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: Telegraph (UK)
April 21, 2009
Aurochs were last seen in Britain in Roman times but they became extinct in mainland Europe in 1627.
However, before the Second World War, Nazi leaders recruited zoologist brothers Heinz and Lutz Heck to bring the hardy breed "back into existence."
The breed features in Teutonic folklore and Heck cattle were seen as a symbol of German oppression and efforts to build a master Aryan race.
The Heck brothers traced the species' descendants to domestic
Source: History Today
April 21, 2009
The soaring sales of Mein Kampf in India are somewhat worrying. The claims in the article on the website of The Telegraph that India and Nazi Germany influenced one another and that Gandhi corresponded with Hitler himself are also disturbing and shatter the image of Gandhi in popular imagination as a representative and fervent defender of justice and equality.
Yesterday's article does not, however, provide any details as to what the exchange of letters between Gandhi and the Fuhrer
Source: BBC
April 21, 2009
Unesco says the World Digital Library will help to promote curiosity and understanding across cultures.
Among the artefacts are a 1,000-year-old Japanese novel and the earliest known map to mention America by name.
About a tenth of the 1,200 exhibits are from Africa - the oldest an 8,000-year-old painting of bleeding antelopes.
But this is an ongoing project in its early stages, and the collection is expected to grow substantially.
Source: Fox News
April 20, 2009
Now that the memos showing the rulings of interrogation techniques have been released, the Obama administration should release additional documents that show what the interrogations yielded, former Vice President Dick Cheney told FOX News on Monday.
In an interview with FOX News' Sean Hannity...Cheney questioned the point of releasing the legal decisions behind the interrogations but not the outcome of them.
"One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing a
Source: AP
April 20, 2009
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Monday not to allow Holocaust deniers the chance to carry out a second Holocaust against the Jewish people.
He spoke at the ceremony marking Israel's annual memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazis and their collaborators during World War II, but the event fell under the shadow of a U.N. anti-racisim conference in Geneva perceived in Israel as anti-Semitic.
Source: AP
April 19, 2009
JERUSALEM – As terrified teenagers 65 years ago, Menachem Sholowicz and Anshel Sieradzki stood in line together in Auschwitz, having serial numbers tattooed on their arms. Sholowicz was B-14594; Sieradzki was B-14595.
The two Polish Jews had never met, they never spoke and they were quickly separated. Each survived the Nazi death camp, moved to Israel, married, and became grandfathers. They didn't meet again until a few weeks ago, having stumbled upon each other through the Internet
Source: http://www.dailypress.com
April 17, 2009
The College of William and Mary is hoping to make amends for its role in slavery by creating a long-term research project to chronicle the life and history of blacks at the university and greater Williamsburg.
The academic affairs committee of the university's Board of Visitors approved the "The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation," which will be an eight-year project sponsored by the Office of the Provost.
Named for a slave that William and Mary owned
Source: NYT
April 18, 2009
History is what we choose to remember, and there have been many reasons not to remember too much about the Fishkill Encampment and Supply Depot, a sprawling military city that became the most important northern supply center during the Revolutionary War.
No stirring battle was won there. Life was brutish and often short, a place of smallpox, frostbite and mutiny, where wounded soldiers had limbs sawed off and covered with tar, where, as one contemporary account put it, soldiers “pat
Source: Larry Sabato as quoted by Politico (Mike Allen)
April 20, 2009
'The big idea of this book is that 2008 looks to be a realigning election-a very rare event in American history. The previous three were 1896, 1932, and 1980. Translation: The Democratic majority is going to last for a while. There have been 38 presidential elections since 1860, and Obama received the 6th highest share of the vote for a Democrat. Only FDR (four times) and LBJ (once) exceeded Obama's percentage. There were three giant demographic shifts that powered this:
'--The you
Source: NYT
April 18, 2009
Capitol Hill has never lacked for humor, inadvertent or otherwise. Over the centuries its denizens have provided the raw material of comedy — their ranks filled with magnificent egos, fakers and philanderers, not to mention the occasional statesman. As to the latter, the 19th-century House Speaker Thomas Reed offered this caution: a statesman “is a successful politician who is dead.”
Many lustrous names have tried their hand at legislative stand-up, or more likely its sophisticated
Source: WaPo
April 20, 2009
The Civil War began 148 years ago this month with the assault on Fort Sumter and ended when rebel forces surrendered in 1865, but the battle over how to teach the conflict to new generations of Americans has never stopped.
Ask Northerners the cause of the war, and the answer often is a single word: slavery. In many places in the South, the answers can vary: states' rights, freedom, political and economic power.
As students across the region begin springtime Civil War le
Source: Thinkprogress (liberal website)
April 20, 2009
Yesterday, President Obama shook hands and briefly chatted with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, explaining in a press conference afterwards that he was trying to move towards a “more constructive” relationship with the South American country.
The right wing has responded with outrage to Obama’s meeting with Chavez, claiming face-to-face talks with a dictator show that Obama is projecting weakness. On NBC this morning, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama “bows to the Saud
Source: Sky News
April 20, 2009
The ancient Great Wall of China is almost 200 miles longer than previously thought, according to a new study.
An extra 180 miles of the world-renowned ancient Chinese monument were uncovered after a two-year government mapping study, according to an official report.
The study used mapping technologies such as infrared range finders and GPS devices to show extra portions of the wall - hidden by hills, trenches and rivers - that stretch from Hu Mountain in northern Liaoni
Source: AP
April 20, 2009
Tourists who want to put a hand or foot in each of four states at the Four Corners area are apparently off the mark — by about 2.5 miles. According to readings by the National Geodetic Survey, the Four Corners marker showing the intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah is about 2.5 miles west of where it should be.
Source: New Zealand Herald
April 17, 2009
More than 70 years after they were dug up for study and display, Rangitane tupuna returned home yesterday to one of the earliest sites of known human settlement in New Zealand.
That homecoming was witnessed by hundreds on an emotional day where the remains of more than 40 ancestors, some up to 700 years old, were reburied on the Wairau Bar in Marlborough.
Tribal member Richard Bradley said that the hurt of successive generations had finally been addressed.
Source: Press Release
April 20, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – From April 19 through April 26, the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum will lead the nation in remembering the six million
Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, as well as the millions of other
victims of Nazi persecution. Observances will be held in communities, state
houses, city halls, churches, and synagogues across the United States and
at military installations worldwide.
President Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address at the Museum's
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 20, 2009
Booksellers told The Daily Telegraph that while it is regarded in most countries as a 'Nazi Bible', in India it is considered a management guide in the mould of Spencer Johnson's "Who Moved My Cheese".
Sales of the book over the last six months topped 10,000 in New Delhi alone, according to leading stores, who said it appeared to be becoming more popular with every year.
Several said the surge in sales was due to demand from students who see it as a self-impro
Source: Times (UK)
April 20, 2009
The night before Shifa Alqudsi was going to blow herself up in a bomb attack on the Israeli town of Netanya she stayed up explaining it all to her seven-year-old daughter Diana, telling her to look for a star in the sky when she wanted to speak to her.
Last week she told the story again, this time to the people she had wanted to kill, among them a soldier with a tale of how he once took part in an operation to murder Palestinians.
The encounter took place in an Irish
Source: BBC
April 20, 2009
A World War II Spitfire aeroplane which was found in a scrapyard has sold for £1.58m at an auction in north London.
The plane was sold at the RAF museum in Hendon after a five-year restoration in Hampshire made it airworthy.
The two-seater Vickers Supermarine Spitfire was built in 1944 and sold to the South African Air Force in 1948, where it served for an unknown period.
Source: LA Times
April 20, 2009
A Malibu man's personal crusade to clean up a trash-strewn beach 5,000 miles away will gain national attention this week when it is the focus of a cable television documentary.
For more than three years, Leon Cooper has sought to pressure authorities into removing litter from Red Beach on the Pacific atoll called Tarawa -- site of one of the United States' bloodiest World War II battles.
The beach, which Cooper calls "hallowed ground," has become a dumping gro
