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: Media General News Service (NAT)
November 10, 2009
More than 2,000 DVDs explaining the causes, conflicts and consequences of the Civil War have been mailed to all public schools in Virginia.
The three-hour history lesson was produced by a member of the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission who led the nation’s centennial commemoration.
“In the centennial, if we made a big mistake it was that we overlooked the young. We can’t do that again,“ said James I. Robertson, a history professor at Virgini
Source: Culpeper Star Exponent (VA)
November 12, 2009
Members of the Manassas City Council like the idea of commemorating the 150th anniversary of the First Battle of Manassas so much that they’re ready to give up $100,000 to make it happen in 2011.
The battle, fought July 21, 1861, was the first major engagement of the Civil War.
Creston M. Owen, chairman of the board of Virginia Civil War Events Inc., was before the board Monday asking for the money.
Owen’s outfit of volunteers is poised to begin organizing
Source: Santa Fe New Mexican (NM)
November 14, 2009
Historic preservation specialist Jeff Brown is hoping his work crews won't find the spot where legs and arms are buried at Pecos National Historical Park.
The appendages would be those amputated from Civil War soldiers in 1862 at a makeshift hospital housed in Kozlowski's Trading Post east of Santa Fe.
Finding the bony remains, while exciting, would slow down Brown's current project: a six-year renovation of the almost 2-century-old stage stop and tavern. The low-slung
Source: Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star (VA
November 17, 2009
A key piece of the Chancellorsville Battlefield associated with Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's 1863 flank attack is the next acquisition target of a Civil War preservation group.
The Civil War Preservation Trust yesterday announced a $2.1 million campaign to buy 85 acres, known as the Wagner Tract, along State Route 3 east of Wilderness Church.
The property includes 2,000 feet of frontage on the north shoulder of historic Orange Plank Road and l
Source: ABC News
November 18, 2009
A dark chapter in the history of the Watergate scandal surrounding former President Richard M. Nixon might soon be uncovered.
The National Archives announced today it will use forensic documentation technology to try and uncover the contents of two pages of handwritten notes taken by Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman.
Source: The National Security Archive
November 18, 2009
Secret messages from senior Soviet officials to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl after the fall of the Berlin Wall led directly to Kohl's famous "10 Points" speech on German unification, but the speech produced shock in both Moscow and Washington, according to documents from Soviet, German and American files posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive.
Published for the first time in English in the Archive's forthcoming book, "Masterpieces of History,&q
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
November 18, 2009
The George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University will be a fairly contemporary structure whose clean lines call to mind the shapes of Georgian architecture without replicating its ornament and details, according to drawings that the former president and his wife, Laura Bush, are scheduled to release at a press conference this afternoon.
But USA Today had the drawings online Tuesday evening, along with an article that described "a lantern-shaped roof that
Source: CNSNews
November 18, 2009
The Obama administration has done more on the Israeli-Palestinian issue during its ten months in office than its predecessor did in eight years, a State Department spokesman claimed on Tuesday...
... Kelly contested the assertion that President Obama’s Mideast envoy George Mitchell had made little progress during his months on the job. “We are less than a year into this administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration did in eig
Source: CNSNews
November 18, 2009
When President Barack Obama landed in Beijing on Monday on his first state visit to China, his first order of business was family business.
Before he headed to a formal dinner with China's President Hu Jintao, he set aside time to see his half brother, Mark Ndesandjo, and Ndesandjo's wife, who had flown up from the southern boomtown of Shenzhen where they live.
Describing the meeting Monday as "overwhelming" and "intense," Ndesandjo told The Associat
Source: Yahoo News
November 18, 2009
LONDON – A toll bridge built in 1769 across the River Thames will be auctioned next month, offering buyers a tax-free investment with a bit of historic charm.
The Swinford bridge brings in about 190,000 pounds (US$320,000) in toll payments from about 4 million vehicle crossings a year, and the bridge's owner can pocket all the income without paying tax.
The picturesque bridge in Oxfordshire, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) northwest of London, has a suggested price of 1
Source: Google News
November 18, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama predicted that professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be convicted, as Attorney General Eric Holder defended putting him through the U.S. civilian legal system.
In one of a series of TV interviews during his trip to Asia, Obama said those offended by the legal privileges given to Mohammed by virtue of getting a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won't find it "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the de
Source: Costa Rica Pages
November 16, 2009
An indigenous cementery was uncovered within a two hectare plot of land in Guapiles, Costa Rica, about an hour and a half east of San Jose. The cementary, which was constructed by the Huetares tribe during the pre-Colombian era, was discovered while doing environmental studies that are required to obtain a construction permit for the building of a new high school in the area.
Researchers from the National Museum, led by archaeologist Francisco Corrales, proved the existence of a fun
Source: Russia-ic
November 17, 2009
Building of a shopping mall was planned to be launched in November under Pushkinskaya Square. Instead of that archeological excavations were started and brought out lots of finds.
“We unearthed a most interesting construction of the epoch of Peter the First” – the chief archeologist of Moscow professor Alexander Veksler says. Thus, for example, we found a wooden water conduit, water wells, coins, and variety of household items”.
Source: NYT
November 17, 2009
PRAGUE — It was a revolution that began with a lie.
Vaclav Havel, the dissident who led the Velvet Revolution that overthrew Communism in Czechoslovakia, once declared that “truth and love must triumph over lies and hatred.” Yet the revolution — its name a reference to the clenched fist in the velvet glove — was set off by a false rumor that remains a mystery 20 years later.
On Tuesday, thousands of Czechs marched through the streets here, to the sound of wailing sirens
Source: Guardian (UK)
November 17, 2009
Anthony Edwards wasn't perturbed when he first saw the hole. Given its position in the Regent House Combination Room in Cambridge's Old Schools, where for three centuries all the business of the university was conducted, it must, he assumed, have been dug to deal with a bout of woodworm, a plumbing problem, or something worthy of archaeological investigation.
It was a month later, as the professor walked down Kings Parade and spotted two friends with "faces like thunder",
Source: BBC
November 18, 2009
A 13th Century ruined castle is to be sold, with a starting price of £80,000.
Ewloe Castle, built by Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, is to to be auctioned with four other lots which are expected to fetch more than £500,000 in total.
Although privately owned, the castle is under the custodianship of Welsh historic monuments agency Cadw, and its character "must be preserved".
It stands close to the site where 200 Welshmen, led by the king of north Wales Owa
Source: BBC
November 17, 2009
When the famous Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977, he made it clear in his will that a manuscript he was working on should not be published.
In fact he instructed his wife Vera to burn the unfinished work.
Vera didn't destroy the work or publish it.
It was kept safely locked away in the vaults of a bank in Switzerland. Now, more than 30 years after his death, Nabokov's son Dmitri has sparked controversy by agreeing to
Source: BBC
November 17, 2009
Police in Germany have arrested two Rwandan militia leaders on suspicion of crimes committed in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ignace Murwanashyaka, the leader of the FDLR rebel group, and his aide Straton Musoni were held on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
FDLR leaders fled to DR Congo after the Rwanda genocide in which some 800,000 people - mostly ethnic Tutsis - died.
The FDLR's presence in DR Congo has been at the h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 18, 2009
Intense public anger at cheating bankers is nothing new, this macabre souvenir created to mark the hanging of the 'Bernard Madoff of the 19th century' shows.
The reworked George III penny was fashioned as a memento to the hanging of Henry Fauntleroy, who forged cheques at his bank Marsh, Sibbald & Co for more than a decade before he was found out and it collapsed with enormous debts.
Showing sentiments have changed little over the best part of two centuries, one s
Source: Fox News
November 18, 2009
White House aides were exultant after the president walked part of the Great Wall alone in a choreographed moment for photographers and "the shot" they had planned turned out perfectly.
President Barack Obama absorbed history's expanse Wednesday from atop the Great Wall of China, a manmade wonder of such enormity that Obama found himself putting daily life in perspective.
A must-see for presidents from President Richard Nixon on, the Great Wall was one of Obam
