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: The National (Abu Dhabi)
July 20, 2009
It took about 20 years to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, archaeologists believe. It will take about the same amount of time for the Grand Egyptian Museum to be completed.
Given the scale of the project, it is not entirely surprising. Conceived in 1992, the US$550 million (Dh2.02 billion) museum is an undertaking worthy of the Pharaohs: a vast, stone-roofed structure that will extend from the edge of the Giza plateau across an area the size of 11 football pitches. The museum will h
Source: BBC
July 20, 2009
The detailed service records of 250,000 medieval soldiers - including archers who served with Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt - have gone online.
The database of those who fought in the Hundred Years War reveals salaries, sickness records and who was knighted.
The full profiles of soldiers from 1369 to 1453 will allow researchers to piece together details of their lives.
The website is the product of a research project by Professor Anne Curry of the Un
Source: CNN
July 20, 2009
President Obama on Monday hailed the Apollo 11 astronauts who made it to the moon 40 years ago as "genuine American heroes" and "the touchstone for excellence in exploration and discovery."
Welcoming Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin to the White House, Obama said the lunar landing and subsequent walk on the moon by Armstrong and Aldrin continued to inspire young people to study math and science of hopes of becoming astronauts.
The Apol
Source: AP
July 20, 2009
Forty years after the Apollo 11 astronauts made their historic lunar landing, the rocks they collected are still helping researchers learn more about the moon, the solar system, even about how life on Earth began.
But if not for a St. Louis scientist and a few of his colleagues, NASA may never have collected moon rocks in the first place....
The Apollo rocks might not have been collected at all if not for the efforts of Washington University physics professor Robert Walker a
Source: NYT
July 19, 2009
It has been more than a half-century since Sumner Elementary School, now an abandoned shell of a building, had a brief and ignoble moment in the spotlight for what it would not do: allow a black father from the surrounding neighborhood, Oliver L. Brown, to enroll his daughter Linda in the third grade.
Mr. Brown, along with a group of similarly rejected black parents, brought a lawsuit against the school board here that went on to become one of the landmarks of this country’s legal h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 20, 2009
A fire has destroyed a barracks in Holland where Anne Frank worked
before her deportation to the Nazi concentration camp where she died
during the Second World War, local officials said.
The fire overnight on Saturday" completely destroyed" the barracks at
Westerbork, said Saskia Schaap, spokeswoman for the emergency services
in nearby Groningen city.
During the war, Jews and Romas were kept there pending transfer to
concentration camps.
Source: Independent (UK)
July 20, 2009
The Watergate Hotel, the faded jewel in the Washington complex where nefarious deeds brought down President Richard Nixon, is to go under the auctioneer's hammer tomorrow.
Watergate has been closed since 2007. Its most recent owner first tussled with residents about plans to renovate it and finally ran out of money to do so. A 30-day repossession notice expired last week and an auctioneer in the capital said it would start taking offers at 10.15am.
As the Moon landing a
Source: Times (UK)
July 20, 2009
Neil Armstrong paid tribute yesterday to the spacemen who died paving the way for his 1969 Moonwalk as President Obama prepared to honour him and his Apollo 11 crewmates in Washington today for the 40th anniversary of their historic mission.
In a rare public appearance, the first man on the Moon spoke of the colleagues who gave their lives for America’s early space programme and how their sacrifice laid the foundations for his spectacular lunar debut.
“Any time you go
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
July 20, 2009
President George W. Bush's twin daughters were a Secret Service nightmare, a new book claims.
Jenna and Barbara Bush would pull every trick imaginable to lose their security detail it has been claimed.
'Jenna would purposely try to lose her protection by going through red lights or by jumping in her car without telling agents where she was going,' author Ronald Kessler writes in 'In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and th
Source: BBC
July 20, 2009
The Poles had got there first - that seemed to be the message.
Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox was delighted with the Polish copy of an Enigma - a top secret German military cipher machine.
But his meeting with code breakers in Poland in July 1939 - just weeks before Hitler invaded their country - had initially put him in a sour mood. He had been struggling to figure out the machine's wiring - a key part of the complex jigsaw puzzle called Enigma.
Marian
Source: Spiegel Online
July 20, 2009
Following a lengthy deportation process to bring him back to Germany from the United States, Nazi war crimes suspect John Demjanjuk's case is expected to go to trial in mid-October. The 89 year old, who stands accused of being an accessory to 27,900 counts of murder at Nazi death camps, will be tried before a Munich district court.
A large contingent of prosecutors and witnesses are set to take part in the trial. The judge presiding over the jury court, Ralph Alt, has already approv
Source: Deutsche Welle
July 20, 2009
The atrocities committed by Milan and Sredoje Lukic included twice locking scores of Muslims in houses and torching the buildings. Judges at the UN court called the murders "callous" and "vicious."
Milan, who received the life sentence, was found by the court to have been the ringleader in both incidents, with Sredoje found to have assisted in one of the burnings. Milan was also convicted of murdering 12 other Muslims.
The burnings claimed the lives
Source: Deutsche Welle
July 20, 2009
Ceremonies to mark the failed asssassination attempt of July 20, 1944, will be held at the Berlin Resistance Memorial Centers at Bendlerblock, seat of the Defense Ministry and a major memorial for the assassination plot, and at Ploetzensee, the former prison where many hundreds of people were executed between 1933 and 1945.
In addition, German conscripts take their traditional solemn oath at a swearing-in ceremony in front of the Reichstag building on Monday. Chancellor Angela Merk
Source: BBC
July 20, 2009
The memorial in Hyde Park for the victims of the 7 July London bombings has been vandalised.
A "couple of words" were written with a black marker pen on one of its 52 steel pillars, said a spokeswoman for the central London park.
Staff responsible for the maintenance of the royal park are in the process of removing the graffiti.
The pillar that was defaced bore the inscription "Kings Cross - 08.50 - 7th July 2005" - giving the time and
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 20, 2009
The Apollo 11 astronauts were not given the support needed to readjust to life on Earth after returning from the first manned voyage to the Moon, Nasa has admitted.
The agency exhaustively screened Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins for emotional stability before clearing them for the Apollo 11 flight, but did not continue to monitor them after they returned, according to a report in Time magazine.
Dr. J D Polk, NASA's current chief of medical operations,
Source: Foxnews
July 20, 2009
Where is the final resting place of the British schooner, the HMS Diana?
The river — known as Chelsea Creek — separates the city of Chelsea from the East Boston neighborhood of Boston. Today the river is plied by oil tankers and is home to a landscape dotted with the city's iconic tripledeckers.
Now, Massachusetts has received a $48,300 grant from the National Park Service to preserve the battlefield where the Battle of Chelsea Creek was fought.
Source: CNN
July 20, 2009
On July 23, 1969, as Apollo 11 hurtled back towards Earth, there was a problem -- a problem only a kid could solve.
It was around 10:00 at night on July 23, and 10-year-old Greg Force was at home with his mom and three brothers. His father, Charles Force, was at work. Charles Force was the director of the NASA tracking station in Guam, where the family was living.
The Guam tracking station was to play a critical role in the return of Apollo 11 to Earth. A powerful anten
Source: BBC
July 20, 2009
Winston Churchill complained he had been "sold a pup" when he discovered his underground wartime headquarters in Whitehall were not bomb-proof.
A letter showing Churchill's annoyance when he discovered this security flaw is on display at the Cabinet War Rooms.
Despite his protests, the prime minister continued to work from this bunker during the Blitz.
But an exhibition opening next month in the former headquarters, will show how vulnerable this
Source: New York Daily News
June 19, 2009
One man's trash turned into Nick DiMola's treasure.
Five years after the Queens rubbish remover took home a mysterious barrel from a SoHo apartment, he opened it to find dozens of ancient Mexican artifacts.
The mix of bowls, figurines and jugs were made between 300 B.C. and 500 A.D., some by Mayans. DiMola, 39, came to own the booty when his Ridgewood company was hired to clear the cluttered space of abstract artist Clinton Hill, who di
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 19, 2009
Harry Patch, 111, has become Britain's last survivor of the First World War trenches, following the death of Henry Allingham at 113.
Mr Patch, known as the Last Tommy, is the last living soldier to have fought in the mud-soaked battle of Passchendaele in 1917 in which more than 70,000 British troops died.
Now also the country's oldest man, he lives in a nursing home in Wells. After hearing of the death of Mr Allingham, he said he was "very sad at losing a friend&q
