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: History Today
November 17, 2009
At the end of last week, the University of Southampton launched a campaign to raise the necessary funds to preserve public access in the UK to hundreds of thousands of papers and photographs relating to Lord Mountbatten and Lord Palmerston. The Broadlands Archives have been on loan to the University’s Hartley Library since 1989, where they were transferred from the home of Lord Romsey. They were inherited by Lord Romsey, Mountbatten's grandson, on Mountbatten's assassination by the IRA off the I
Source: Culture24
November 17, 2009
All 32 surviving quarto editions of Shakespeare's Hamlet have been collated in a free digital archive launched yesterday.
Shakespeare Quartos Archive allows scholars to compare early printed copies of the famous play in one place, without travelling between the world's great libraries.
The website's interactive format means high-quality page images can be annotated, searched and compared side by side for the first time.
The Transatlantic venture – funded by
Source: Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
November 17, 2009
"A lack of competitive open-seat House races in 2010 could complicate Republican efforts to fully maximize a favorable national environment and make large seat gains after back-to-back elections where the political winds were blowing in the opposite direction," Roll Call reports.
"So far, 18 Members have announced they are not seeking re-election in 2010 and are running for other office instead -- but only six of those races are currently considered competitive. No M
Source: NYT
November 14, 2009
THERE are 46 days left in 2009, which means it is just about time to commence the beloved and enduring parlor game known as “Name That Decade.”
You know the rules — coin a pithy, reductive phrase that somehow encapsulates the multitude of events, trends, triumphs and calamities of the past 10 years. If you can also rope in some of the big personalities and consumer obsessions, that’s a bonus.
For the ’00s, it seems the trick will be finding a small package sturdy and fl
Source: BBC
November 16, 2009
Barbara Cherish is a child of the SS, and the burden lies heavily upon her.
She knew early in her life that her German father, Arthur Liebehenschel, was involved in something terrible, something the family did not discuss.
Only later, as an adult, did she discover he had run part of the Auschwitz concentration camp for five months during World War II.
The knowledge gnawed at her, but it took a life crisis - her divorce and the death of her sister - to spur
Source: Guardian (UK)
November 16, 2009
Relatives of soldiers who were killed in one of the world's first major tank battles will make a pilgrimage to France this week to celebrate the men's bravery.
Historians have traced families of the crew of the MkIV D51 tank, better known as "Deborah", who died during the battle of Cambrai in the first world war.
Five of its eight crew died during the battle, and the tank itself was abandoned and buried before it was pinpointed by historians beneath a field ne
Source: Fox News 40 Sacramento
November 15, 2009
VALLEJO - A huge cannon at a Vallejo's Sunrise Memorial Cemetary...taken by thieves. It was part of a memorial dedicated to veterans, but cops think thieves stole it for the scrap metal.
Francisco Lopez is a Veteran and a Historian. He says these metal thieves are only thinking about making money and not respecting our cemetaries. "These are unique treasures that are not available anywhere and they are relics of these soldiers times."
Source: CNSNews.com
November 13, 2009
Chicago (AP) - Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin on Sunday tried to build support and counter criticism of a proposal to sell a prison in rural northwestern Illinois to the federal government to house Guantanamo Bay detainees and other inmates.
Federal officials are expected to visit the maximum security Thomson Correctional Center, about 150 miles west of Chicago, on Monday.
Both Quinn and Durbin said the possibility of selling the prison to the federal governme
Source: The Washington Times
November 16, 2009
The New Black Panther Party catapulted itself to national attention during the November 2008 presidential election when two of its members, one brandishing a nightstick, were captured on videotape intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place.
But the original Black Panther Party, which famously advocated black power and preached self-defense through confrontation in the 1960s and 1970s, is not happy with the new upstart. It has condemned the New Black Panther Party and its ta
Source: WSJ
November 17, 2009
WASHINGTON -- The Washington Redskins ended their four-game losing streak Sunday. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed the professional football team another victory, declining to hear a petition alleging its use of the "Redskins" mascot is racially disparaging.
Suzan Harjo v. Pro-Football Inc., a case that began in 1992, centered on whether a dispute over a potentially offensive trademark can be dismissed if the challenge was not filed promptly. Though the Trademark
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 15, 2009
Explorers are planning to recover a rare batch of whisky lost during explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated voyage to the South Pole a century ago.
Two crates of the now extinct “Rare Old” brand of McKinlay and Co whisky have been buried in the Antarctic ice since Shackleton was forced to abandon his polar mission in 1909.
But Whyte & Mackay, the whisky giant that owns McKinlay and Co, has asked a team of New Zealand explorers heading out on a January expedition
Source: Times Online
November 16, 2009
“King David and King Solomon lived merry, merry lives,
With many, many concubines and many, many wives.
But when old age crept after them, with many, many qualms,
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs and King David wrote the Psalms.”
There are several versions of this anonymous rhyme, but the problem, some biblical archaeologists argue, is that there is little evidence that either king existed: archaeological remains have been assigned to their reig
Source: NYT
November 15, 2009
SANA, Yemen — It has been almost 800 years since Saleh Qaid Othaim’s house in the heart of the Old City was built from hand-cut stones and traditional alabaster decorations.
Yet on a recent morning, Mr. Othaim watched contentedly as a group of men renovated the place using exactly the same ancient methods and materials. Workers mixed the moist chocolate-brown masonry known as teen while a master builder supervised, a dagger hanging from his belt. There was no scaffolding, no helmets
Source: NYT
November 15, 2009
Since 1992, Prof. David Protess at the Medill school at Northwestern University has worked with undergraduate journalism students to investigate cases in which prosecutors appear to have taken aim at the wrong people. That might be about to happen again, only this time the students themselves would be the targets.
In one of the most recent cases, students working with the effort, which became the Medill Innocence Project in 1999, uncovered evidence that suggested Anthony McKinney ha
Source: WSJ
November 16, 2009
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has said he was ready to confess to orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks, a move that would make his case relatively easy for prosecutors. But if Mr. Mohammed decides to work with his American lawyers to stall the case, he has plenty of tools at his disposal, criminal lawyers say.
When Mr. Mohammed appeared before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in December, he said he and his four co-defendants wanted the proceedings over quickly. "We don
Source: Fox News
November 16, 2009
Sarah Palin said she thinks the Republican ticket lost the 2008 presidential election because Americans were looking for change, and not because she undermined the campaign or was unprepared for the vice presidential seat.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Monday, Palin said the economy tanked under a Republican administration and people wanted to try a different path.
As for her daughter's pregnancy, Palin described to Oprah the handling of the news that
Source: BBC
November 16, 2009
A previously undiscovered letter written by one of India's best known female rebels against British colonial rule has been found by academics.
The letter was written by Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi, shortly before the Indian mutiny - or first war of independence - in 1857.
It has been found in London in the archives of the British Library. The letter is written by the Rani of Jhansi to the governor-general of the East India Company (EIC), Lord Dalhous
Source: CNN
November 16, 2009
John McCain asked former campaign staffers Friday to avoid engaging in a back-and-forth over claims made by former running mate Sarah Palin in her new book, CNN has confirmed.
On a conference call with senior campaign advisers, the former Republican presidential candidate asked them to hold back from responding – telling them, in effect, that "this too shall pass," according to sources familiar with the call.
On Friday, McCain conceded to the reality of the me
Source: Times (UK)
November 17, 2009
Muslims in many countries are increasingly rejecting Darwin’s theory of evolution, under the influence of conservative elements in Islam, a science conference was told yesterday.
Nidhal Guessoum, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, told the conference, being held in Egypt by the British Council, that in too many places students and academics believed they had to make a “binary choice” between evolution and creationis
Source: Times (UK)
November 17, 2009
The past and present heads of MI6 will be among the first witnesses to give evidence at the official inquiry into the Iraq war.
Sir John Scarlett, who retired as Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service on November 1, and Sir John Sawers, his successor, are among 20 top advisers, diplomats and military figures required to attend.
Sir John was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee which was responsible for the Government dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruc
