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: AP
March 14, 2009
Old Sturbridge Village is bucking the bad economy.
The head of the living history museum says attendance jumped 32 percent in January and February, marking its best start in seven years.
Old Sturbridge Village had nearly 12,000 visitors during the first two months of 2009, compared to just under 9,000 in the same period a year ago.
President and CEO James Donahue speculates that many people in these difficult days have an interest in learning about "si
Source: Stars and Stripes
March 15, 2009
During a ceremony Wednesday at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, members of the Kosakadani family were presented a Japanese flag that belonged to Cpl. Masayuki Kosakadani, who died during World War II.
The flag was brought to Japan by Air Force Col. Charles Eastman, who is in Japan with members of the Air War College in Alabama, where he is an instructor. Eastman got the flag from Casey Breslin, a friend who says the colonel is the only servicemember she knows, Eastman said after the cerem
Source: http://www.expatica.com
March 14, 2009
A 94-year-old former German army officer sentenced to life in prison by an Italian military court for the deaths of four Italian civilians in August 1944 has been cleared on appeal, his lawyer said Friday.
Francesco Coran told the ANSA news agency that the military appeal court in Rome had quashed the sentence handed down against Hans Dietrich Michelsen, who was tried in his absence by a military tribunal in La Spezia in February last year.
Michelsen, then a 29-year-old
Source: Time
March 16, 2009
Biblical scholars have long argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic and celibate Jewish community known as the Essenes, which flourished in the 1st century A.D. in the scorching desert canyons near the Dead Sea. Now, a prominent Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior, disputes that the Essenes ever existed at all — a claim that has shaken the bedrock of Biblical scholarship.
Elior, who teaches Jewish mysticism at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, claims that the Essenes we
Source: The Local (Germany)
March 12, 2009
A pair of stone-age boats, thought to be the oldest in Europe, have been allowed to rot in a partially collapsed shed while the northern German regional archaeology authorities stood by broke and helpless, it emerged this week.
The two 7,000-year-old wooden boats and a third one thought to be around 6,000 years old, were hailed as a sensation when they were found during construction work on the Baltic coast near Stralsund in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern seven years ago.
But n
Source: The HIndu
March 15, 2009
Pope Benedict XVI will undertake what would be the first papal visit to Britain in 30 years and the second by any pontiff since King Henry VIII broke with the Vatican to establish Church of England, according to sources.
However, details of the papal visit are still under discussion, but some cities being considered include London, Birmingham, Oxford, Edinburgh, Armagh and Dublin, 'The Daily Telegraph' quoted the unnamed sources as saying.
And, a senior cardinal is due
Source: Science Daily
March 15, 2009
The Ancient Egyptians cherished their fragrant scents, too, as perfume flacons from this period indicate. In its permanent exhibition, Bonn University's Egyptian Museum has a particularly well preserved example on display. Screening this 3,500-year-old flacon with a computer tomograph, scientists at the university detected the desiccated residues of a fluid, which they now want to submit to further analysis. They might even succeed in reconstructing this scent.
Pharaoh Hatshepsut wa
Source: Science News
March 28, 2009
Sales of illegal antiquities total at least $7.8 billion annually. It’s a black market that ranks behind only drugs and weapons as the most profitable, according to a United Nations analysis.
What comes out of the ground passes through international networks of plunder. At the end of the line, people purchase archaeological artifacts in shops, on the Internet and in private and public auctions. Buyers rarely know or, apparently, care how a $2.99 Native American arrowhead or a $75,00
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 14, 2009
Nevada collector believes he has found a mid-1800s photographic image of Ulysses S. Grant, the Civil War general who went on to become the nation's 18th president.
A University of Nevada, Las Vegas archivist says the daguerreotype appears to be an authentic image of Grant, who served two terms as president from 1869 to 1877.
Collector Randall Spencer said he would prefer to sell the image to a historical institution for public display, but would consider selling it to
Source: The Courier News (Chicago)
March 16, 2009
With Feb. 12 marking the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of America's 16th president, an exhibit focusing on Abraham Lincoln collectibles was well-attended Sunday at the Spring Fox Valley Antiques Show.
The two-day event began Saturday and drew more than 1,000 visitors, said Virginia Larsen, chair of the Chicago Suburban Antique Dealers Association show.
Presenting rare finds -- ranging from an original bust of Lincoln, dated in 1865, to a steel engraved Lincoln
Source: CBS News
March 13, 2009
Scientists Scan Charleston Harbor Looking For Ships, Fortifications And Torpedoes.
A University of South Carolina archaeologist is scanning the bottom of Charleston Harbor for Civil War artifacts, using a twin-outboard motor boat and a clutch of scientific equipment.
James Spirek of the South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology has been on the water this week putting together the first comprehensive historical scan of the harbor bottom.
Fr
Source: AP
March 16, 2009
Excavation begins amid fear tribal pieces may wash away.
Archaeologists are excavating sites along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon in hopes of saving artifacts before they wash away.
Although the National Park Service typically leaves such artifacts alone, about 60 sites are being undercut by water, or unearthed by wind, topography and a lack of sand, which is largely blocked from getting into the canyon by Glen Canyon Dam upriver.
National Park Serv
Source: IHT
December 31, 2069
A quarter century ago, a Ukrainian historian named Stanislav Kulchytsky was told by his Soviet overlords to concoct an insidious cover-up. His orders: to depict the famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s as unavoidable, like a natural disaster. Absolve the Communist Party of blame. Uphold the legacy of Stalin.
Professor Kulchytsky, though, would not go along.
The other day, as he stood before a new memorial to the victims of the famine, he recalled
Source: AP
March 16, 2009
Travelers to Egypt will soon be able to explore the inner chambers of the 4,500-year-old "bent" pyramid, known for its oddly shaped profile, and other nearby ancient tombs, Egypt's antiquities chief announced Monday.
The increased access to the pyramids south of Cairo is part of a new sustainable development campaign that Egypt hopes will attract more visitors but also to avoid some of the problems of the urban sprawl that have plagued the famed pyramids of Giza.
Source: BBC
March 16, 2009
Cleopatra, the last Egyptian Pharaoh, renowned for her beauty, was part African, says a BBC team which believes it has found her sister's tomb. Queen Cleopatra was a descendant of Ptolemy, the Macedonian general who ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great.
But remains of the queen's sister Princess Arsinoe, found in Ephesus, Turkey, indicate that her mother had an "African" skeleton.
Experts have described the results as "a real sensation."
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 16, 2009
Henry VIII was emotionally dependent on women, according to the historian David Starkey, who has identified striking similarities between the monarch's and his mother's handwriting. Unlike most early modern princes the Tudor monarch was brought up in a feminine household and was almost certainly taught to write by his mother, analysis shows.
This upbringing shaped Henry's "emotionally incontinent" personality, leading him to fall and love with – and marry – so many wome
Source: Times (UK)
March 16, 2009
The last statue of General Franco in Spain is to be withdrawn almost 34 years after the death of the dictator.
The regional government of Melilla, one of Spain's North African enclaves along with Ceuta, said the bronze statue of General Franco would be removed "within the period of 15 days".
The move means no more commemorative figures will stand in public streets to the man who ruled Spain between the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 and his death in No
Source: BBC
March 14, 2009
The authorities in the Italian city of Verona - setting for the tale of the two lovers - say they want to foster its image as a centre for romance.
The Casa Di Giulietta (house of Juliet) is in the heart of Verona.
Folklore suggests it was once the home of the Cappello family - possibly the model for the Capulets in Shakespeare's fictional play, Romeo and Juliet.
Although some historians say there is scant evidence to back this up, the balcony on the 14t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 13, 2009
The families of millions of soldiers buried in unmarked graves in the First World War could be able to locate their relative's burial place after the British historian Peter Barton found a vast untapped archive in Geneva, Switzerland.
Mr Barton said it was the conflict's equivalent of the discovery of the tomb of the Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamen.
He unearthed the archive hidden deep under the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva, where shelf after shelf of boxed, typed rec
Source: WaPo
March 14, 2009
Architectural detectives in Maryland will spend the next year studying ghost images that splotch the walls of one of the nation's most historic spaces in the hope that the clues will guide the restoration of the room to its appearance at the time of the nation's birth.
For years, a mysterious water leak had plagued the walls of the Old Senate Chamber in the Maryland State House, the nation's oldest continuously operative legislative building. The water was causing ugly bubbles in th
