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: AP
May 2, 2006
Thirty-three percent of respondents couldn't pinpoint Louisiana on a map.
Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
Two-thirds didn't know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.
Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.After more than three ye
Source: Press Release -- Siena Research Institute (SRI)
May 1, 2006
At a time when President Bush’s public opinion polls are at an all time low, eight in ten history and political science professors rank President George W. Bush “below average” or “failure,” according to a new expert opinion poll by the Siena College Research Institute (SRI) released today. Furthermore, more than two-thirds of those surveyed think the President has no realistic chance of improving his rating.The findings are the result of an expert opinion poll,
Source: CBS News
April 30, 2006
Since it was published three years ago, Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" has become one of the most popular novels of all time, with more than 30 million copies in print worldwide. With a major movie based on the book due out soon, the book seems assured of a place on the bestseller lists for a considerable time to come. What has attracted readers to "The Da Vinci Code" is its central theme, which Dan Brown claims is not fiction but fact — that a mysterious European society,
Source: NYT
May 2, 2006
Inscribed on Sumerian clay tablets more than 4,000 years ago, the Code of Ur-Nammu may be the earliest known recorded set of laws in the world: dozens of rules written in cuneiform about commerce and taxes, family law and inheritance.
But many scholars won't go near the one largely intact version of the code, and the top American journal of cuneiform research won't publish articles about it. The reason? The tablet was bought by a private Norwegian collector on the open market and do
Source: Jonathan Chait in the New Republic
May 1, 2006
The Hamilton Project is a group formed earlier this year by a gaggle of center-left economic worthies, including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, to promote Clintonesque policy alternatives. The adoption of Hamilton's name, and the inclusion of John Snow's infinitely better-regarded predecessor, seems to carry the implicit message that the country would be in better shape if it had a real Treasury secretary. It was all too much for Snow to bear. He quickly
Source: BBC
May 2, 2006
It's been called the project of the century: a mission to connect two continents with a $2.6bn rail-tunnel running deep beneath the Bosphorus Straits.
The idea of linking the two sides of Istanbul underwater was first dreamt of by Sultan Abdul Mecit 150 years ago.
Now that Ottoman dream is finally being realised.
But the modern version of that vision has hit a historical stumbling block.
Istanbul archaeologists have uncovered a 4th-Century port a
Source: Piottsburgh Post-Gazette
May 2, 2006
George Westinghouse IV greeted archaeologist Christine Davis with a handshake and a question: "Did you find the grave?"A startled look flashed over Davis' face. Last fall, she and her crew had done exploratory excavations on his great-grandfather's Point Breeze estate -- now Westinghouse Park -- and found a tantalizing array of artifacts, but no tombstones.
"What grave?" she ventured.
"Thomas Edison is buried in
Source: Reuters
May 2, 2006
SALAMINA, Greece (Reuters) - On a deserted green hill above the Aegean Sea, archeologists have unearthed what may be the palace of Ajax, one of the greatest heroes in Greek mythology.
From a rocky outcrop among the tranquil ruins, it is easy to imagine the warrior-king of Homer's Iliad setting sail from the island for Troy over 3,300 years ago, as crowds lined the pine-covered slopes to wave farewell.
The idyllic location on Salamina island perfectly matches historica
Source: USA Today
May 1, 2006
An international archaeology team has discovered a royal tomb hidden inside a Maya pyramid in Guatemala.
After clearing debris left by looters, project co-director Hector Escobedo of Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, uncovered the collapsed royal tomb last week at the Maya center of Waka, along with a student, Juan Carlos Melendez.
The tomb likely dates from 200 to 400 A.D., says project co-director David Freidel of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Source: CNN
April 28, 2006
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology took down a history course Web page after Chinese students complained about a 19th century wood-print image of Japanese soldiers beheading Chinese prisoners.
The complaints led to an apology from one of the professors teaching "Visualizing Cultures," which uses images from the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895.
The course was created by Pulitzer Prize-winning history professor John Dower and linguistics professor Shigeru
Source: Washington Times
April 29, 2006
Japan's government is stepping up pressure on North Korea to help resolve the fate of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents three decades ago, a senior Japanese official said yesterday.
Vice Foreign Minister Akiko Yamanaka said the Bush administration is strongly supporting Tokyo's efforts to find out what happened to the missing Japanese.
Mrs. Yamanaka and the mother of one of the abducted Japanese met with President Bush yesterday.
Mr. Bush voic
Source: Jonathan Dresner at HNN
May 1, 2006
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's Mao: The Unknown Storyis an international best-seller, unusual for a work of historical biography, and an aggressively revisionist history of Mao Zedong, unquestionably the single most important person in 20th century Chinese history. There have been quite a few reviews, positive and negative, and some
Source: Yahoo
April 28, 2006
A Ku Klux Klan group will rally on the Civil War battlefield where a Northern victory led President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
The National Park Service has issued a permit for a Klan demonstration June 10 on a farmstead at Anti-etam National Battlefield in western Maryland. The battle in 1862 remains the bloodiest day in U.S. history.The National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, demonstrated last year
Source: Louisville Courier-Journal
May 1, 2006
He's sculpted Louisville's 8-foot-tall statue of York, the slave who assisted the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and designed the acclaimed Spirit of Freedom memorial in Washington that honors the Civil War's black soldiers.
Now Louisville's Ed Hamilton is being courted for another artistic challenge: creating a $2 million memorial to Abraham Lincoln at Waterfront Park in time for the Great Emancipator's 200th birthday in 2009.
Source: Sioux City Journal
May 1, 2006
After years of legal wrangling, a federal judge has ordered the National Park Service to pay $4 million to the owners of an observation tower that once stood near Gettysburg National Military Park.
The federal government took the land by eminent domain in 2000 and demolished the steel structure as part of a campaign to restore the area to the way it looked during the Civil War.
"This is a tremendous relief for me, I don't even care about the money anymore," sa
Source: Daily Record
April 6, 2006
PEQUANNOCK -- Police are looking for vandals who damaged 57 headstones at graves in a cemetery that's more than 200 years old last weekend.
The graves at the cemetery date back to the 1700s and include veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, former slaves, a Medal of Honor recipient and other deceased Pequannock-area residents, local historians said.
Source: Guardian
April 30, 2006
Masterpieces snatched by Goering are returned to Jewish collector's family.For the moment, they are still on the walls or in the vaults. The Rembrandts, Van Dycks, Ruysdaels and Cranachs continue to draw visitors to Holland's greatest museums and galleries.
But not for much longer. Under a landmark ruling by the Dutch government, more than 200 pieces, including scores of major masterpieces tracked down by a team of top art detectives, will be stripped from cultural in
Source: Springfield Journal-Register
April 30, 2006
PETERSBURG - Archaeologists searching for more evidence of the first building Abraham Lincoln owned have unearthed a slate pencil, a hand-forged iron chain link, window and bottle glass, a shell button, pottery fragments and other items at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site."Finding that slate pencil was a real treat. It's as close as we're going to get to a Lincoln artifact," said Robert Mazrim, director of the Sangamo Archaeological Center in Elk
Source: Guardian
May 1, 2006
A dig into the rich past of a tiny isle in the Aegean archipelago could soon answer one of the riddles of prehistoric archaeology: why the remote outcrop produced so many of the flat-faced marble figurines that went on to inspire Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore.
Greek and British archaeologists hope their planned excavation will shed light on whether windswept Keros was a major sanctuary for the mysterious Cycladic civilisation 4,500 years ago. The tantalising suggestion that the unin
Source: physorg.com
May 1, 2006
Separated in history by 100 years, the seafaring Minoans of Crete and the mercantile Canaanites of northern Egypt and the Levant (a large area of the Middle East) at the eastern end of the Mediterranean were never considered trading partners at the start of the Late Bronze Age. Until now. Cultural links between the Aegean and Near Eastern civilizations will have to be reconsidered: A new Cornell University radiocarbon study of tree rings and seeds shows that the Santorini (o
