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: Loudon-Times Mirror
May 9, 2006
The National Register of Historic Places offers a "Journey Through Hallowed Ground" using U.S. 15 (with a few miles of Virginia Route 20) to connect Gettysburg, Pa., with Charlottesville, thus linking the historic Civil War battlefield with Monticello, the plantation of Thomas Jefferson. On the way, travelers may investigate other historic battlefields, such as Monocacy, Md.; Antietam, Md.; Harpers Ferry, W.Va.; Boonsboro, Md.; Bull Run at Manassas; Cedar Mou
Source: Boston Globe
May 13, 2006
They are often called the ''forgotten Jews" of Greater Boston, the families of immigrants who left Central and Eastern Europe beginning in the mid-19th century to create bustling, thriving enclaves near the mouth of the Mystic River.
Their legacy as one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the United States has never been chronicled, historians say. But that void in Jewish history is expected to change, thanks to an ambitious proposal to transform the crumbling, unused cha
Source: The Washington Post
May 16, 2006
He may have been born in Genoa, but he wrote in indifferent Latin or in good Spanish -- never in Italian. He had French connections, married a Portuguese woman, may have been Jewish, may have lived in Catalonia and died May 20, 500 years ago this week, in the Spanish city of Valladolid.
To commemorate this event, researchers led by Spanish forensic pathologist José Antonio Lorente Acosta are comparing the DNA of Columbus's illegitimate son, Fernando, with DNA from hundreds of possib
Source: NYT
May 14, 2006
Sheila Kuehl has done a few things that someday may merit mention in the history books: more than a decade in the California Legislature, a public crusade against domestic violence and a stint as the tenacious busybody Zelda on the classic sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."
But if such immortality were to happen, Ms. Kuehl says, she would want one fact listed with the rest of her accomplishments: she is gay.
So this year, Ms. Kuehl, a state senator rep
Source: H-Net
August 14, 2006
H-Empire seeks to bring together scholars and others interested in sharing resources, research and questions concerning the origin, development, working and decline of empires, rather broadly defined across academic disciplines and professional interests, chronological time periods, and geographical regions. Topics could range from the politics of the early-modern Ottoman Empire to the literature of nineteenth-century British Inida, from questions of theory concerning postcolonialism to question
Source: NYT
May 11, 2006
In recent months a floodlet of books has been published about President Bush, his administration and the war in Iraq. They range widely in perspective: there are books by reporters, by administration insiders and by counterterrorism and economic experts; books with conservative, liberal and nonpartisan points of view; books that offer a wide-angle window on the administration; and books that zero in on particular aspects of the war in Iraq.
Yet taken together with earlier volumes, t
Source: NYT
May 7, 2006
In his NYT Book Review of A G-Man's Life, John Dean says the book is "weak biography or autobiography" (it was written by Mark Felt and John W. O'Connor) and "is even worse history."
Source: Wa Po
May 11, 2006
The country has John G. Roberts Jr. as its newest chief justice. What it doesn't have is an answer to the mystery of the missing file of his work papers on affirmative action.
The file, compiled during Roberts's tenure as an associate counsel in the Reagan White House, vanished in July when lawyers from the Bush administration were reviewing the materials at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., as part of a vetting process before Roberts's formal nomination
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 12, 2006
One of Britain's two major faculty unions — the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education — is getting ready to vote on a resolution that would call on members to consider staying away from Israeli colleges or professors unless they specifically oppose a series of policies opposed by the union. The proposal has reignited tensions over anti-Israel boycotts that became quite intense last year when the other major union in British academe started its own boycott and then call
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 12, 2006
Ward Churchill’s lawyers are threatening to sue the University of Colorado at Boulder if it goes through with an additional investigation of the controversial professor, The Rocky Mountain News reported. A faculty panel is expected to release findings next week on a series of misconduct charges against Churchill. But new research misconduct charges have surfaced, and Boulder is getting ready to look into those as well.
Source: Phyllis McClure in the newsletter of the Education Gadfly
May 11, 2006
HIGHLIGHT: Federal officials have found that every state they checked considered middle and high school history teachers highly qualified if they were licensed in the field of social studies rather than in history itself, as the law demands. [Phyllis McClure, an independent researcher, tracks implementation of No Child Left Behind for the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights.]
NCLB requires all states, at the end of the current school year, to prove that t
Source: BBC
May 11, 2006
Neolithic man, thought to be the world's first farmer, was not as peaceful as previously thought, new research has suggested.
A study of remains kept in UK museums found neolithic man ran a one-in-14 chance of getting a cracked skull.
Archaeologist Dr Rick Schulting from Queen's University, Belfast said 350 skulls dated between 4000 and 3200 BC from southern England were examined.
He said the study "challenged" the myth of neolithic man being peacefu
Source: NYT
May 10, 2006
The last piece of the World Trade Center still standing aboveground — a battered but recognizable staircase used by hundreds to flee the inferno of 9/11 — is one of the most endangered historical places in America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation said yesterday.That is because it stands in the way of an office tower designed by Norman Foster of London and planned by Larry A. Silverstein, president of Silverstein Properties.
"Silvers
Source: LiveScience.com
May 4, 2006
It's either one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of our time, or man has made a giant pyramid out of a molehill.
In the wake of recent news that evidence of colossal pyramids had been found in the small Bosnian town of Visoko, many in the archaeological community are speaking out and dismissing both the discovery and the man who made it, businessman Semir Osmanagic.
Some critics have gone as far as to call the pyramid an absurd publicity stunt.
But Osmanagic stands by his claim."Th
Source: El Defensor Chieftain (NM)
May 10, 2006
A New Mexico archeologist told an audience at First Baptist Church on Sunday night that he believes he has found the biblical city of Sodom. According to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, God destroyed the city with fire and brimstone because of the inhabitants' evil behavior.
Steven Collins, dean of the College of Archaeology and Biblical History at Albuquerque's Trinity Southwest University, and his group spent several weeks last winter excavating Tall el-Hammam, a site in Jordan
Source: Wa Po
May 11, 2006
The Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building, the second oldest structure on the Mall and a national landmark, was named an endangered historic place yesterday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Designed by architect Adolf Cluss and built between 1879 and 1881, the building was the Smithsonian's first museum. The building has served many purposes. It was at one time the home of the Star-Spangled Banner. It also housed a popular children's theater. President James Gar
Source: Christian Science Monitor
May 11, 2006
If you've kept up with the publishing industry lately, you've heard of Kaavya Viswanathan. The Harvard sophomore got a $500,000 advance from publishing firm Little, Brown, and Co. for her book, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life." But her own life took a sour turn after she was accused of copying several passages of her novel either directly or indirectly from books by Megan McCafferty, Sophie Kinsella, Meg Cabot, and Salman Rushdie. It's the most high-profile accusat
Source: BBC
May 11, 2006
BERLIN A film about the old East German secret police has been making headlines in Germany after an actor alleged in an accompanying book that his former wife was a real-life Stasi informer. Hundreds of thousands of people have come to search the old Stasi files in the last 15 years to find out that their friends, neighbours or even family members had been secret police informers.
Now, one of these cases is dominating the German media an
Source: Knight Ridder
May 10, 2006
Photographers for the old Soviet TASS news agency labored under censors and government demands that their work promote official ideology. But they also enjoyed prestige and privileged access as they chronicled seven decades of the remarkable and the mundane.
Now directors of the successor ITAR-TASS agency lament that much of the vast archive of more than 1 million photos sits in wooden filing cabinets in the agency's dilapidated headquarters, with no plans and no money to dig
Source: Yahoo
May 11, 2006
An Indian archaeologist is praying for a respite from a heat wave engulfing the Taj Mahal town of Agra, warning that heavy dust in the dry air could permanently scar the marble monument to love.
Temperatures hovered this week at 45 Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) in the city, 200 kilometres (124 miles) south of New Delhi, as a heat wave that has killed 60 people nationwide in the past week dragged on.
The Yamuna River, which runs behind the 17th-century white Mughal t
