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: eureka alert
May 17, 2006
In approximately 1550 B.C., Egypt conquered its southern neighbor, ancient Nubia, and secured control of valuable trade routes. But rather than excluding the colonized people from management of the region, new evidence from an archaeological site on the Nile reveals that Egyptian immigrants shared administrative responsibilities for ruling this large province with native Nubians.
"The study of culture contact in the past has conventionally used ideas of unidirectional change a
Source: ansa.it
May 16, 2006
Rome, May 16 - The Tuscans' proud claim to be the descendants of the ancient Etruscans has taken a knock .
A DNA comparison of Etruscan skeletons and a sample of living Tuscans has thrown up only "tenuous genetic similarities", said lead researcher Guido Barbujani of Ferrara University .
"If the Tuscans were the direct descendants of the Etruscans the DNA should be the same," said Barbujani, a genetecist who coordinated the study with Stanford Univer
Source: Press Release
May 17, 2006
NewspaperARCHIVE.com, the largest online newspaper database, has just released RonaldReaganArchive.com.
This free site tells the story of Reagan's life as an actor in Hollywood, his role as governor of California and president of the United States through more than 45,000 original newspaper pages.
Source: Yahoo News
May 17, 2006
India's government have rejected a panel's findings that the country's fiery freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose survived a 1945 plane crash in Taiwan.
The government's move is likely to spur a fresh debate on a long-running controversy over the mysterious disappearance of the independence leader, popularly known as "Netaji".A report by a panel released last year had concluded that Bose had not died in the plane accident. The report also said ashes lying in
Source: BBC
May 17, 2006
The long-lost manuscript belonging to pioneering scientist Robert Hooke has returned to the Royal Society. The hand-written notes are thought to contain a "treasure trove" of information about the early endeavours of the UK's academy of science. A digitised version of the notes will eventually be available on the web.
The document, which had lain hidden in a house in Hampshire, was rescued from a public auction after a fundraising effort pulled in the
Source: NYT
May 17, 2006
WEIMAR It would be hard to say whether, in her work of acquiring old literary treasures, there are more thrills or more disappointments for Katja Lorenz. For she has the seemingly enviable, but sometimes not so enviable, job of using somebody else's money to buy first editions of late Renaissance and Enlightenment classics.
Certainly, it was a wonderful success a few months ago when for a mere 5,900 euros (about $7,500), she purchased a pristine copy of "A Natural History of Bi
Source: NYT
May 17, 2006
There are now nearly 200,000 ethnic Vietnamese in Orange County, most of them living around the cluster of towns known as Little Saigon, 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Like other communities of immigrant refugees, Little Saigon seethes with feuds and factions.
In the intense early years, five Vietnamese-American journalists were killed in the United States, apparently by a radical anti-communist group. Mr. Do chose not to visit his mother in Vietnam before she died, fearing repr
Source: NYT
May 17, 2006
Lou Carrol, an unknown traveling salesman from Texas whose spontaneous act of generosity one summer day in 1952 — packing a puppy into a crate and shipping it to two little girls in Washington named Tricia and Julie — has been credited with altering the course of American history, died on April 3 in Highland Park, Ill. He was 83 and lived in Barrington Hills, Ill.
Mr. Carrol's death, which was made widely public only recently, was reported by the Solimine Funeral Home, in Lynn, Mass
Source: NYT
May 16, 2006
The headline news from President Bush's immigration speech on Monday was troops to the border, but in substance and tone the address reflected the more subtle approach of a man shaped by Texas border-state politics and longtime personal views.
In an effort to placate conservatives, Mr. Bush talked tough about cracking down on immigrants who slip across the United States' long border with Mexico.
But the real theme of his speech was that the nation can be, as he phrased
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 16, 2006
Ward Churchill committed multiple, “deliberate” acts of academic misconduct, according to a review by a faculty panel, released today by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
While the panel was unanimous in its findings about Churchill’s conduct, it was divided about whether he should lose his tenured position as professor — as politicians and many others have been demanding for more than a year. Three of the panel’s five members believe that the violations of academic standards a
Source: MSNBC
May 16, 2006
As younger, inexperienced teachers are thrown into classrooms to meet new federal standards, as much as 90 percent of the burden of instruction rests on textbooks, said Frank Wang, a former textbook publisher who left the field to teach mathematics at the University of Oklahoma.
And yet, few if any textbooks are ever subjected to independent field testing of whether they actually help students learn.
“This is where people miss the boat. They don’t realize how importan
Source: CNN
May 16, 2006
A female mummy with complex tattoos on her arms has been found in a ceremonial burial site in Peru, the National Geographic Society reported Tuesday.
The mummy was accompanied by ceremonial items including jewelry and weapons, and the remains of a teenage girl who had been sacrificed, archaeologists reported.
The burial was at a site called El Brujo on Peru's north coast near Trujillo.
They said the woman was part of the Moche culture, which thrived in the
Source: CBS
May 16, 2006
Millions of Nazi files that describe the mechanics of mass murder were a step closer to being opened to researchers following an agreement Tuesday by an 11-nation panel that has kept the archive locked away since World War II, officials said.
But first the draft must be signed by government ministers in Berlin — a date has not been set — and be sent back to the countries for ratification, said Paul Mertz, the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry official who is the chairman of the commissio
Source: UPI
May 15, 2006
With four more hulks spotted, Rhode Island can boast it has the world's "largest fleet of Revolutionary shipwrecks," a maritime expert says.
A recent find brings to six the number of historic sea wrecks dating back to the Revolutionary War found by the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project in its search for relics in Newport Harbor.
Project director D.K. Abbass told the Providence Journal the ships are believed to be part of a private fleet of 13 British t
Source: NBC17.com
May 16, 2006
ATLANTIC BEACH, N.C. -- Underwater archaeologists plan to raise a cannon Wednesday from what's presumed to be the pirate Blackbeard's sunken flagship and put it on display -- for an hour.
"If you don't see it then, you won't see it for awhile," said Mark Wilde-Ramsing, project director for the Queen Anne's Revenge Project.
The public can get a glimpse of the cannon from noon to 1 p.m. at Fort Macon State Park.
Source: Cultural Heritage News Agency
May 15, 2006
Tehran, 15 May 2006 (CHN) -- Iran-French joint archeology team at Bolaghi Gorge succeeded in discovering and identifying the remains of a gigantic palace, believed to be from the Achaemenid era (648 BC–330 BC), during their second season of excavations in the area.
“Before the start of this season of excavations, our geophysical tests in area number 33 of Bolaghi Gorge had revealed to us the possible existence of a huge building near the Sivand Dam. Clay artifacts found in this area
Source: BBC
May 16, 2006
The SS Nomadic, the last of the White Star ships and a vital link to the Titanic story, will return to Belfast in July.
The Northern Ireland Office bought the ship at an auction in Paris for £171,320 in January.
Social Development Minister David Hanson said a submersible barge will be used to bring the ship home.
He said this would present "the least risk to successfully transporting the 95-year old vessel".
Source: BBC
May 16, 2006
A letter written by former prime minister Stanley Baldwin where he pays tribute to Hitler as "a remarkable man" is to go on sale at auction next month.
Baldwin wrote in glowing terms about the German leader to a friend in 1936, talking of his "great achievements", three years before World War II.
The letter, from the MP for Bewdley, Worcestershire, will be auctioned at Ludlow Racecourse, Shropshire.
Baldwin was prime minister three times be
Source: BBC
May 16, 2007
About 250 passengers and crew were stranded on ferries after a bomb was discovered in the River Mersey.
The 500kg (1,102lb) World War II explosive was found by the Royal Navy at Twelve Quays dock, Birkenhead.
The Mersey Viking and Dublin Viking were finally allowed to berth on Tuesday afternoon after waiting since the early hours of the morning.
Navy divers are moving the 7ft (2.1m) German penetration bomb out to deeper waters in the Irish Sea to detonate it.
Source: NYT Editorial
May 16, 2006
Turkey's self-destructive obsession with denying the Armenian genocide seems to have no limits. The Turks pulled out of a NATO exercise this week because the Canadian prime minister used the term "genocide" in reference to the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during and after World War I. Before that, the Turkish ambassador to France was temporarily recalled to protest a French bill that would make it illegal to deny that the Armenian genocide occurred. And before that, a leading T
