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: CRIENGLISH.com
April 1, 2006
A visit to China by a US table tennis delegation in 1971 is known for thawing the confrontation between China and the United States and helping to establish the relationship between the two countries. 35 years later, members of the original team have revisited China to relive memories of their first trip to China and open a new page in the history of Sino-US friendship. Liu Wei has more.
Source: NYT
April 1, 2006
Some of the biggest names in documentary filmmaking have denounced a recent agreement between the Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks Inc. that they say restricts makers of films and television shows using Smithsonian materials from offering their work to public television or other non-Showtime broadcast outlets.Ken Burns, whose documentaries "The Civil War" and "Baseball" have become classics of the form, said in an interview yester
Source: AP
April 1, 2006
John W. Dean, Richard Nixon's White House lawyer, told senators Friday that President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss.
Bush, Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee, should be censured and possibly impeached.''Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented,'' Dean said. ''Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more seri
Source: Times (UK)
April 1, 2006
The iconic American firearm known as “The Gun that Won the West”--the Winchester--featured in so many Hollywood Westerns, is now riding off into the sunset for good.
Workers at the factory that produced the quintessential cowboy rifle for 140 years were laid off this week amid howls of protest from gun-lovers around the world, and the plant closed yesterday. “John Wayne and so many actors carried a Winchester: They didn’t say: ‘Hand me my rifle’. They said: ‘Hand me my Winchester’,
Source: Canada.com
March 30, 2006
A flophouse bathtub James Earl Ray stood in to shoot Martin Luther King has been sold to an online casino for $7,600, the tub's owner said Thursday.
The auction on eBay began March 20 and ended Thursday afternoon with Golden Palace Casino placing the winning bid, said D'Army Bailey, a Memphis judge who owned the tub. Golden Palace has bought numerous historical or noteworthy artifacts for a travelling display. On Thursday, its website touted its pur
Source: Wa Po
March 26, 2006
Desmond T. Doss Sr., 87, an Army medic on Okinawa during World War II who saved more than 75 wounded soldiers at great personal peril and became the first conscientious objector to the receive the Medal of Honor, died March 23 at his home in Piedmont, Ala. He had a respiratory ailment.
Mr. Doss was one of only two conscientious objectors to receive the Medal of Honor. Thomas W. Bennett, who was an Army corporal and medical aidman during the Vietnam War, also received the medal, acco
Source: Wa Po
March 31, 2006
(Marylander Says a New Short Film Distorts Facts of His Small Role in WWII History)
For Thomas E. Jones, the last day of World War II offered, quite literally, 15 minutes of fame. Now, six decades later, the Montgomery County resident has received an unwanted 16 minutes more.
The new short movie "The Messenger," directed by Florida filmmaker Quincy Perkins, purports to tell the story of Jones's brush with U.S. history on the afternoon of Aug. 14, 1945. But Jon
Source: BBC
April 1, 2006
A Polish businessman has bought the former family home of Pope John Paul II and donated it to the Catholic Church.
The Church had wanted to buy the 19th Century property but had been unable to afford the hefty price tag. John Paul II was born and grew up in the three-storey townhouse in the southern Polish town of Wadowice.
The announcement of the sale comes ahead of nationwide events to commemorate the first anniversary of his death.
Source: NYT
March 31, 2006
A recent deal between the Smithsonian Institution and the Showtime Networks cable channels has some documentary filmmakers, historians and researchers concerned that their access to the collections and curators of the Smithsonian could be limited or cut off.This month, Showtime and the Smithsonian announced the formation of Smithsonian Networks, a joint venture to create television programming, including documentaries and short films, that draws on the Smithsonia
Source: NBC5.com
March 31, 2006
An Iraqi ministry has claimed that United States forces are damaging the ancient city of Kish and must withdraw from the 5,000-year-old archaeological site.
The Ministry of State for Tourism and Antiquities Affairs said in a statement that U.S. forces had set up a camp in Kish, near Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.The U.S. military was preventing anyone from entering the important archaeological site to assess the damage, which was not specified, the sta
Source: Discovery News
March 31, 2006
The marble head of an Amazon warrior woman has emerged from Vesuvius' volcanic rock with her make up still on, archaeologists announced this week.
Buried by the eruption that nearly 2,000 years ago covered Pompeii and the nearby towns of Herculaneum and Stabiae with nine to 20 feet of hot ash and pumice, the painted marble bust was found in a collapsed escarpment near Herculaneum's Basilica.
Source: Wa Po
March 30, 2006
Today, with the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown little more than a year away, historians, archaeologists, researchers and others are revisiting those earliest days of the English colonization of America, uncovering new information, reconsidering long-held assumptions and broadening our understanding of the individuals, the places and the events. One of the best ways you can immerse yourself in the still-unfolding history of early 17th-century Virginia -- and explore the natural be
Source: BBC News
March 31, 2006
Prosecutors have filed charges against Poland's last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, over his imposition of martial law in 1981. Charges were laid by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a body that investigates Nazi- and communist-era crimes. Gen Jaruzelski imposed martial law to halt the activities of the Solidarity trade union, led by Lech Walesa.
Gen Jaruzelski has said he expects to go on trial soon.
I
Source: Center for History and New Media (George Mason University)
March 30, 2006
A bunch of us at George Mason University's Center for History and New Media have quickly put together this exciting new website.We saw a little populist history in the making and got quickly to work. Now, fans, students, and even the players are becoming a part of history by putting their memories of this amazing run to the Final Four online. Fans around the world are already visiting and seeing pictures, stories, and living history about this basketball event.
Join in and submit your own
Source: BBC
March 31, 2006
Poland wants the official name of Auschwitz-Birkenau changed to remind the world that the death camp was built and run by Nazi Germany.
The government in Warsaw is anxious that the grim history of the Auschwitz site, listed as a Unesco world heritage site, is not linked to Poles or Poland. Poland wants Unesco to change the official name to "Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau".
More than a million people, almost all
Source: BBC News
March 30, 2006
A rare book of Shakespeare's plays, considered to be one of the most important in British literature, is to be auctioned at Sotheby's in London. The complete first folio of the playwright's work had a print run of approximately 750 in 1623. However, only a third of these survive and most of them are incomplete.
The book is being sold by Dr Williams's Theological Library in London, which hopes the proceeds - expected to be more than £3m - will secure
Source: Ansa.it
March 28, 2006
The tablets bear around 500 engravings of a literary and historical nature, according to team leader Silvia Chiodi .
"This is an an exceptional find," she said, noting that the area in question had previously only yielded prehistoric artefacts .
Source: Kathimerini
March 30, 2006
A country of amazing archaeological wealth that is both a blessing and a curse, Greece has sought for decades to keep its antiquities out of the hands of smugglers.
But even as pressure grows on museums in Europe and the United States to return disputed objects to their countries of origin, police in Greece warn that the looting of ancient sites shows no sign of abating.“It’s a complete free-for-all, the situation is very hard to control,” says Georg
Source: USA Today
March 30, 2006
It's Friday date night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Great Hall is jammed with swirling crowds meeting for music, drinks, fine cuisine, even a little art-viewing.
Only steps away from the revelry, the Greek and Roman Art galleries are as hushed as a church and almost as empty, except for the guard standing next to a single display case holding a large painted pot. (Related story: Countries fight for disputed items)
Now and then, someone approaches to peer
Source: AP
March 30, 2006
Civil rights icon Rosa Parks and hundreds of other victims of segregation-era arrests would be pardoned -- but not forgotten -- under a bill passed unanimously by the Alabama House on Thursday.The bill was amended to say that the arrest records would not be expunged or sealed from public view, but would be turned over to the state Department of Archives and History.
That way, the records will provide a permanent record of civil disobedience that, in many c
