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: MSNBC
January 29, 2009
Bulgaria is demanding that Russia return important World War II documents taken in 1944 as the Soviet army swept through eastern Europe.
The government said Thursday the archive is more than 30,000 pages of documents, including details of Bulgaria's preparations to side with Nazi Germany in the war.
The Soviet army said it took the documents to use as evidence in war-crimes trials at Nuremberg.
Bulgaria says its request complies with a 1995 Russian federal
Source: The Norway Post
January 31, 2009
The Norwegian Government has decided that the wreck of the WW2 German submarine U-864 which contains 65 tons of mercury, is to be raised, and that the contaminated seabed be covered with clean sand.
The wreck, which is located off the Norwegian west coast, near Fedje, north of Bergen, has long been considered an environmental hazard by the local population and environmental groups.
However, experts have long disagreed on whether or not the wreck should be raised or if
Source: CNN
January 30, 2009
On Thursday, Joe Moser, 87, gained a new distinction. Moser was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, a commendation given to aviators for "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight."
The medal was a long time coming: 64 years after he earned it in a bombing mission.
Moser flew 44 missions in World War II, but he said he has no memories of the mission in which he earned the medal. He received it for a bombing run carried ou
Source: The Record(Troy)
January 30, 2009
Deep beneath the ice on Lake George, a newly designated national historic resource awaits exploration by scuba diving enthusiasts.
The U.S. Department of the Interior has listed the lake’s first-ever gasoline-powered motorboat on the National Register of Historic Places, making it part of an underwater state park called “Submerged Heritage Preserves” that includes boats from the French and Indian War.
The 45-foot long Forward, built in 1906, was owned by W.K. Bixby of B
Source: Detroit Free Press
January 30, 2009
The French government says it still owns the Griffin, a 17th-Century ship built by legendary explorer La Salle that may have been discovered in northern Lake Michigan.
France filed a claim to the vessel Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, escalating a legal battle over who owns and has authority to retrieve artifacts from the long-lost vessel.
Michigan also is seeking title, although state officials have raised doubts about whether the Griffin’s gravesite ac
Source: Guardian (UK)
January 30, 2009
Government move to boost tourism backfires as looters descend on antiquities.
For centuries they have lain forgotten and untouched in the murky depths of the Mediterranean. But the sunken glories of Greece are now threatened by modern treasure hunters, who are targeting their riches since the lifting of a ban on coastal scuba-diving.
At risk, say archaeologists, is an unseen part of the country's cultural patrimony, comprising thousands of shipwrecks dating from Classi
Source: AP
January 27, 2009
A German couple who started a charity to reconnect their town with Jewish families who fled during the Holocaust is among five recipients of an annual Jewish history award.
The Obermayer German Jewish History Awards recognize non-Jewish Germans' efforts to keep alive their nation's Jewish cultural past.
Jews outside of Germany nominate the recipients each year. Others to receive awards Tuesday include a man who created a museum of Jewish history in a site formerly occup
Source: Boston Globe
January 28, 2009
It remains one of the stranger episodes in the annals of congressional-FBI relations: In the winter of 1975, US Representative Robert F. Drinan was touring the FBI headquarters when he broke away and opened a drawer to find a set of index cards under his name.
A three-month battle ensued between the Massachusetts Democrat and the federal law enforcement agency over access to the file. When Drinan finally got a redacted copy of his own record, he pronounced it garbage, filled with ne
Source: MSNBC
January 29, 2009
The desire to contact intelligent life on other planets is much older than the UFO craze and the SETI movement. Several 19th century scientists contemplated how we might communicate with possible Martians and Venusians.
These early proposals - which predate by 150 years the first extraterrestrial message that was sent in 1974 - were based on visual signals, as the invention of radio was still decades away.
In fact, as history shows, ideas for interplanetary communicatio
Source: The Jakarta Post
January 31, 2009
A 2,000-year-old sarcophagus lies in pieces where it fell, protected from the elements and scavengers by yellow police tape and a blue tarpaulin.
The sarcophagus, discovered earlier this month in a brick-making site in Kremes, Gianyar, was finally transferred to Bali's antiquities museum last Friday.
The skeleton preserved in this mudstone coffin for at least two millennia is now little more than a collection of bone shards, jumbled up with offerings of flowers and rice
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
January 27, 2009
Russia has signaled it will take a more aggressive stance with neighbouring countries who disagree with its view of World War Two history.
President Dmitry Medvedev believes Russia is not receiving full credit for its role in defeating Nazi Germany.
He today accused the country's neighbours of deliberately attempting to 'falsify' the history of the conflict.
Source: MemriTV
January 26, 2009
Following are excerpts from a show featuring Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on January 26, 2009.
Warning: The show contains extremely disturbing Holocaust footage.
Amin Al-Ansari: Let us examine the civil strife the Jews have caused throughout the world. Of course, we know what problems they caused the Muslims. They have always been like that, but in modern times, they only turned to the Muslims [relatively] late. They went around the world –
Source: Newsvine
January 30, 2009
Malaysian archeologists have unearthed prehistoric stone axes that they said Friday were the world's oldest at about 1.8 million years old.
Seven axes were found with other tools at an excavation site in Malaysia's northern Perak state in June, and tests by a Tokyo laboratory indicate they were about 1.83 million years old, said Mokhtar Saidin, director of the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Science Malaysia.
Source: Washington Post
January 30, 2009
Even with three locations in its empire, the National Museum of the American Indian can display barely 1 percent of its 800,000 objects. To help close that gap, the museum has decided to set up a digital showcase.
On Monday, the museum plans to launch its "Fourth Museum" to give scholars, students, teachers, cultural historians and those far away from the museum's homes in Washington and New York the opportunity to look into its archives.
The move has been in
Source: Washington Post
January 30, 2009
The National Museum of African American History and Culture yesterday named six award-winning architecture teams that will compete to design its signature building on the Mall in the shadow of the Washington Monument.
The list includes luminaries of the field: I.M. Pei and Sir Norman Foster.
The final selection, based on a preliminary design, will be one of the most closely watched architectural contests in the city's recent history because of its location, the challeng
Source: Times (UK)
January 30, 2009
Richard Williamson, the ultra-conservative bishop whose denial of the Nazi Holocaust caused outrage this week after he was reinstated by Pope Benedict XVI, has expressed his "sincere regret", asking the pontiff to forgive him for the "anguish" he has caused him.
In a posting on the web Bishop Williamson, a member of the traditionalist Society of St Pius X, apologised for the "imprudent phrases" he used last week in an interview broadcast by Swedish tel
Source: Independent (UK)
January 30, 2009
The length of time confidential government records remain secret should be halved to 15 years as part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the rules that control the release of sensitive official information to the public, an independent inquiry ruled yesterday.
The recommendation, from a review panel headed by Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre, would see the earlier publication of records on key events from the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major such as the Falklands War,
Source: Independent (UK)
January 30, 2009
Gordon Brown's dream of creating a permanent museum of Britishness appears to be over after being savaged by sceptical curators, The Independent has learnt.
The Prime Minister championed plans for the £150m Museum of British History to be built with a mix of public and private funding to act as a centre of national identity.
But now the idea looks likely to be quietly shelved after a highly critical report into the proposal commissioned by the Department for Culture, M
Source: AP
January 27, 2009
The Vatican intensified its defense of Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, highlighting his record of condemning the Holocaust amid an outcry over his rehabilitation of a bishop who claims that no Jews were gassed during World War II.
Vatican Radio aired a lengthy program to mark Holocaust remembrance day. It recalled Benedict's 2006 visit to Auschwitz, his 2005 visit to the main synagogue in Cologne, Germany and other remarks in which he has denounced the"insane, racist ideology" that produced t
Source: http://www.globalpost.com
January 29, 2009
Jan. 30 is the 61st anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi. As that date approaches, the reputation of the Mahatma, or “great soul”, has seen better days.
Sure, when a British magazine publishes a cartoon of the emaciated and bespectacled figure getting pummeled by a muscle man India erupts in outrage. And when a Bollywood hero embraces nonviolent resistance in a slapstick masala movie the youth are suddenly fired with enthusiasm for candlelit marches. But in the s
