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
March 20, 2009
The world's oldest champagne, bottled before Victoria became Queen, is still drinkable, with notes of "truffles and caramel", according to the experts.
An "addictive" bottle of 1825 Perrier-Jouet was opened at a ceremony attended by 12 of the world's top wine tasters.
Their verdict: the 184-year-old champagne tasted better than some of its younger counterparts.
There are now just two 1825 vintage bottles left - and Perrier-Jouet has n
Source: BBC News
March 20, 2009
Documents revealing the thoughts of the main British prosecutor at the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes trials have been opened to the public.
Letters from prosecutor David Maxwell Fyfe have been released at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge.
Thought to have been lost, the letters to his wife were found by his grandson.
In one of them Mr Maxwell Fyfe refers to Hermann Goering as "the fat boy" and says he feels he "knocked him off his perch&
Source: BBC
March 20, 2009
A carpet that was commissioned in India 150 years ago to decorate the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina has sold for nearly $5.5m at an auction in Doha.
Bidding was expected to start at about $5m but the starting price was brought down to $4.5m as there were few buyers.
The rug, known as the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, was created using an estimated two million natural seed pearls.
It is decorated with hundreds of precious stones, including diamonds, sa
Source: AP
March 20, 2009
Former chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell says some have been there six or seven years and are innocent.
Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday.
"There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Assoc
Source: Times Online (UK)
March 20, 2009
Could this be Obama’s “Reagan” moment? Already comparisons are being drawn to that President’s exhortation to President Gorbachev to “tear down that wall” as he stood before the Brandenberg Gate.
President Obama’s plea is more abstract and more nuanced; less of a call to revolution than food to fuel the growing doubts of the Iranian people about their proud isolation.
Contrast his words with President Bush’s bluster about an “axis of evil”. That phrase did nothing to
Source: Foxnews
March 19, 2009
An 85-year-old World War II veteran, who dropped out of high school decades ago to enlist in the Naval Reserve, was awarded an honorary diploma in a surprise ceremony, the Star Tribune reported.
Richard Thill finally got his diploma from Humboldt Senior High School in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday, 69 years after leaving school without graduating.
On Wednesday, Thill had been invited to the school ostensibly to speak about his experience in the war. Instead, the school
Source: 3-20-09
December 31, 2069
In his latest mug shot, Charles Manson's wild-eyed stare is gone, as is most of his hair. Except for the swastika he carved into his brow during his murder trial, he could be any gray-bearded senior citizen.
If the photo authorities released early this week is any indication, the leader of a murderous band called "The Family," has mellowed some after almost 40 years in a California state prison.
He has had a lot of alone time.
Manson receives a l
Source: The Independent (UK)
March 20, 2009
The flames are going out all over Italy. Tomorrow, the flame which for more than 60 years has been the symbol of neo-Fascist continuity with Mussolini, will disappear from mainstream politics. The National Alliance, the last important home of that inheritance, is "fusing" with Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party to give the governing bloc a single identity and a single unchallenged leader.
The change has been a long time coming – 15 years and more. Mr Berlusconi br
Source: Britannica Blog (click here for graphic display)
March 19, 2009
“Roman engineers built an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria [modern Jordan]. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it.”
So reported Spiegel Online last week.
“When the Romans weren’t busy conquering their enemies, they loved to waste massive quantities of water, which gurgled and bubbled throughout their cities. The engineers of the empire inv
Source: VOA
March 16, 2009
The two Koreas differ in more than just political ideology. Since the Korean Peninsula was divided more than 60 years ago, the way North and South Koreans speak has gone separate ways. And, for thousands of North Korean refugees, the language divide is one of their biggest challenges to adjusting to life in South Korea.
When you listen to South Korean and North Korean newscast you might not hear much of a difference, but for many of the 15,000 North Koreans who have defected to Sout
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 19, 2009
The Ministry of Defence has pledged to help to get veterans to Normandy for the 65th commemorations of the D-Day landings.
Following reports that the surviving men who stormed the beaches to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation were not being given any funding, the Government said there was "no question" of its commitment to veterans.
Hinting that there will now be a ministerial presence at the commemorations that will be attended by French, German and American poli
Source: Memphis Commercial Appeal
March 19, 2009
Forrest Park has quietly been added to the National Register of Historic Places, and efforts to rename the park or disinter the bodies buried there have, for now, been laid to rest.
The park at Union and Manassas where Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife are buried received the honorary designation this month from the National Park Service.
The park has long been a point of racial controversy in Memphis, with local officials and other groups periodicall
Source: Politico.com
March 18, 2009
Former President George W. Bush has already written about 30,000 words of a memoir tentatively called “Decision Points” that will cover everything from how he found faith to how he quit drinking to how he chose Karl Rove and Dick Cheney for their jobs.
A contract with Crown, an imprint of Random House, is to be announced Thursday. The same publisher issued both of President Obama’s books.
The first chapter will be about the former president’s early life leading up to
Source: ABC News
March 18, 2009
Well, here's another way President Obama has put his historic stamp on the presidency. With no fanfare or media attention, President Obama last month added a new decoration to the Oval Office: a 12 5/8" bronze bust of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
The work, titled "Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)," is by celebrated African-American sculptor Charles Alston -- the first African-American instructor at the Art Students League -- who died in 1977....
Source: http://c-ville.com
March 17, 2009
A six-member alliance of regional and national organizations, called the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, is mounting a counter-offensive [to Wal-Mart's effort to build a box store near the Wilderness battlefield]. Not just against Wal-Mart but against what it sees as the inevitable repercussions: congestion, sprawl, and irreparable damage to an important piece of American history.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 19, 2009
A unique historic landscape that has survived intact for 1,000 years will be lost to developers unless the Government honours a promise to make it part of Britain's newest national park, conservationists warned.
The Western Weald in West Sussex is one of the last remaining areas in the country to have retained field patterns from the early Medieval period. It is also home to the rarest bat in Europe as well as swathes of ancient woodland and a range of endangered birds and butterfli
Source: AP
March 18, 2009
Forget the baby boom. More babies were born in the United States in 2007 than any year in the nation's history — and a wedding band made increasingly little difference in the matter.
The 4,317,119 births, reported by federal researchers Wednesday, topped a record first set in 1957 at the height of the baby boom.
Behind the number is both good and bad news. While it shows the U.S. population is more than replacing itself, a healthy trend, the teen birth rate was up for a
Source: AP
March 19, 2009
A Montana paleontologist whose past dinosaur digs brought widespread acclaim intends to plead guilty to stealing fossils from federal land.
Court documents show that Nathan Murphy has reached a plea deal on a federal charge that he stole bones from public land near Malta. He had faced up to 10 years in prison.
The 51-year-old Murphy is a self-taught dinosaur expert who spent much of the last two decades searching for bones in the rocky wastelands of central Montana. He
Source: Baltimore Sun
March 19, 2009
Preservationists site encroaching gas plant, incinerator.
A proposed trash incinerator and a planned natural gas plant threaten to encroach on two Civil War battlefield sites in Western Maryland, a preservation group warned yesterday.
The Washington-based Civil War Preservation Trust said recent developments have put the Monocacy National Battlefield near Frederick and South Mountain near Middletown on its list of the nation's most endangered battlefields from that war.
Source: The Journal (West Virginia)
March 19, 2009
A former arsenal is being partially reconstructed at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park - one that is part of what many historians call the match that lit a fuse on existing tensions that exploded into the Civil War.
The building is along Shenandoah Street in the park's old town area and it was built in 1806, said Marsha Wassel, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service. The structure served as one of two major arsenals in the area, and it housed thousands of weapons.
