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: Catholic World News
April 13, 2006
Pope Pius XII was aware of Hitler's plan to kidnap him, and prepared a letter of resignation to take effect if he was captured by the Nazis, according to the author of a new German book on the wartime Pontiff.The authors of the new book, Werner Kaltefleiter and Hans Peter Oschwald, say that Pope Pius had signed the resignation letter, stipulating that he would revert to the status of a cardinal if he was taken hostage, the Italian ANSA news agency reports. Excerpts from thei
Source: movie website
April 12, 2006
The film, “Sir, No Sir!” which opens this week at the IFC Center in New York, April 19-25th, is being promoted by anti-war historians. One circulating email asks New Yorkers to come out in great numbers to see the film so that theater owners in the heartland will be encouraged to book it.Jerry Lembcke writes:
This new documentary about the Vietnam-era GI anti-war movement deserves support. It's already gotten good reviews (e.g."Variety") and wo
Source: NYT
April 13, 2006
When the National Geographic Society announced to great fanfare last week that it had gained access to a 1,700-year-old document known as the Gospel of Judas, it described how a deteriorating manuscript, unearthed in Egypt three decades ago, had made its way through the shady alleys of the antiquities market to a safe-deposit box on Long Island and eventually to a Swiss art dealer who "rescued" it from obscurity.But there is even more to the story.
Source: Wa Po
April 12, 2006
The National Museum of American History will close for almost two years, the Smithsonian Institution announced this morning. The shutdown will allow the museum -- keeper of items ranging from the gunboat Philadelphia to Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers -- to build a new gallery for the Star-Spangled Banner and overhaul and update the building's interior.
The 42-year-old museum, the largest history museum in the country and the third most popular of the Smithsonian's museums, will close o
Source: Christian Science Monitor
April 13, 2006
David Levine's iPod is filled with exactly 4,768 songs, including a handful of tunes by turn-of-the-century pop stars with names like Anna Chandler, Will F. Denny, and Harry Lauder.
If they don't sound familiar, don't worry. You're not out of touch. The fact is that these singers haven't been big for about 100 years.
Mr. Levine and other music fans are listening to long-forgotten pop music - along with 1900-era performances and speeches - thanks to a landmark effort to prese
Source: scotsman.com
April 11, 2006
COST-CUTTING plans to close museums and galleries in Glasgow have been dropped after a local property developer donated more than quarter of a million to help keep them open.
In February, local officials decided that, as of mid-April, seven of Glasgow's biggest museums and galleries would have to close on Monday, partly as a cost-saving measure and to fund a scheme to give all Glasgow school pupils at least one museum visit and theatre experience every year.
Source: BBC
April 11, 2006
Teenagers in east London are forming their own brand of English and pushing out traditional Cockney slang, according to language experts.
A study by Sue Fox, from London's Queen Mary's College, found words such as "nang" - meaning good - were commonly used by youths in inner London.
Ms Fox said this "Multicultural London English" was influenced by a variety of languages such as Bengali.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
April 11, 2006
The University of Missouri’s School of Law is trying to award an honorary degree to a black man whom it rejected in the days of legal segregation but whose victory in a U.S. Supreme Court case paved the way for Brown v. Board of Education. According to the Associated Press, Lloyd Gaines will receive an honorary degree, to right a 70-year-old injustice, if the university can find a way to bypass a rule forbidding the awarding of such degrees posthumously.
Source: Seattle PI
April 11, 2006
VISOKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Restaurants serving meals in triangle-shaped plates. Artisans crafting wooden key-chains in the shape of pyramids. Shopkeepers hawking T-shirts saying "I have a pyramid in my backyard."
Pyramid-mania has taken hold of this small Bosnian town as residents seek to cash in on claims by an archaeologist that it may host Europe's only ancient pyramid.
"Our expectation are high. This could be our oil well," Vehab Halilovic, wh
Source: Port Folio Weekly
April 11, 2006
"In her previous life, she was a warrior," proclaims a Mariner’s Museum ad. "Now she’s an icon." A second poster reads, "Umbrella drinks and shuffleboard on the lido deck? Hardly."
The catchy phrases are part of the museum’s new national marketing campaign for the USS Monitor Center, a $30 million project scheduled for opening March 9, 2007 — one hundred forty five years after the Civil War ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia battled each other in Ha
Source: 24dash.com
April 12, 2006
A young archaeology enthusiast has told how he spent £32,000 on a plot of land to discover if local legend was true and a medieval village lay underneath.
Stuart Wilson had to dig deep and borrow most of the money to buy the four acres in Monmouthshire, south Wales.So the 27-year-old archaeology graduate was delighted when his suspicions were confirmed with the discovery of four significant buildings and the promise of many more finds to come.
Source: The Washington Post
April 12, 2006
The National Archives helped keep secret a multi-year effort by the Air Force, the CIA and other federal agencies to withdraw thousands of historical documents from public access on Archives shelves, even though the records had been declassified.
In a 2002 memorandum, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and released yesterday by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research library housed at George Washington University, Archives officials agreed to help pull
Source: The Daily Telegraph
April 12, 2006
THE president of Austria has become the country's first head of state to admit that a large number of its citizens welcomed Adolf Hitler with open arms when the dictator annexed the country.
Heinz Fischer said that a "not inconsiderable portion of the population'' greeted the Anschluss or annexation in 1938 with "euphoria'', despite knowing that "Hitler meant war''. In addition many had celebrated Hitler's initial military successes, he said.
Surveys show
Source: The Baltimore Sun
April 12, 2006
One of the last remnants of the southeastern Baltimore County battlefield where American troops fought off British invaders in the War of 1812 is in line to be preserved.
Next month, the state Board of Public Works is expected to approve the purchase of nearly 9 acres of undeveloped land on North Point Road near Trappe Road, where British and American troops met in 1814 for the Battle of North Point.The Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit land preservation
Source: Reuters
April 12, 2006
Japan's envoy to Hong Kong said on Wednesday it was inappropriate to make solving thorny historical issues a precondition to improving Sino-Japanese ties, and hoped Chinese textbooks could give Japan a more balanced treatment. Japanese Consul-General Takanori Kitamura also said China's economic might and fast-growing military expenditures posed big question for Beijing and others in the region.
"We need to handle the history issue carefully, but I find it i
Source: Netscape News
April 12, 2006
This month Mexico's government will present a report on an era of government brutality from the 1960s to the 1980s, based on investigations two dozen sociologists, anthropologists, historians and rights experts.They fanned out across the country during the past few years to take testimony, visit mass graves and pore over long-secret papers. Their report will be Mexico's first public document of its kind.
Dirty war prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo says it will detail
Source: AP
April 11, 2006
Any father of a headstrong 14-year-old girl
might recognize the words:"Just leave me alone, if you don't want me to
stop trusting you for good." The furious letter from Anne Frank to her
father, Otto, was written nearly two years after the Frank family locked
itself into a concealed apartment to escape deportation by the Nazi army
occupying the Netherlands.
Never displayed before, the two-page letter in Anne's careful script is
part of an exhibition of letters, postcards and fa
Source: The Guardian
April 11, 2006
More than three decades after the last commemoration of the 1916 Easter Uprising, the Republic of Ireland is again preparing to mark the pivotal moment in its history. Commemorative stamps are being issued. There will be fly-pasts by the air corps and the Proclamation, declaring the nation's independence from Britain, will be read outside the General Post Office on Dublin's O'Connell Street. Even the British ambassador, Stewart Eldon, has signalled his intention to attend.
Ninetieth
Source: The Gazette
April 11, 2006
In Algeria, the good news is that citizens no longer live in fear of being butchered by Islamist militants at makeshift roadblocks, or of being "disappeared" by hooded policemen who break down their front doors. The national treasury, heavily indebted a decade ago, is awash with petrodollars.
You might expect these trends to auger more openness and democracy. But after turning the corner on a conflict between government forces and Islamist rebels that since 1992 claimed mo
Source: Yahoo News
April 11, 2006
The National Archives agreed to seal previously public CIA and Pentagon records and to keep silent about U.S. intelligence's role in the reclassification, according to an agreement released under the Freedom of Information Act.The 2002 agreement, requested three years ago by The Associated Press and released this week, shows archivists were concerned about reclassifying previously available documents — many of them more than 50 years old — but nonetheless agreed to keep mum.
