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: Time
July 11, 2008
At its annual meeting in Quebec City this week, UNESCO's World Heritage
Committee added another 27 sites to its already burgeoning list of places
of"outstanding universal value." Now wooden churches in Slovakia,
Weimar-era housing projects in Berlin, and Armenian monasteries in Iran
have been granted the same hallowed status as the Statue of Liberty,
Stonehenge, and the Temple of Angkor Wat. And why not? There are plenty of
ways to define"a human masterpiece of creative genius," one of the
Source: AP
July 11, 2008
Thieves have stolen files on the mysterious desecration of former Argentine strongman Juan Peron's grave from the home of a judge investigating the case.
La Nacion newspaper says a laptop and an electronic planner were also taken in Sunday's break-in of judge Alberto Banos' home.
Banos told the newspaper he was seeking access to classified government documents on the case and he believes the robbery was meant to intimidate him.
Source: CNN
July 11, 2008
Two children of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are suing their brother, saying he took money from the civil rights icon’s estate “for his own benefit.”
The suit also alleges that Dexter King wrongfully took money from the estate of his mother, Coretta Scott King.
The suit, filed by Bernice King and Martin Luther King III, names Dexter King and their father’s estate as defendants.
Dexter King controls and “makes all decisions concerning” their father’s estate,
Source: CNN
July 11, 2008
A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down their faces. It was the first time since 1942 they had seen each other, when she was 17 and he was just 7.
That was the night the invading Nazis came to take her away from her Ukrainian home.
"I remember it well because I kissed him good-bye, and he pushed me away," she said of her brother. "I asked, 'Why did you do that?'
Source: BBC
July 11, 2008
Archaeologists excavating one of the most important Roman sites in Britain have made an"extremely rare" find.
The team digging at part of the Roman fortress in Caerleon near Newport found what they believe is a legionary's ceremonial lance.
Dr Peter Guest said he thought the iron staff, broken into three pieces, was the first of its type found in the UK.
Source: AP
June 30, 2008
Preservationists are expected to announce Tuesday a state and federal initiative to protect more land in the Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, where nearly a third of roughly 50,000 acres of Civil War battlefields are unprotected.
The effort follows the recent announcement by the National Trust for Historic Preservation that a quarry expansion threatens the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Park battlefield, which is in the valley.
Kathleen S. Kilpatrick, director of Vir
Source: Independent (UK)
July 11, 2008
Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the restrictions endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.
Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military's separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using ro
Source: AP
July 11, 2008
The 600-mile route taken by the armies of Gen. George Washington and his French partner in the climactic campaign of the Revolutionary War would become a national historic trail under legislation passed by the House Thursday.
The trail, along existing roads and waterways in eight states from Rhode Island to Virginia, commemorates the 1781 march of Washington's Continental Army and the Expedition Particuliere of French Count Rochambeau that culminated in the surrender of British Gen
Source: LAT
July 11, 2008
The nature and timing of his divorce from Carol Shepp alienated key friends -- and his version doesn't always match that in court documents.
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Outside her Bel-Air home, Nancy Reagan stood arm in arm with John McCain and offered a significant -- but less than exuberant -- endorsement.
"Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed," the Republican matriarch said in March. "Well, obviously this is the nominee o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 11, 2008
A pair of Queen Victoria's bloomers have been discovered which show that Britain's longest-reigning monarch had a 50-inch waist .
The size of the underwear supports the theory that the Queen had become morbidly obese towards the end of her life.
The drawers - which dwarf the average British woman's 33 inch waist today - will be auctioned along with a selection of other Royal undergarments.
Source: Deutsche Welle
July 11, 2008
On the day of France's liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944, German troops decimated a small French village. A German prosecutor is now trying to track down surviving suspects -- with slim hope for success.German investigators are to look for evidence next week in the central French village of Maille in the hope that they can spot connections between the massacre of August 25, 1944, and documents on German troop movements at the time.
The troops, described by
Source: Reuters
July 9, 2008
In their zeal to remove the Berlin Wall, German authorities were ruthlessly efficient in eliminating almost all traces of the hated symbol of the Cold War within months of its opening in 1989.
Since then, countless millions of visitors to the formerly divided city have been asking: "Where's the Wall?"
The city, belatedly realizing it threw away a bit too much of what was its most important tourist attraction, has belatedly come up with at least a partial answe
Source: NYT
July 9, 2008
Two former secretaries of state, concluding that a 1973 measure limiting the president’s ability to wage war unilaterally had never worked as intended, proposed on Tuesday a new system of closer consultation between the White House and Congress before American forces go into battle.
Their proposal would require the president to consult senior lawmakers before initiating combat expected to last longer than a week, except for covert operations or rare circumstances requiring emergency
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
July 10, 2008
On July 9, 2008, the House of Representatives passed the “Electronic Message Preservation Act” (H.R. 5811) by a vote of 286-137, despite a threatened veto by the White House. The bill would direct the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to establish standards for the capture, management, preservation and retrieval of federal agency and presidential electronic messages that are records in an electronic format.
The National Coalition for History endorsed the passage of H.R.
Source: AP
July 9, 2008
Some Prince William County residents and lawmakers are upset that preservation efforts at Manassas National Battlefield Park are leading to the destruction of many trees.
Authorities at the Civil War battlefield have cut down 130 acres of trees in a section of the park named Deep Cut.
Park Superintendent Ed Clark says they need clear vistas to help visitors understand and appreciate the historical site. He says they're working to preserve the park's viewsheds to help
Source: NYT
July 10, 2008
With the pillars of the Brandenburg Gate looming in the background, tens of thousands of adoring Berliners turn out to greet Senator Barack Obama with wild cheering. It may have seemed like the perfect campaign stop on the candidate’s highly anticipated European tour, an ideal way to burnish his foreign policy credentials.
Instead, the plan — widely dissected in the German news media but never confirmed by the Obama campaign — has exposed fissures in the German government, with the
Source: Time
July 8, 2008
As the road dips and rises through the Hebron hills, white etched with the glowing green of vineyards, the turn-off to Edna village is marked by the grey, concrete watchtower of an Israeli checkpoint. But it doesn't deter Israeli-Arab lawyer Khaled Kasab Mahameed from his quixotic mission: He has come to the West Bank to educate Palestinians about the Jewish Holocaust.
Many Palestinians have never heard that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during Word War II — it doesn't rate a ment
Source: AP
July 10, 2008
Most tourists to Istanbul inevitably make their way to
its historic core along the Golden Horn, a peninsula rich in relics and
monuments from the mighty Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires.
These days, the area is host to a modern-day battle over the expansion of
a five-star hotel amid the ruins of an ancient palace.
The dispute pits government-backed developers of a site housing the luxury
Four Seasons Hotel, occupying a converted, Ottoman-era prison, against
critics who say
Source: AP
July 7, 2008
In a stuffy basement off an Old City alleyway in Jerusalem,
tailors using ancient texts as a blueprint have begun making a curious
line of clothing that they hope will be worn by priests in a reconstructed
Jewish Temple — the spiritual center of Judaism destroyed by Roman legions
two millennia ago.
The project, run by a Jerusalem group called the Temple Institute, is part
of an ideology that advocates making practical preparations for the
rebuilding of the ancient Temple on a disput
Source: LAT
July 10, 2008
From Rose Mary Woods' tape recordings in the Nixon White House to Karl Rove's e-mails during the Bush administration, congressional investigators and political historians are forever seeking records of White House communications, often against the wishes of the sitting president.
Hoping to boost their efforts, the Democratic-controlled House moved Wednesday to impose new rules to preserve e-mails from the White House and other federal agencies, acting in defiance of a veto threat fr
