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: BBC
September 15, 2006
Pollution and old age is causing so much damage to Canterbury Cathedral that it could have "disastrous consequences", its curators have said.
A global campaign to raise money for repairs to the Kent cathedral, which was founded in 597 by St Augustine, will be launched next month.
It costs more than £6m a year to run the cathedral, which is visited by more than one million people annually.
Source: Yahoo
September 15, 2006
Peru celebrated the return Friday of a prized 1,300-year-old embossed gold headdress looted from an ancient tomb nearly 20 years ago.
With a feline face at its center and eight curving tentacles, the artifact — which collectors say could be among Peru's most valuable treasures and worth close to $2 million — was recovered last month in a raid on a London lawyer's office.
The golden headdress was made in the image of an ancient sea god and dates back to around 700 A.D.,
Source: NYT
September 16, 2006
Normally, there's very little desire to highlight Germany's Nazi history here.
And normally, when it comes time to decommission a Protestant church here, it's a straightforward affair.
But Berlin's Martin Luther Memorial Church seems bound to be an exception on both counts.
From the outside, it's an ordinary church with a bell tower in need of renovation. The inside seems standard at first, until one takes a closer look at the elevated lectern. Carved into
Source: NYT
September 16, 2006
Pope Benedict is sorry Muslims were offended by a speech on Islam that provoked fury around the world and led to calls for the leader of the Catholic church to apologize, an aide said on Saturday.
``The Holy Father is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers,'' said Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in a statement.
The worst crisis since Benedict was elected in April 2005 was spark
Source: The Australian
September 15, 2006
MYTH or main course? The idea of cannibalism has divided anthropologists for decades but for one Australian expert, there's no doubt human flesh has been consumed with gusto in many parts of the world in recent years.
Australian National University historian and anthropologist Chris Ballard said ritual cannibalism had been practised in parts of the Pacific and Central America, and most recently in Papua and PNG, where human flesh had been eaten within living memory.
''I
Source: The Scotsman
September 15, 2006
THE remains of Edinburgh's medieval tolbooth have been unearthed during road repairs on the Royal Mile.
Historians have always known the tolbooth was located somewhere between St Giles' Cathedral and the City Chambers, but until now had been unable to pinpoint its location.
The archaeological investigations, carried out as part of a GBP 1.5 million upgrade of the Royal Mile, have discovered a large section of the lost building's northern wall which they believe dates to
Source: Christian Science Monitor
September 13, 2006
ABC-TV's miniseries "Path to 9/11" has ignited a new national dialogue on an old subject - the cinematic dramatization of real life. But unlike previous fact-vs.-drama arguments over the Vietnam War or episodes in the Nixon or Reagan presidencies, this week's just-ended series has raised the political stakes, say media critics and political pundits.
Because the war on terror remains central in the lives of Americans - and because the November elections may hinge on how peo
Source: UPI
September 15, 2006
Historians working on a new curriculum for Australian high schools plan to weave the study of religion's influence into it.That would include a study of Aboriginal beliefs on the Dreamtime, a look at the division between Catholic and Protestant Australians, which affected the country for decades, and reading the Koran and learning about Islam, the Brisbane Courier-Mail reported.
"Religion has played a key role in many aspects of society including the legal
Source: Arutz Sheva (Israel)
September 15, 2006
A secret mission to find 60-year-old mass Jewish graves in eastern Europe has now become public, following its first "success." The operation is being funded by the Simon Weil Holocaust Research Fund in France, the Holocaust Museums in Paris and Washington, and the Zaka Organization. It was initiated by the Catholic liaison to the Jewish community in France, historian Patrick Dubois.The participants made contact with Christian leaders in Ukraine, asking for help in
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
September 15, 2006
State archaeologists in Utah have unearthed a 150-year-old crime scene that could shed light on the slaying of seven American Indians in Nephi. Archaeologists have excavated seven bodies from a mass grave in downtown Nephi. They say the men were the victims of a killing during the Walker War in 1853.
The skeletons, tangled together in a shallow grave, were discovered last month, when a home builder dug into an old ravine, now filled with about 6 feet of sand, to
Source: Inside Higher Ed
September 15, 2006
In the annals of academic conferences, few may have been more ill-fated than the aborted conclave on academic boycotts planned by the American Association of University Professors.
When the conference was called off in March, organizers hoped that they could salvage something good from the idea by taking papers planned for the conference and publishing them in a special issue of Academe, the AAUP’s magazine.
The issue is out, but the controversy continues. Authors who a
Source: USA Today
September 4, 2006
As the devout among the ancients knew well, nothing spices up a boring sermon like having your own sacrifice pit parked in front of your church. Throw in a secret tunnel to the death chamber, and you've got a churchgoing experience that no suburban mega-church, no matter how many good parking spots it offers, could ever match.
An ancient Temple of Apollo located amid the ruins of Hierapolis, the "sacred city," in Western Turkey suggests such attractions may have been something o
Source: Guardian
September 15, 2006
"Among the many useful discoveries which this age hath made, there are very few which, better deserve the attention of the public than what I am going to lay before your lordship."
This is the less than modest introduction to Edmund Stone's account in 1763 of the medicinal properties of willow bark, writes James Randerson. "There is a bark of an English tree," he wrote, "which I have found by experience to be a powerful astringent, and very efficacious in cu
Source: Times Online (UK)
September 15, 2006
IRAQ’S archaeological riches face a dangerous new threat following the appointment of a minister from a radical Islamic party to run the department responsible for antiquities.
Within months qualified staff have been purged from their posts, archaeologists have been threatened by gunmen and some of Mesopotamia’s ancient sites have been left open to looters. There are fears that Iraq may lose many of its Sumerian and Babylonian treasures for ever.
“We are really worried that I
Source: Cliopatria
September 15, 2006
The History Carnival is a twice-monthly roundup of blogging about history and historians. Ralph Luker hosts this edition at HNN blog Cliopatria.
Source: Japan Times
September 15, 2006
As the three candidates running for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's job continue to debate the issues, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe has avoided giving clear positions on many of them, particularly Japan's responsibility for the war.
Abe is expected to be elected president of the Liberal Democratic Party on Sept. 20 and be made prime minister several days later. So what he has to say about the war responsibility issue could either put Sino-Japanese ties back on track or dama
Source: Yahoo/AP
September 14, 2006
It's more than idle doodling and the meaning is unclear. But there's one thing researchers are sure of: The insect, ear of corn, inverted fish and other symbols inscribed on an ancient stone slab is the earliest known writing in the Western Hemisphere...."We are dealing with the first, clear evidence of writing in the New World," said Stephen Houston, a Brown University anthropologist. Houston and his U.S. and Mexican colleagues detail the tablet's dis
Source: NYT
September 14, 2006
An international team of scientists thinks it has solved the ultimate mystery of the Neanderthals: where and when they made their last stand before extinction. It was at Gibraltar 28,000 years ago, the scientists say, about 2,000 years more recently than previously thought.
The archaeologists and paleontologists reported yesterday finding several hundred stone tools in Gorham’s Cave, on the rugged Mediterranean coast near the Rock of Gibraltar. They were made in the Mousterian stone
Source: creativeloafing.com
September 13, 2006
For Ramika Gourdine and Sarah Beth McKay -- Atlanta natives and seniors at Grady High, one black and one white -- the subject didn't exist until last year. Then their teacher took them on an eye-opening walking tour of downtown Atlanta, showing them the landmarks of a race riot that had shattered the city a century earlier.
"It was so weird learning that such horrible things happened so close," Gourdine says. "I grew up here, this is part of my history, but I never ha
Source: Times (London)
September 14, 2006
The French far-Right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, will stand trial for justifying the Nazi occupation of France after next year's presidential elections, a Paris court decided today.The leader of the National Front party caused an outrage last year when he said that the German occupation of France during the Second World War was "not especially inhumane" and that any massacres had been "blunders" rather than deliberate.
Today a cour
