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: Hartford Courant
September 5, 2006
Watered down and designed to offend no one, critics say, high school textbooks' treatment of Sept. 11, 2001, show all too well the difficulties of depicting an event teetering between history and the news.
The rule of thumb among educators is that most editions of history textbooks last five to 10 years before a school system replaces them. By that formula, it's reasonable to assume that plenty of students are studying from books that deal with the events of 9/11 and its five-year a
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
September 7, 2006
"The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external
relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations,"
according to a statement made in 1800 by John Marshall.
This so-called"sole organ" doctrine has frequently been invoked by
the executive branch"to define presidential power broadly in foreign
relations and national security, including assertions of an inherent
executive power that is not subject to legislative or judicial
constraints," writes constitutional schol
Source: NYT
September 7, 2006
Three members of the Clinton administration have written the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent, to complain that the network’s coming two-part miniseries “The Path to 9/11” is fraught with factual errors and fabrications.
The letters ask that the five-hour movie, scheduled for broadcast Sunday and Monday, be either edited for accuracy or canceled, and ABC gave a small indication yesterday that some changes might be made.One of the official
Source: NYT
September 7, 2006
Felipe Calderón was named the next president of Mexico on Tuesday by a tribunal that confirmed that the vote was basically free and fair. Yet a significant slice of the voting public still believes that the election was marred by fraud and that the country’s electoral institutions are corrupt.
But why do between a quarter and a third of voters, according to recent opinion polls, agree with him? One reason is history. After decades of one-party rule sustained by
Source: Hankyoreh (South Korea)
September 7, 2006
The South Korean government said Thursday it has to figure out China's official position on Korea's ancient kingdoms, especially Koguryo and Balhae, before deciding on any diplomatic countermeasures to Beijing's alledged move to incorporate them into its own history. A state-funded Chinese research center, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) has argued that Koguryo (37 B.C.-A.D.668) and its successor Balhae were vassal states of China's ancient central government.
Source: NYT
September 5, 2006
No one would ever have mistaken Thomas Starr King for a Democrat. A fiery Republican clergyman with an oratorical flair, King stood shoulder to shoulder with Lincoln during the Civil War, barnstorming California to preach the gospel of unity when the nation had split apart and secessionist feeling here was high as well.
Politicians, however, are nothing if not fickle in their affections. So it was that last week the California Legislature, at the behest of a Republican lawmaker, dec
Source: US News & World Report
August 27, 2006
Vice President Dick Cheney is finally getting the book-length biography treatment-and he's playing along. We hear that the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes is hot on the case and plans to publish a bio titled, naturally enough, Cheney as early as next spring. "I'm not a historian," Hayes fesses up. "I approached it like a long magazine article." A very long article, considering Cheney's been in the public eye for some five decades. "It's a pretty unique perspective of Ame
Source: AP
September 5, 2006
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is drawing a parallel between the Iraq war and the Civil War. Both had their critics but both were justified, she says.In both cases, it was the right decision to fight and see the wars through, Rice, who is black and is from Alabama, said in an interview with Essence Magazine.
Asked if she still thought the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was right, considering the cost in lives and treasure, Rice said, "Absolutely
Source: CSM
September 6, 2006
Mention the name Bangalore, and sprawling high-tech campuses of a saffron-scented Silicon Valley come to mind. In short, "New India." By year's end, however, Bangalore could go the way of Bombay, changing its name from an international totem to a Jeopardy question. What is the city formerly known as Bangalore: Bengaluru. Or perhaps Bengalooru. The trend that began vexing cartographers a decade ago when Bombay became Mumbai, Madras became Chennai, and Calcutta beca
Source: BBC
September 6, 2006
Scientists think they can now write a reasonably comprehensive history of the occupation of the British Isles.
It stretches from 700,000 years ago and the first known settlers at Pakefield in Suffolk, through to the most recent incomers just 12,000 years or so ago. The evidence comes from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project.
This five-year undertaking by some of the UK's leading palaeo-experts has reassessed a mass of scientific data and
Source: NYT
September 6, 2006
The present has a way of changing the way that historians think about the past. The trauma of Sept. 11, 2001, is likely to be no exception: Five years after the attacks on New York and Washington, many historians say 9/11 and its aftermath are leaving their mark on how American history is written and taught.American history is being studied less as the story of a neatly packaged nation state and more in a global context, as part of something much larger, many historians say.
Source: WaPo
September 4, 2006
German spies hid messages in drawings of models wearing the latest fashions in an attempt to outwit Allied censors during World War II, according to British security service files.Nazi agents relayed sensitive military information using the dots and dashes of Morse code incorporated in the drawings. But British secret service officials were aware of the ruse and issued censors with a code-breaking guide to intercept them.
The book -- part of a batch of British s
Source: Washington Post
September 3, 2006
They were known as the "20 and odd," the first African slaves to set foot in North America at the English colony settled in 1607. For nearly 400 years, historians believed they were transported to Virginia from the West Indies on a Dutch warship. Little else was known of the Africans, who left no trace.
Now, new scholarship and transatlantic detective work have solved the puzzle of who they were and where their forced journey across the Atlantic Ocean began.
Source: AP
September 2, 2006
Oscar the Grouch probably won't be happy about his next home: a cold, dark box that is far from "Sesame Street" and his beloved trash can.
The furry puppet, created by Jim Henson and used on television in the 1970s and 1980s, is among tens of thousands of exhibits and artifacts that will be carefully stored as the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History prepares for a massive, two-year renovation.The museum closes Tuesday, and it has been buz
Source: LA Times
September 1, 2006
Linda Farnsworth picked her way across a field of loose rocks, down a steep slope under the overhang of sandstone cliffs. The archaeologist stopped at the remains of a low stone retaining wall and searched briefly until she found the series of backfilled holes — where looters had rooted around a remote kiva site for highly prized black and white Anasazi pots, tools and other prehistoric objects.Although Farnsworth and other officials of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, wh
Source: NYT
September 3, 2006
A 20th century pejorative worked its way into 21st century politics last week. Appeasement as an attack phrase was back in vogue.
Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld invoked the term in speeches to veterans, a not-so-subliminal effort to liken critics of President Bush’s Iraq policy to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who disastrously tried to reason with Hitler in Munich in 1938.
In Mr. Rumsfeld’s words, Mr. Bush’s crit
Source: David Greenberg in the NYT
September 3, 2006
IT was 1946. President Harry S. Truman was having a bad year. Never able to fill the shoes of Franklin D. Roosevelt, he endured ridicule in the press for his rough manners and political blunders. There were new economic worries: 10 million returning servicemen seeking jobs and homes; shortages of meat, coffee and tires; some 4.5 million autoworkers, steelworkers and others on strike. Republicans began to charge Democrats with having coddled Communists. Truman’s approval ratings barely cleared 30
Source: History Carnival (blog)
September 1, 2006
The 38th edition of the History Carnival, the leading roundup of history blogging, is at Frog in a Well: Japan. The twice-monthly History Carnival is a always looking for new material, and is also looking for hosts from November 1st on.
Source: NYT
September 1, 2006
BEIJING, Aug. 31 — When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.
Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence
Source: AP
August 31, 2006
President Bush on Thursday predicted victory in the war on terror at a time of increasing public anxiety at home, likening the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism with the fight against Nazis and communists.“As veterans you have seen this kind of enemy before,” Bush said. “They are successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be.
“This war will be difficult. This war will
