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: NYT
March 26, 2006
The discovery of a cache of cold war supplies inside the foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge has prompted an outpouring of interest from some historians and curators, but city officials are still at loss to explain how the supplies got there and for whom they were intended.
Workers found the stockpile of water drums, medical supplies, gauze bandages and bitter-tasting ration crackers in a cavernous masonry room under the bridge's main entrance ramp in Lower Manhattan, while performin
Source: NYT
March 27, 2006
The difference between Shiites and Sunnis is sometimes explained simply as a disagreement over who should have become the leader of the Muslim community after the Prophet Muhammad died nearly 1,400 years ago.But in Iraq, the divide goes beyond that, partly because of geography and partly because of history. With sectarian tensions rising, Iraqis are paying more attention to the little things that signal whether someone is Shiite or Sunni. None of the indicators are foo
Source: NYT
March 26, 2006
In working-class Parisian suburbs like this one, heavily populated by North African immigrants, the word "Jew" is now a standard epithet. It appears in graffiti on middle school walls and neighborhood playgrounds and on the tongues of the young.
"It's blacks and Arabs on one side and Jews on the other," said Sebastian Daranal, a young black man standing in the parking lot of a government-subsidized housing project with two friends.
Source: scotsman.com
March 23, 2006
DINOSAURS were most likely killed off because they never got a good night's sleep, scientists have claimed. Giant meteorites from outer space, fire storms, tidal waves and an ice age have all been suggested by experts to explain the demise of T-Rex and other giant dinosaurs.
However, the latest theory to explain their extinction claims they did not survive because their reptilian sleeping patterns meant their brains did not learn new skills properly
Source: Al-Ahram
March 23, 2006
A chance trick of the light has provided proof that the town of Al-Qasr in the Dakhla Oasis was once a Roman fortress. Jenny Jobbins witnessed the evidence. The town of Al-Qasr, otherwise known as Qasr Dakhla, lies in Dakhla Oasis deep in the Western Desert 450kms due west of Luxor. Despite its remote setting it has had a colourful history: Romans exploited the oasis for agricultural produce; Libyans, including the Sanusi, made conquering raids; and it was not fa
Source: Yahoo
March 24, 2006
Navy construction crews have unearthed a rare Spanish ship that was buried for centuries under sand on Pensacola's Naval Air Station, archaeologist confirmed Thursday. The vessel could date to the mid-1500s, when the first Spanish settlement in what is now the United States was founded here, the archaeologists said.
But the exposed portion looks more like ships from a later period because of its iron bolts, said Elizabeth Benchley, director of the Archaeol
Source: AP
March 25, 2006
Scientists in northeastern Ethiopia said Saturday that they have discovered the skull of a small human ancestor that could be a missing link between the extinct Homo erectus and modern man.
The hominid cranium -- found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old -- ''comes from a very significant period and is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human,'' said Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in E
Source: The Irish Times
March 25, 2006
The long shadow of East Germany's feared secret service, the Stasi, has once again fallen over Berlin, 16 years after its reign of terror ended.
A discussion in a former Stasi prison last week was disrupted by 200 former Stasi officers who dubbed their one-time victims "liars" and described the former prison, now a museum, as a phony "chamber of horrors"."I was shaking all over with fury," said Matthias Melster (39), who spent five
Source: NYT
March 24, 2006
The melting snow of the Sierra Nevada fell away from the airman inch by inch. He lay facedown, his hair thick and blond atop a crushed head. Last October, two hikers on the Darwin Glacier in California spotted a piece of cloth, moved closer and found him. His arms were spread as if in free fall. The parachute pack on his back read ''U.S. Army,'' and it was unopened. A military team arrived to cut him out, ice and all, and transported him to a remote laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu, w
Source: South China Morning Post
March 24, 2006
A historian has debunked the legend surrounding Britain's most distinguished war medal, saying the metal used to cast the Victoria Cross comes from two cannons captured in China, and not, as widely believed, from Russia.
John Glanfield, author of a recently published book that examines the origins of the Victoria Cross, says new evidence points to the cannons being captured by Anglo-French forces in a battle for the Taku forts near Tianjin in 1860, one of the last battles of the se
Source: South China Morning Post
March 24, 2006
Liu Gang, the owner of an ancient map he believes is a copy of an integrated world map by Ming dynasty explorer Zheng He (1371-1435), hit out yesterday at critics questioning the document's authenticity.
Mr Liu said the map had been subject to accelerator mass spectrometry dating in tests in Singapore and the results showed it was probably drawn between 1730 and 1800. He said his map was drawn by Mo Yitong in 1763 and was a copy of Zheng's 1418 map.
Also defending the map in
Source: AP
March 24, 2006
A man looks at photos of people who disappeared during the "Dirty War" in Argentina during an event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Argentine military coup, in Mexico City, Mexico on Mar. 24. At least 13,000 people are officially listed as disappeared or dead during the so-called "Dirty War" that right-wing military officers waged on leftists and other political dissidents after the coup. Human rights organizations put the toll of dead and missing at nearly 30,000.
Source: LA Times
March 23, 2006
John Evans is the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, as of this writing. But he probably won't be for long. Evans, a career diplomat who was selected to receive an American Foreign Service Assn. award last year for his frank public speaking, irked his superiors at the State Department by uttering the following words at UC Berkeley in February 2005: "I will today call it the Armenian genocide." For that bit of truth-telling, Evans was forced to issue a clarification, then a correction, then to
Source: NYT
March 24, 2006
They've battled in a British courtroom, and now Dan Brown and Michael Baigent are going to tangle again, Publishers Weekly reports. This time the arena is the bookstore, where the mass-market paperback version of Mr. Brown's best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" will make its debut on Tuesday. That happens to be the day when "The Jesus Papers," Mr. Baigent's examination of the life and crucifixion of Jesus, goes on sale. That book's publisher, Harper San
Source: BBC News
March 24, 2006
The Duchess of Cornwall has paid an emotional tribute at the graves of two of her father's World War II comrades who were killed at El Alamein, Egypt. Accompanied by the Prince of Wales, she laid flowers at the graves in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery.
"I've got a huge lump in my throat," Camilla said afterwards. Her father, Major Bruce Shand, was wounded and captured in the aftermath of the 1942 battle that claimed 23,500 UK and Com
Source: National Geographic News
March 23, 2006
Around 32,000 years ago, caves were prime real estate.
For early humans, the biggest competitors for such prehistoric housing may have been an extinct species of bear larger than the grizzly that lived in Europe during the last glacial period. Scientists know that Neandertals and cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) once used the same caves in southeastern France during the ice age (1.6 million to 10,000 years ago).
The question has been whether earl
Source: AP
March 23, 2006
All right, so you're not a president or pop star having your every move recorded for posterity. You can still make history.
A new project called Earth Capsule gives anyone with a dollar and access to an Internet connection the ability to contribute a message (at earthcapsule.com) that will be preserved for 50 years. Instant immortality -- at least for your ideas.Started by Ashley Rindsberg, Evan Strome and Jason Ressler, Earth Capsule is a digital ta
Source: Louisville Courier-Journal
March 22, 2006
Without firing a shot, Mother Nature, Father Time and relentless development are taking a toll on battlefields that Union and Confederate armies died defending.The Washington-based Civil War Preservation Trust has placed two Kentucky sites -- in Cynthiana and Columbus -- on a list of the nation's 20 most endangered historic battlefields.
The Civil War Preservation Trust's recent report, "History Under Siege," states that remnants of battlefields in an
Source: WUSA
March 22, 2006
One of every 10 soldiers wounded in the Civil War was wounded by artillery fire. But Gary Miller says the much larger threat to soldiers was something much smaller.
Bedbugs.The bugs were torture to wartime soldiers. So were fleas and flies, all smaller and deadlier than any bullet, as Gary says.
"We had 110,000 die in battle-related injuries, 200,000 died of disease."
Gary blames insects for spreading much of the disease
Source: National Security Archive
March 23, 2006
On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, the National Security Archive posted a series of declassified U.S. documents and, for the first time, secret documents from Southern Cone intelligence agencies, recording detailed evidence of atrocities committed by the military regime in Argentina.The documents include a formerly secret transcript of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's first staff meeting after the coup during which he ordered the
