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: BBC
June 20, 2009
The long-awaited Acropolis Museum in Athens is to be unveiled later.
The modern glass and concrete building, at the foot of the ancient Acropolis, houses sculptures from the golden age of Athenian democracy.
The £110m ($182m; 130m euros) structure also offers panoramic views of the stone citadel where they came from.
Antique ceramics and sculptures are displayed on the first floor while the Caryatids - columns sculpted as females holding up the roof of a
Source: Boston Globe
June 20, 2009
Korean War regiment to be lauded in Worcester.
The Army’s 65th Infantry Regiment, almost exclusively from Puerto Rico, took part in some of the most brutal battles in Korea. General Douglas MacArthur called them “heroic,’’ but inside the Army the soldiers faced their own battles: Some officers questioned their patriotism, derided them with ethnic slurs, or worse, sent them into battle dangerously unprepared.
Today, officials from the federal, state, and Puerto Rican gov
Source: New York Times
June 20, 2009
Frederick Douglass became the face of the black abolitionist movement. A century later, Martin Luther King Jr. played that role in the civil rights movement. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became the spokeswomen for the modern women’s movement.
Yet the gay rights movement, which is about to enter its fifth decade, has never had a such a leader despite making remarkable strides in a relatively short period of time.
One explanation is that gay and lesbian activists lear
Source: BBC
June 20, 2009
Some will argue as to whether Iolo Morganwg was a fantasist, or a genius and champion for Wales.
But one thing is certain, in 1792, the stonemason from the Vale of Glamorgan presided over the first gathering of the Welsh bardic order, the Gorsedd.
Now, after years of campaigning a plaque in his honour has been unveiled at Primrose Hill in London.
Born Edward Williams in 1747 in the small parish of Llancarfan, Morganwg was a founder member of the Unitarian
Source: BBC
June 20, 2009
The Summer Solstice is likely to be welcomed in by a record crowd at Stonehenge, police have said.
Thousands of people are expected at the twin sites of Avebury and Stonehenge in Wiltshire to celebrate the longest day.
Last year's total of 30,000 revellers could be exceeded, with police warning of a zero tolerance approach to drugs and drunkeness.
The event to mark the dawn of the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere has grown in popularity since a four
Source: ABC (Boston)
June 20, 2009
NY Man Buys Iconic Photo From NH Auctioneer.
An iconic photograph of Albert Einstein was sold by a New Hampshire auction company Friday for $74,324, making it the most expensive Einstein photograph ever sold at auction, according to the auctioneers.
The photograph was taken in 1951 while Einstein was celebrating his birthday at Princeton University. Photographer Arthur Sasse tried to convince Einstein to pose with a smile for the photo, but Einstein instead stuck out hi
Source: USA Today
June 20, 2009
John Calvin, the Great Reformer, used dictatorial means in making Geneva a "Protestant Rome," but he also planted the seeds of modern democracy.
He enforced rigid morality and stressed the importance of helping others, while he also had a share in developing capitalism. He supported the destruction of religious statues and other images, but described the arts as gifts from God.
This is how Calvin's role in history is being assessed by theologians and historian
Source: CNN
June 20, 2009
An independent commission will start investigating the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in July, the United Nations has announced.
The commission will have six months to fact-find and report to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who announced the commission in February, the release said. Moon is expected to share the findings with the U.N. Security Council and the Pakistani government, which requested the commission.
Ambassador Heral
Source: Times (UK)
June 20, 2009
Explorers have returned to Lake Baikal equipped with two minisubmarines to continue a hunt for a fortune in Tsarist gold that, legend has it, was carried by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak’s White Army as it fled the advancing Bolsheviks during Russia’s civil war.
Tales abound about the fate of Kolchak’s gold — a haul estimated at 1,600 tonnes and worth billions of pounds today. One version has it that troops retreating on foot and horsecarriage across Baikal’s icy surface froze to death
Source: Times (UK)
June 20, 2009
Workmen were putting the finishing touches yesterday to Ancient Greece’s newest and most extravagant showcase, the New Acropolis Museum, due for a fanfare-filled inauguration today. But conspicuously absent are the very relics which the €130m futurist building was expressly designed for: the Elgin Marbles.
The airy top floor of the 25,000 square metre museum, offering an unparallelled view of the Parthenon atop the Acropolis a couple of hundred yards away, has been reserved for whe
Source: National Security Archive
June 19, 2009
Declassified documents confirm that prior to the launch of the first spy satellites into orbit by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in the early 1960s, the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) collected by the National Security Agency and its predecessor organizations was virtually the only viable means of gathering intelligence information about what was going on inside the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and other communist nations. Yet, for the most part, the NSA and its fore
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 19, 2009
Japan's prime minister, Taro Aso, faced fresh demands that he apologise to former prisoners of war after he cancelled a meeting with the son of a Royal Navy stoker used as a slave labourer in his family's coal mines.
James McAnulty, from Wishaw in Lanarkshire, had been told that he would be able to meet Taro Aso and make his request for an apology and compensation for his father's suffering during the Second World War. But after he travelled to Japan the prime minister's office can
Source: AP
June 19, 2009
Newly released FBI files show agents across the country and at the highest level of the agency investigated "Deep Throat" — the 1972 porn movie, not the shadowy Watergate figure — in a vain attempt to roll back what became a cultural shift toward more permissive entertainment.
The documents released to The Associated Press show the expanse of agents' investigation into the film: seizing copies of the movie, having negatives analyzed in labs and interviewing everyone from
Source: AP
June 18, 2009
President Obama launched his campaign from Abraham Lincoln's hometown, used his Bible to be sworn in and quotes Lincoln at the drop of a stovepipe hat.
Now it seems the two share something else: an encounter with a fly.
Daniel Weinberg, the owner of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago, has a photograph of Lincoln with a house fly on him.
Weinberg doesn't know if the fly survived the encounter or if it suffered the same fate as the one that had the audacity to land on Ob
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 19, 2009
Warwick Castle officials are to tone down a new dungeon attraction after it made 19 visitors ill.
In the first month since the dungeon opened, 15 people have fainted and another four have vomited, apparently due to fear.
Visitors to the medieval dungeon are greeted by fake blood and life-size models of victims on the rack. Guides demonstrate how prisoners used to have their tongues ripped out.
Source: NYT
June 18, 2009
In this, the 20th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s government is preparing for a host of celebrations and
commemorations leading to the November anniversary. The official story
of an eastern revival was reinforced by President Obama’s recent visit
to Dresden in all its reconstructed glory.
But outside big cities like Dresden, Leipzig or Berlin, in places like
this former industrial mining town, the story of decline and departure
has changed little i
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 19, 2009
Japan's prime minister, Taro Aso, faced fresh demands that he apologise to former prisoners of war after he cancelled a meeting with the son of a Royal Navy stoker used as a slave labourer in his family's coal mines.
James McAnulty, from Wishaw in Lanarkshire, had been told that he would be able to meet Taro Aso and make his request for an apology and compensation for his father's suffering during the Second World War. But after he travelled to Japan the prime minister's office can
Source: AP
June 19, 2009
London is filled with oddball place names, from pokey alleyways to the grandest thoroughfares _ and a tourism organization has launched a monthlong campaign to tell the city's history through its streets. Visit London's "Street Stories" initiative includes an event at Buckingham Palace where tourists participate in a game of "paille maille" _ a 17th Century precursor to croquet that is believed to have given its name to the stately London avenue known as Pall Mall.
Source: Bangkok Post
June 18, 2009
The government is renewing its campaign against the registration of Preah Vihear temple as a Cambodian World Heritage site.
The move comes as Cambodia plans to present a report to the World Heritage Committee, which last year approved its sole application to list the temple as a heritage site.
Thailand protested unsuccessfully that the site should be listed in a joint application by both countries.
Source: http://www.monstersandcritics.com
June 18, 2009
Serbian archaeologists have uncovered a seven-millienia old grave in a Neolithic village in the west of the country, the daily Blic reported Thursday.
The grave contains well-preserved skeletons of a child and an adult, buried in a curled position and placed on top of each other, archaeologist Radivoje Arsic said.
'It is unusual because the double grave is within the village - they emptied a mud hut and used it as a burial site,' he said.
