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: Daily Yomiuri Online
September 30, 2009
MATSUE--Twenty stone tools believed to be the oldest discovered in the nation have been excavated from a mid-Paleolithic period geological layer, dating back 120,000 years, at an archeological site in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture, researchers said Tuesday.
According to a team of experts, led by Prof. Kazuto Matsufuji of Doshisha University, that has researched the Sunabara remains, the tools are tens of thousands years older than any previously discovered.
The existence of
Source: Independent.ie
October 1, 2009
THE 5,000-year-old Poulnabrone dolmen is an impressive sight, one of the most recognisable megalithic tombs in the country and a highlight of any trip to the world-famous Burren.
It is understandable that visitors might want to create their own version of the ancient portal tomb.
But those tourists were yesterday accused of unwittingly engaging in vandalism by erecting hundreds of mini-dolmens across the protected landscape. The trend began a decade ago but has recently
Source: The Japan Times
October 2, 2009
LONDON — They are, according to their kanji, part earth and part spirit, somewhere between animal and human. They are dogu, the most remarkable products of Japan's Jomon Period, a Neolithic era before the advent of rice cultivation, when the Japanese archipelago supported higher population densities than any other pre-agricultural society in the world.
The dogu are humanoid forms shaped in clay, large and small, richly decorated or homely and unadorned. Some 18,000 of them have been
Source: Times (UK)
October 3, 2009
From Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler, the invasion of Britain has been a constant theme in the history of these islands, even if the successful attempts have been heavily outnumbered by the unsuccessful ones.
Until now, however, one plan has remained unknown: an 18th-century plot to invade with an American army during that country’s War of Independence.
Drawn up by a French general, the scheme was to bring over an American force of 10,000 that would find a Britain so di
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 3, 2009
The Indian government has ordered that love scenes between characters based on its first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten, the wife of Britain's last Viceroy, be deleted from a new Hollywood film of their romance.
Officials revealed they had given permission for the film Indian Summer, starring Hugh Grant and Cate Blanchett, to be filmed on location in India on the condition that scenes showing the couple in bed, kissing, and dancing, are deleted.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 2, 2009
A mother whose children were stolen by the Stasi secret police of former East Germany has been reunited with one of them nearly 40 years on.
Petra Hoffmann, 55, saw her daughter Mandy Reinhardt, 38, for the first time this week since the agents of the hard line Communist regime took her away shortly after she was born.
Mandy was born to Petra in 1971 when she was just 16 and worked in a government cafeteria. But the father was a man the state disapproved of – a disside
Source: AFP
October 2, 2009
British archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an arena built early in the third century BC outside Ostia, the ancient imperial port 25 kilometres (16 miles) from Rome, the team leader said Friday.
The ruins were uncovered in three years of digging by the British team from Southampton and Cambridge Universities in cooperation with the British School at Rome, an archaeological academy.
Italian archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani determined the approximate location of the
Source: BBC
October 3, 2009
A World War II veteran has been buried in the churchyard of a deserted Norfolk village which is used by soldiers as a military training area.
William Hancock, 85, was the first person to be buried in Tottington near Thetford for more than 50 years.
Locals had to leave the village in the 1940s when the Thetford Battle Area was established by the military.
Source: BBC
October 2, 2009
Rights groups have criticised the move to bathe New York's Empire State Building in red and yellow in honour of communist China's 60th anniversary.
Managers of the building said the lights were to honour the Chinese people, adding that they celebrated many cultures and causes in such a way.
But Human Rights Watch, which has offices in the building, voiced dismay.
Source: BBC
October 2, 2009
Mao Zedong knew better than most the power of personality.
The cult of Mao may be dead, but celebrity power is helping the Great Helmsman receive a Hollywood-style makeover.
The Founding of a Republic, or Jianguo Daye in Chinese, a new film from the state-owned China Film Group, is a propaganda epic that includes almost all the biggest names in Chinese film.
There are so many stars, about 172, that most have only cameo roles.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 3, 2009
A piece of a marble statue discovered at a Roman site in Sussex could be one of only three in existence depicting the Emperor Nero.
The chunk of stone, which is the right side of a boy's head and his lower face, is to be scanned using sophisticated technology and the remainder generated by computer to suggest what he may have looked like.
Archaeologists suspect the sculpture, which was found at Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex, is of Nero as a young boy.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 3, 2009
Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric site, dubbed 'Bluehenge', a mile away from Britain's famous circle of standing stones at Stonehenge.
Researchers have named the after the colour of the 27 Welsh stones it once incorporated.
The new circle, unearthed in secret over the summer, is one of the most important prehistoric finds in decades, archaeologists say.
Already, dispute has begun about what the discovery means for Stonehenge, and what light it
Source: Telegraph (UK)
December 31, 2069
An 18th-century French plot to invade with an American army during the War of Independence has been discovered by historians.
The plan, which was drawn up by a French general, was to bring over 10,000 American soldiers and capitalise on a Britain that was distracted by the war on the other side of the Atlantic.
The general also proposed that the force include a corps of American Indians, or “sauvages”, as he termed them, that would strike terror into the British
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 3, 2009
The Security Service, MI5, kept a secret file on Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson throughout his time in office because of his friendships with eastern European businessmen and contacts with the KGB.
The first official history to be written about the organisation reveals that a "permanent file" was created on the politician when he entered the Commons in 1945 and remained in use throughout both his premierships from 1964-1970 and 1974-76.
Baroness Manning
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 3, 2009
A British impresario is hoping to restore Shanghai's decadent reputation by opening the first burlesque cabaret since the city teemed with dance halls, White Russians and gangsters in the 1930s.
Chinatown, a three-floor club complete with red velvet booths, Art Deco windows and a curving iron staircase, has opened its doors to a rush of Chinese and foreign revellers, all keen to relive Shanghai's heyday.
The city was cleansed of its notorious nightspots when the Commun
Source: Fox News
October 2, 2009
Florida Rep. Alan Grayson vowed not to use the term again in a letter he sent Friday to the Andrew Rosenkranz, Florida regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish organization that fights anti-Semitism.
Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, who has drawn fire for saying Republicans want Americans to "die quickly" if they get sick, expressed regret Friday for comparing the health care crisis to a "holocaust."
Grayson added that he is a &
Source: AAP
October 3, 2009
THE Federal Government has referred a case of alleged fraud involving a man who claimed to be one of Australia's youngest prisoners of war to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.
South Australian Arthur Rex Crane, 83, has been on the highest level of service pension since 1988 and is the Federal President of the Prisoners of War Association of Australia, Fairfax Media reported.
He has alleged he was captured by the Japanese in 1942, became a prisoner of war
Source: Live Science
October 2, 2009
Some 85 million years ago in a shallow ocean, a handful of miniature great white sharks were pigging out on the carcass of a giant marine reptile called a plesiosaur, a new study suggests.
During this apparent feeding frenzy, some shark teeth got stuck in the plesiosaur's bones, which were subsequently buried and remained undiscovered until a high-school student in Japan found them in 1968. Other shark tooth fossils were found near the bones. Only recently did paleontologists examin
Source: CNN
October 2, 2009
The man who ran John McCain's presidential campaign warned Friday that Sarah Palin could lead to a 'catastrophic' election result for the GOP in 2012 if the former Alaska governor captures the party's presidential nomination.
The comments came during The Atlantic Magazine's First Draft of History Conferece, held at the Newseum in Washington, DC.
Looking ahead to Palin's upcoming book — entitled "Going Rogue" — Schmidt predicted he would be portrayed as "a
Source: Guardian (UK)
October 2, 2009
The Ministry of Defence was accused today by three high court judges of "lamentable" behaviour and "serious breaches" of its duty of candour over the failure to disclose crucial information about allegations of murder and ill-treatment by British soldiers in Iraq in 2004.
In a withering attack, they damned the ministry's chief witness – the deputy head of the military police – as lacking all credibility. They described his evidence to the court as "seriously
