benjamin Jealous wouldn't go into details, but said by the summer the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People would bring more publicity to its economic boycott of South Carolina. The campaign calls for blacks to not vacation in the state and spend as little money as they can within its bo
Source: Independent (UK)
January 19, 2010
Israel's cabinet has convened for the first time in Berlin, in a joint meeting with the German cabinet to symbolise the nations' strong bond 60 years after the Holocaust.
The focus, though, was not on threats gone by but on one that may loom in the future — the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran.
After the joint session, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Iran will face new sanctions if it doesn't change course o
Source: Times (UK)
January 20, 2010
The wager between Eisenhower and Montgomery is a fitting memento of their turbulent relationship: they disagreed about when the war would come to an end, just as they argued about almost everything else.
It would be hard to imagine two more contrasting characters. The American general: likeable, diplomatic, balanced and gregarious. The British general: egotistical, prickly, brilliant and caustic.
Yet despite their very different personalities, and frequent disagreemen
Source: Times (UK)
January 20, 2010
Courtroom 101 took on the air of a macabre seance yesterday when the lights were dimmed and one of the last survivors of Sobibor concentration camp guided a stunned, often weeping audience back in time to the Holocaust.
His hand shaking, Thomas Blatt, 82, traced a pen along a map of the camp projected on to the wall of the court. In a corner, almost forgotten, was the figure of Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, 89, accused of being a Sobibor guard and complicit in 27,900 murders.
Source: Times (UK)
January 20, 2010
Among other things Lucian Freud is a reformed brawler, a quintessential Londoner, a recluse, a workaholic, a survivor and the greatest portrait painter of his generation.
All of which makes this newly rediscovered Self-Portrait with a Black Eye something of an emblematic work: a breathtaking painting, made straight after a fight with a London taxi driver and then kept secret from the world for 30 years.
With an estimated value of £3million to £4million it is the most
Source: Times (UK)
January 20, 2010
To young Australian women, he is a bit of a heart-throb. To the country’s republicans, he is a symbol of an ancient system that should be swept away. But as Prince William arrived in Sydney yesterday, it emerged that to the Aboriginal people he is nothing short of a royal lost property office.
Within hours of touching down, he was asked by Aboriginal elders to take up the cause of two separate symbols of their people’s struggle for recognition and equal rights that have gone missin
Source: WaPo
January 19, 2010
State Sen. Scott Brown won a remarkable upset victory over state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) tonight in a Massachusetts Senate special election, a victory likely to spawn broad-ranging political and policy consequences heading into the midterm elections.
With 71 percent of precincts reporting, Brown held a 53 percent to 46 percent lead over Coakley. Coakley called Brown to concede the race moments ago, according to a Democratic aide.
Brown's victory is the first
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 19, 2010
An unnamed man in Castellammare di Stabia in the south of Italy has claimed he was inexplicably healed from incurable prostate cancer after he prayed to the wartime pope. After examining the patient's medical records the Vatican has asked the Archbishop of Sorrento, Felice Cece, to set up a diocesan tribunal to investigate the claims further.
If the Vatican ultimately approves a miracle the way will be clear for the beatification of Pius, after which he will be declared "Blesse
Source: AP
January 19, 2010
Is this tradition "nevermore"?
A mysterious visitor who left roses and cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe each year on the writer's birthday failed to show early Tuesday, breaking with a ritual that began more than 60 years ago.
"I'm confused, befuddled," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. "I don't know what's going on."
The tradition dates back to at least 1949, according to newspaper accounts from the
Source: Times of India
January 18, 2010
[A historical] conference [in Mysore] witnessed literary fireworks when a historian presenting his paper on Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, their conquests and defence works, tried to segregate Indian history into Hindu India, Muslim India and British India.
Historians who remained deeply divided over the subject were seen involved in a heated argument. Things cooled down only when the president of the final session on the final day of the conference and former vice-chancellor of Calicut
Source: BBC
January 19, 2010
A skeleton has been uncovered by builders carrying out refurbishment work at Yorkshire Museum.
The skeleton was found in a shallow grave as work was carried out on the museum's drains.
The remains have been removed by archaeologists. They will be examined by experts to try to work out how long the skeleton had been there for.
The museum was built on the site of the medieval St Mary's Abbey. A 4m (13ft) deep well was also discovered.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 19, 2010
One of the last remaining survivors of the Nazi concentration camp at Sobibor told the trial of John Demjanjuk yesterday that he still had nightmares about his time there.
Thomas Blatt, 82, whose parents and brother were among the 250,000 people estimated to have perished there during the Second World War, said: "I go there in my dreams. They are so real. In them I am still there. I can't get it out of my head. This is the price I paid for getting out."
He to
Source: Tehran Times
January 20, 2010
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast criticized some countries’ efforts to deny Iranian history.
“Some actions are carried out to deny history and the United Nations’ ratifications about the Persian Gulf,” he told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.
He also criticized the attempts to steal the credit for Iranian historical and literary figures’ achievements by deliberately misidentifying these figures’ nationality....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 19, 2010
US marines are being issued with rifle sights carrying thinly-veiled references to Bible passages, it has been disclosed.
Troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are firing weapons with coded inscriptions including 2COR4:6 and JN8:12, which relate to verses in the books of Second Corinthians and John respectively.
The secret markings do not sit comfortably US government rules forbidding its forces from spreading any religious faith during deployments to the two Islami
Source: Fox News
January 19, 2010
Though the tea party movement has attracted criticism for its supposed lack of diversity, minority activists who are involved say the movement has little to do with race, and that it is attracting a more diverse crowd every day.
Despite the enthusiastic involvement of black conservatives in the tea party rallies and trips, Obama still enjoys seemingly unshakable support from the majority of black Americans. A recent poll from Gallup put Obama's approval rating among blacks at 91 pe
Source: AP
January 19, 2010
A mysterious visitor who left roses and cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe each year on the writer's birthday failed to show early Tuesday, breaking with a ritual that began more than 60 years ago.
The tradition dates back to at least 1949, according to newspaper accounts from the era, Jerome said. Since then, an unidentified person has come every Jan. 19 to leave three roses and a half-bottle of cognac at Poe's grave in a church cemetery in downtown Baltimore.
The
