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: National Geographic News
February 2, 2007
A study of the oldest known sample of human DNA in the Americas suggests that humans arrived in the New World relatively recently, around 15,000 years ago.
The DNA was extracted from a 10,300-year-old tooth found in a cave on Prince of Wales Island off southern Alaska in 1996.
The sample represents a previously unknown lineage for the people who first arrived in the Americas.
The findings, published last week in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Source: AP
February 2, 2007
ROME -- In a city where traffic rumbles past the Colosseum and soccer fans celebrate victories among the remains of the Circus Maximus, it comes as no surprise that relics of the glory that was Rome turn up almost every day, and sometimes get in the way of the modern city's needs.
The perennial tug-of-war between preserving ancient treasures and developing much-needed infrastructure is moving underground, as the city mobilizes archaeologists to probe the bowels of the Eternal City i
Source: AP
February 2, 2007
LINCOLN, Neb. -- A dead man's storage locker yielded dozens of tombstones, a macabre collection that police believe represents "a lifetime of stealing."
Some of the 47 gravestones date to the late 1800s; others are relatively recent. Police say they probably came from different cemeteries at different times...
Police Chief Tom Casady said the tombstone collection "probably came from a lifetime of stealing headstones."
Source: AP
February 2, 2007
FORT WORTH, Texas -- An elementary school teacher was disciplined for showing her fifth-graders parts of the R-rated film "Amistad" during a lesson on slavery.
On Jan. 25, Larue Washington showed her Ridglea Hills Elementary class clips from the 1997 Steven Spielberg film depicting slaves en route to the Americas, including a scene in which a character was stabbed, district officials said.
Washington failed to follow school board policy requiring commercial mo
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
February 2, 2007
People who question the official history of conflicts in Africa and the Balkans could be jailed for up to three years for "genocide denial", under proposed European Union legislation.
But the proposals, seen by the Telegraph of London, go much further and would criminalise those who question the extent of war crimes that have taken place in the past 20 years.
Deborah Lipstadt, professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University, Atlanta, sai
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
February 1, 2007
David Horowitz, the conservative activist, has unveiled a new terrorism-awareness campaign aimed at college campuses. It encourages students to look beyond what Mr. Horowitz calls anti-American teachings by college professors and understand the threat of radical Islam.
“The curriculum, particularly in Middle East studies and women’s studies, is geared to painting a very negative picture of America and showing that there is some kind of justification for the attacks on us,” Mr. Horow
Source: Discovery News
February 1, 2007
U.S. army archaeologists believe they have located a very early English settlement known as "Henrytowne," which they say historical accounts and artifacts suggest was contemporaneous with Jamestown — America’s first permanent English colony.
While Jamestown, founded in 1607, probably predates Henrytowne by at least a few years, the newly identified Virginia Beach Cape Henry site could have been home to one of the nation's earliest English colonies, indicated lead archaeolo
Source: Independent (UK)
January 27, 2007
A macabre 1,700-year-old mass grave of people and horses, discovered in Normandy, poses perplexing new questions about the Roman conquest of France. Was there a small part of ancient Gaul which refused, Asterix-like, to surrender for 300 years?
The grave site, from the 3rd century, which was discovered by French state archaeologists at Evreux, appears to contain ritual arrangements of human and horse remains. In one, a human skull is clasped between two horse's skulls, like the two
Source: NYT
February 2, 2007
He is hailed by his supporters as the hope of an increasingly multicultural nation, a political phenomenon who can wow white voters while carrying the aspirations of African-Americans all the way to the White House....
But while many whites embrace Mr. Obama’s melting pot background, it remains profoundly unsettling for some blacks who argue that he is distant from the struggles and cultural identities of most black Americans. The black columnist Stanley Crouch has said, “When black
Source: NYT
February 2, 2007
With all the public criticism and praise laid at the doorstep of the Atlantic Yards project, the naming of the arena did not figure to be controversial. Last week, Bruce Ratner, the owner of the Nets and the president of Forest City Ratner, the Atlantic Yards developer, announced that the British bank Barclays would pay $400 million over 20 years for naming rights to the 18,000-seat stadium, to be called the Barclays Center.
Barclays’ accusers say the bank’s early founders had ties
Source: Washington Post
February 2, 2007
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- When a sprawling courthouse was inaugurated on the outskirts of this capital last year, it was largely welcomed by Cambodians, who expressed hope that one day the leaders of the Khmer Rouge would sit inside, squirm in the docks and face comeuppance for overseeing the brutal deaths of as many as 1.7 million people a quarter-century ago.
Today, however, the hopes of many Khmer Rouge victims have turned to frustrations. Rather than providing a promised airing o
Source: AP
January 31, 2007
Nero's Golden Palace will partly reopen to visitors next week, offering rare insight into archaeologists' efforts to preserve the first-century imperial residence from decay and humidity.
Visitors will have access to half of the palace, wandering through a maze of underground passageways, officials said Wednesday. They can also climb a 43-foot scaffolding and take a close look at the building's frescoed vaulted ceilings, as restorers and archaeologists work to clean the paint...
Source: Telegraph
February 2, 2007
LIQIAN, China -- Residents of a remote Chinese village are hoping that DNA tests will prove one of history's most unlikely legends — that they are descended from Roman legionaries lost in antiquity.
Scientists have taken blood samples from 93 people living in and around Liqian, a settlement in north-western China on the fringes of the Gobi desert, more than 200 miles from the nearest city...
Studies claiming that Liqian has Roman ancestry have greatly excited the impove
Source: Ken Gonzales-Day, in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, writing about his book.
February 1, 2007
The initial research for my book Lynching in the West: 1850-1935 grew out of an interdisciplinary approach in which I sought to pair historical case records with the analysis of photographic and historic images. In addition to tracking down historic photographs, drawings, and prints, I began looking for any kind of official documentation that I could find: an announcement in a newspaper, published leaflets, or first-person narratives which could be confirmed in multiple sources.
In
Source: BBC News
February 1, 2007
In the year that Peru is trying to get Machu Picchu voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, there are growing tensions over the country's greatest tourist attraction.
A former mayor has built a bridge which creates a new route to the World Heritage site, threatening to bring more tourists and, some say, open up a new route for drug traffickers.
The 80-metre long Carilluchayoc bridge, which crosses the Vilcanota river near the base of the 15th-Century Inca cita
Source: NYT
February 1, 2007
Salaries for some Smithsonian Institution executives are higher than those for other top federal jobs, including those of the United States president and vice president, according to the institution’s acting inspector general.
The salaries are, however, “generally comparable to those at selected nonprofit organizations,” the acting inspector general, A. Sprightley Ryan, said in a report issued on Tuesday....
Lawrence M. Small, the Smithsonian secretary, earned $884,733
Source: German Press Agency
February 1, 2007
A Salzburg publishing house has reissued Leopold
Mozart's legendary treatise on violin playing - 237 years after it was first in print, the Austrian press agency reported on Thursday. Polzer, an art publishing house, published 3,000 linen-bound copies of a revised version of the comprehensive treatise written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's father around 1756.
A team of musicians and historians carefully adapted Leopold Mozart's 334-page work for the 21st century.
Source: Dayton Daily News
January 30, 2007
DAYTON, Ohio -— Under draft legislation being proposed for consideration by Congress, Hawthorn Hill —- the longtime home of aviation pioneer Orville Wright —- and the Wright brothers' airplane factory —- now part of Delphi Corp.'s Home Avenue auto parts plant —- would become part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.
The Dayton-based Aviation Heritage Foundation, created at the direction of Congress, collectively promotes nine regional sites that Congress recogni
Source: Korea Times
February 1, 2007
U.S. Rep. Michael M. Honda introduced a bipartisan resolution to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, calling for Japan to formally acknowledge and accept responsibility for sexually enslaving women during World War II.A similar resolution, drafted by Rep. Lane Evans, passed the committee last September. But it failed to go to the House's plenary voting session due to Japan's strong lobbying.
More than 200,000 ``comfort women'' suffered gang ra
Source: Radio Praha
February 1, 2007
The head of the Czech Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, announced on Wednesday that it was setting up a joint project with the Interior Ministry under which the country's Catholic priests will be screened for evidence of collaboration with the former regime. Historian Petr Blazek, present at the ministry's StB archive during a visit by the cardinal, explains that such collaboration took various forms."Many priests collaborated through different pro-regime or
