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: Deutsche Welle
July 31, 2008
A new museum is set to open at the site of Roman baths at Xanten near the German-Dutch border. The museum aims to help visitors immerse themselves in the architecture, sounds and smells of the Roman settlement.
Germanic and Celtic barbarians, accustomed to living in squat log huts, must have gasped in amazement when they first caught sight of the towering town center of Colonia Ulpia Traiana some 2,000 years ago.
The museum evokes the lofty Roman basilica, which served
Source: Spiegel Online
July 31, 2008
A musuem in Berlin has put the legendary Linz Collection, Hitler's private collection of art, online. It may be the first time since World War II that the all the pieces have been assembled in one place.
Adolf Hitler's notorious "Linz Collection" -- a private collection of art displayed in Linz and then stashed in salt mines at the end of World War II -- has now been put online in digital form by the German Historical Musem, not for casual viewing but to help track the pro
Source: History Today
July 30, 2008
Extracts from the diaries of George Orwell will be made available online for the first time. The Orwell Prize for political writing will publish extracts from his diaries from 1938-1942, beginning on August 9th, 70 years after his first entry. The diaries cover daily life in England, Europe and Morocco as well as the impending world war. One entry from Gibraltar on September 7th, 1938 reads: ‘At least 3,000 refu
Source: http://www.propublica.org
July 30, 2008
The non-partisan Congressional Research Service last week published a study (PDF) calculating the cost of every major U.S. war,"from the American Revolution through current conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere." (The numbers are all in 2008 dollars.) The study was first flagged -- and posted online -- by Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientist
Source: McClatchy
July 30, 2008
Many undecided voters have a common concern when they size up Barack Obama: his inexperience.
"I have nothing against Obama. I just think John McCain has more experience," said Steve Viernacki, an Ashley, Pa., restaurant owner.
Experts say that such worries are overblown.
"Experience matters, but its importance is terribly overstated," said historian Robert Dallek, the author of recent books about Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.
Source: Reuters
July 31, 2008
The world's oldest recorded joke has been traced back to 1900 BC and suggests that toilet humor was as popular with the ancients as it is today.
It is a saying of the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern Iraq and goes: "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."
It heads the world's oldest top 10 joke list published by the University of Wolverhampton on Thursday.
A 1600 BC g
Source: http://www.gettysburgtimes.com
July 30, 2008
Federal investigators from the Government Accountability Office have concluded their probe of fundraising at Gettysburg National Military Park, but the agency is still reviewing other National Parks around the country.
The GAO, based in Washington D.C. and governed by Congress, intends to release a report detailing its study – on the National Park Service's acceptance of donations – by March 2009.
"Gettysburg was just one of the many sites that we're visiting over
Source: AP
July 30, 2008
The funeral of a former Nazi concentration camp commander was used to celebrate his crimes, a Jewish human rights group said Tuesday and urged Croatia's president to investigate.
Dinko Sakic's funeral was an "outrageous display of unrepentant racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia," the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israeli branch director, Efraim Zuroff, said in a letter addressed to President Stipe Mesic and faxed to The Associated Press.
Sakic died at age 87 on J
Source: http://www.newspostonline.com
July 31, 2008
Ruins recently discovered on Greenland may be the Vikings’ most northerly
year-round hunting outpost on the icy island.
According to Knut Espen Solberg, leader of ‘The Melting Arctic’ project
mapping changes in the north, the remains uncovered in past weeks in west
Greenland may also be new evidence that the climate was less chilly about
1,000 years ago than it is today.
“We found something that most likely was a dock, made of rocks, for big
ships up to 20-30 metres (60-90 ft)
Source: Science Daily
July 31, 2008
Swiss-Greek research team co-lead by Dr.
Frank Rühli from the Institute of Anatomy, University of Zurich, found
evidence of embalming in Roman Greek times. By means of physico-chemical
and histological methods, it was possible to show that various resins,
oils and spices were used during the embalming of a female, approximately
55 years old, in Northern Greece.
This is the first ever multidisciplinary-based indication for artificial
mummification in Greece at 300 AD.
The rem
Source: AP
July 30, 2008
Police divers checking a report of human remains
off a Puerto Rican beach may have made an archaeological discovery: bones
and possible artifacts from a colonial-era ship, officials in the U.S.
island territory said Wednesday.
The divers found a cannon, pieces of a ship, human bones, a sword and a
medal engraved with the name Isabel II, said Sgt. Angel Rivera Rodriguez,
a spokesman for Puerto Rico's police department.
Source: http://www.iwpr.net
July 31, 2008
Architectural historians are ramping up efforts to restore Damascus’s
historic bathhouses, which experts say are crumbling and in danger of
disappearing altogether.
Ghazwan Yaghi, an expert on Islamic archaeology, believe only 17 communal
baths are still opening in the Syrian capital. Once a centre for
socialising, many of the estimated 200 bathhouses are in a state of
disrepair and neglect.
“The role of the bathhouse has shrunk, and they have been under a lot of
pressure, bo
Source: Telegraph
July 31, 2008
Forensic examination of the crew's skulls, which were found next the 16th century wreck in The Solent, has revealed that Henry VIII's flagship was mainly crewed by foreign sailors, thought to be either mercenaries or Spanish prisoners of war.
Historians have always believed that the warship sank when it performed a sharp turn during a battle with the French in July 1545 and heeled so steeply that water flooded through the open gun ports.
But the new theory suggests th
Source: WaPo
July 30, 2008
The blue pickup was rolling through the remote tribal regions of Afghanistan when masked men suddenly jumped up from the side of the road, guns blazing.
The ABC news crew inside the truck scrambled to avoid bullets. The men surrounded the truck, weapons drawn, yelling questions and demanding papers. Security is always increased, the crew was told, "when Mr. bin Laden is going to be present."
Correspondent John Miller was about to interview the man who would be
Source: Dana Milbank in the WaPo
July 30, 2008
As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama's biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris.
Some say the supremely confident Obama -- nearly 100 days from the election, he pronounces that "the odds of us winning are very good" -- has become a president-in-waiting. But in truth, he doesn't need to wait: He has already amassed the trappings of the office, without those pesky decisions.
Source: WaPo
July 30, 2008
The National Museum of American History, closed for almost 2 years, will reopen Nov. 21, officials announced this morning. The museum closed for renovations in September 2006.
Brent D. Glass, the museum's director, led a hard-hat tour of the newly designed space for the Star-Spangled Banner flag, one of the icon holdings of the museum.
In the area, officials showed the table that will hold the artifact at a slight angle. An abstract flag will mark the entrance to the ga
Source: AP
July 30, 2008
MEXICO CITY: Mexican authorities say about 700 artifacts from a private
collection seized in Germany are Mexican and should be returned.
Archaeological experts have examined photographs of artifacts linked to
Costa Rican collector Leonardo Augustus Patterson. They say about half the
collection of masks, jewelry and statues seized in April are genuine
pre-Hispanic artifacts.
Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said Tuesday that
the pieces were illegally ex
Source: AP
July 29, 2008
A letter detailing the mood after Harry S. Truman was
elected U.S. president — lost in the postal system for nearly 60 years —
recently turned up in the mailbox of a Kansas woman.
Xan Wedel found the letter, postmarked Nov. 11, 1948, in her mailbox
Friday, the Lawrence Journal-World reported. The envelope was stamped with"Return to sender" and"Found in supposedly empty mailbox," the newspaper
said.
The letter was addressed to a Ruth Willisten in Rockfall, Connecticut, but
it n
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 30, 2008
The secrets of the worlds oldest calculating machine are revealed today,
showing that it had dials to mark the timing of eclipses and the Olympic
games.
Ever since the spectacular bronze device was salvaged from a shipwreck
after its discovery in 1900 many have speculated about the uses of the
mechanical calculator which was constructed long before the birth of
Christ and was one of the wonders of the ancient world.
The dictionary sized crumbly lump containing corroded fragmen
Source: http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester
July 30, 2008
WASHINGTON TWP. A team of archaeologists has been surveying the area
beside Egg Harbor Road for the last few months as part of a roadway
improvement study and has uncovered the remains of a 19th century
settlement known as Creesville.
"The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and the New Jersey
Department of Transportation are sponsoring the study," said Senior
Archaeologist Barbara Chi Hsiao Silber of the McCormick Taylor Engineering
and Planning firm in Mount Laurel."As par
