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)
December 18, 2009
Monica Lewinsky claimed that former President Bill Clinton lied under oath when he described their liaison during the impeachment trial, according to a new book.
"The Death of American Virtue" by law professor Ken Gormley also asserts that Mr Clinton had long-running affair with Susan McDougal, a key player in the Whitewater scandal.
Miss McDougal, from Mr Clinton's home state of Arkansas, spent 18 months in jail after refusing to answer questions from prosec
Source: AFP
December 16, 2009
Two blocks of butter have been found intact after nearly a century in an Antarctic hut used by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on his doomed 1910-12 expedition, a report said.
Television New Zealand reported that conservators found the two blocks of New Zealand butter in bags in stables attached to the expedition Hut at Cape Evans in Antarctica.
The extreme cold of the polar region has preserved the hut and expedition equipment inside, but recent signs of deteriora
Source: AFP
December 17, 2009
Starting the day right by eating a bowl of cereal in the morning dates back more than 100,000 years, according to Canadian researchers in a study to be released Friday.
Indeed, scientific evidence until now showed the practice started only 12,000 years ago at the closing stages of the last Ice Age.
Mercader said in his study he found the oldest example of early man's extensive consumption of cereal and root staples in a deep limestone cave near Lake Niassa in Mozambique
Source: Guardian (UK)
December 17, 2009
Skeletons from Wharram Percy have much larger bones than those of city contemporaries.
The fearsome northern woman of legend and cliche, broadchested and with a frying pan poised to whack sense into her man, has proved to have genuine historic origins.
Analysis of bones from Britain's biggest medieval excavation has unearthed a race of real-life Nora Battys, ruling a Yorkshire roost nearly 1,000 years ago.
Skeletons from Wharram Percy, a village on the York
Source: BBC
December 18, 2009
A set of paintings depicting a 19th Century jousting tournament in Ayrshire are to go on display in the area.
East Ayrshire Council has successfully raised £85,100 to buy the Eglinton watercolours by James Henry Nixon.
The works depict scenes from a Medieval re-enactment tournament staged by the 13th Earl of Eglinton in 1839.
Historic shields, which furnished the knights' tents, were also bought for £7,000. The works will go on display at Dean Castle, Kil
Source: BBC
December 18, 2009
The biggest work ever published about the lives of famous Irish men and women has been launched in Belfast by poet Seamus Heaney.
The nine-volume Dictionary of Irish Biography features more than 9,700 entries and spans 2,000 years of the island's history.
Alongside Northern Ireland luminaries from Joey Dunlop to CS Lewis, the historians and writers have profiled some of the more unusual figures from the past. Here are some abridged versions of just few of them.
Source: BBC
December 17, 2009
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill still owes the exclusive Bangalore Club in southern India 13 rupees in unpaid bills.
An entry in the ledger book of the club from June 1899 has "Lt WLS Churchill" named as one of 17 defaulters.
Churchill arrived in Bangalore in 1896 as a young army officer and left three years later to fight in the North-West Frontier - now in Pakistan.
The Bangalore club was formed in 1868 by a group of British of
Source: BBC
December 18, 2009
The UN Security Council has given the tribunal for Rwanda's genocide until 2012 to finish all its cases.
The BBC's Jamhuri Mwavyombo at the court's base in Arusha, Tanzania, says the tribunal will have to speed up its work to meet this new deadline.
The court, set up to try those most responsible for the genocide, was originally due to close in 2008 but some key suspects remain at large.
Rwanda has long complained that the tribunal is too slow and expensi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 18, 2009
Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state, was charged with genocide by a UN court today but has always denied having a prominent role in the regime, saying he was kept out of Pol Pot's inner circle.
The 78 year-old had already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as a member of the central committee of the regime that oversaw the deaths of up to two million people by starvation, overwork, torture and execution.
Khieu Samphan has never de
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 18, 2009
Josef Stalin defaced classical nude drawings with macabre messages ridiculing political opponents that he had executed, a new exhibition has revealed.
The artwork, which has gone on display for the first time, offers a disturbing insight into his violent psyche and warped sense of humour.
Although the sketches depict people Stalin did not know, some of the images obviously reminded him of people he had killed or purged as he conducts angry one-way dialogue with them b
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 18, 2009
The infamous "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free)" sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp has been stolen in an audacious overnight raid provoking Jewish groups to condemn the theft as a "declaration of war".
Neo-Nazi groups were immediately blamed for the act described by police as "professionally planned", and which happened at three o'clock on Friday morning.
Investigators believe that at least two people wer
Source: Times Online (UK)
December 19, 2009
The Pope is expected tomorrow to declare his predecessor John Paul II “venerable” in the first of three official stages that the previous pontiff will take on his fast-track journey towards sainthood.
The late Pope will then be beatified next October, the month after the Venerable John Henry Newman is beatified by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Britain, taking the 19th-century divine a step closer to becoming England’s first non-martyr saint since the Reformation.
Source: Fox News
December 18, 2009
The most popular mixed martial arts organization in the United States is laying down the law: You can fight with us, you can bleed for us, you can shout till you're hoarse for us ... but under no circumstances can you walk into an eight-sided ring looking like a Nazi.
Zuffa LLC, which owns World Extreme Cagefighting and the Ultimate Fighting Champioship, is standing by its decision to ban apparel made by Hoelzer Reich, a California apparel company, due to the "offensive" i
Source: Medieval News
December 18, 2009
A recent article is challenging the notion that the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson was killed by an arrow to the eye during the famous Battle of Hastings. The battle, fought in 1066, was a pivotal moment in England's history, ushering in an era of Norman rule.
In an article for The Historian, a publication by the Historical Association, Chris Dennis argues that Harold Godwinson was actually hacked to death by a group of knights that may have included William the Conqueror.
Source: BBC
December 15, 2009
A trial in Turkey, which has lasted nearly 28 years, has finally concluded.
A panel of judges found 39 of the 1,223 defendants guilty of trying to topple the government and constitution, and sentenced them to life imprisonment.
The charges against other defendants were dropped because of the time that had elapsed.
They were all alleged members of an extreme left-wing organisation, Dev-Sol, who were arrested in the wake of the country's 1980 military coup.
Source: LA Times
December 15, 2009
The series is the first of its kind hosted by a Western-heritage museum, say people associated with the Autry. It consists of a gallery tour, panel discussions, lectures and performances to be rolled out in four installments over the course of 12 months. Dates for future events are being finalized.
Gregory Hinton, an independent historian who conceived and organized "Out West" for the museum, said the Autry was getting into potentially risky territory with the program.
Source: CNN
December 16, 2009
Researchers said Wednesday for the first time they have found what they believe to be pieces of a burial shroud from the time of Jesus.
The find is of importance because tests on the shroud and the body it wrapped revealed the earliest proven case of leprosy in the Old City of Jerusalem.
And in addition, the weave of the shroud raises fresh doubts about the Shroud of Turin, which many people believe was used to wrap the body of Jesus.
According to researche
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 16, 2009
Dr Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the Egyptian Council of Antiquities, has demanded that Britain return the Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artefact, to Egypt.
The stone, which was discovered by Napoleon and given to Britain as part of a peace settlement more than 200 years ago, contains translations which first enabled archaeologists to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.
As one of the British Museum's most valuable and extraordinary items, trustees are unwillin
Source: Harvard
December 16, 2009
Harvard archaeologists have found the first architectural signs that may pinpoint the location of the 1655 Indian College, one of Harvard University’s earliest buildings.
In the final days of the 2009 dig, Peabody Museum archaeologists and Archaeology of Harvard Yard students uncovered a 17th-century trench situated on the parcel of land where the Indian College stood. The trench was filled with stone, clay roof tile, and vast quantities of brick, including a special brick used as
Source: Pew Research Center
December 17, 2009
As with most presidents at the end of their first year in office, Barack Obama's approval ratings have slipped in 2009, though not as much as the clamor of his critics would suggest. He is almost exactly where Ronald Reagan was at the end of 1981, when he too was struggling with the bad economy he had inherited.
What's really exceptional at this stage of Obama's presidency is the extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues. These trends have
