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: CNN
February 10, 2006
The first tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings since King Tut's in 1922 contains five sarcophagi with mummies, breaking the nearly centurylong belief that there's nothing more to find in the valley where some of Egypt's greatest pharaohs were buried.The tomb's spare appearance suggests it was not dug for a pharaoh, said American archaeologist Kent Weeks, who was not involved in the University of Memphis team's find but has seen photographs of the site. &quo
Source: National Geographic News
February 10, 2006
It's not in the most glamorous location, but British archaeologists are still excited about the remains of a 500-year-old royal chapel that have been discovered under a parking lot in the Greenwich district of south London. Generations of British monarchs worshipped at the lost chapel, including Henry VIII, the Tudor king who had six wives.
The ancient tiled floor emerged by chance when a bulldozer's bucket scraped against some brickwork three weeks ago.
Source: Inside Higher Education
February 9, 2006
A planned conference by the American Association of University Professors imploded Wednesday amid reports that the group accidentally distributed to invited attendees an anti-Semitic article, published in a magazine affiliated with Holocaust deniers.The conference was already under fire over an invitation list that critics said was tilted toward scholars who have backed academic boycotts of Israeli universities. The additional turmoil of the article prompted AAUP
Source: National Coalition for History
February 9, 2006
The United States Senate Historical Office and the House Office of History and Preservation have published an updated and revised 2005 edition of “The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005." The massive 2,218 page 2005 edition is the first revision of the printed edition since 1989.
The new edition includes biographical profiles of each of the nearly 12,000 individuals who have served in the Congress of the United States, from 1789 thro
Source: National Coalition for History
February 9, 2006
Unlike previous years, the Bush administration has not spared history and archives related programs. For the second year in a row the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) is zeroed out from the president’s budget; there are no funds whatsoever for grants and only $510,000 is requested for staffing and administration for the remaining ongoing grants. Once they are completed the program would be terminated.Also zeroed out is all funding for Sen
Source: Wa Po
February 9, 2006
On the vast flatlands of eastern Mongolia, enclosed by a two-mile wall in the form of an oval, diggers have uncovered tantalizing clues to the solution of one of history's enduring mysteries: the site of Genghis Khan's secret grave.Finding the spot where the great Mongolian conqueror was laid to rest in 1227 by his famed horseback warriors would fill in a blank that has fascinated historians for centuries. Although he and his descendants galloped out of Mongolia to sub
Source: Reuters
February 9, 2006
A group of Japanese sued over a history textbook that critics say whitewashes Japan's wartime aggression and has angered Asian neighbors, demanding on Thursday that a local government cancel its adoption of the text.Japan's Education Ministry approved the new edition of "The New History Textbook," written by nationalist scholars, last April, prompting outrage in China and South Korea, where bitter memories of Japan's aggression until 1945 persist.
Source: NYT
February 9, 2006
A grandfatherly figure, his bearded face wrinkled into a smile, peers down from billboards around town. It is surprise enough that the man is Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, the once-exiled writer, Nobel Prize winner and, of late, octogenarian scold. It is even more so that the billboards advertise his adaptation — broadcast on state television, no less — of one of his fiercely anti-Soviet novels, "The First Circle."The show, a 10-part series that bega
Source: Toronto Star
February 9, 2006
Ernst Zundel, a German white supremacist extradited from Canada on accusations he repeatedly denied the Holocaust, returned to court Thursday to face charges of incitement, libel and disparaging the dead.Zundel's trial at the Mannheim state court was halted in November when the judge dismissed two members of the defence team, saying he doubted they would mount a "regular" defence after one described Jews as an "enemy people." Zundel has since expanded his
Source: Bloomberg
February 9, 2006
Five centuries after Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes laid waste to the Aztec capital, Mexico may be about to recover its most precious artifact: the headdress of Emperor Montezuma II. ``We've never been closer than we are right now,'' said Xoko Gomora, a 54-year-old Mexican Indian who has spent three decades lobbying officials in Austria, where the headdress now lies in a Viennese museum.
Museums and governments are being pressed by countries from Mexico to I
Source: WaPo
February 9, 2006
Nearly four years after New Jersey passed a state law mandating its schools teach black history, compliance is spotty and the lawmaker who was behind the legislation is frustrated. Even as Black History Month briefly draws attention to African-American heritage, New Jersey's effort shows how hard it can be to move from an idea to change in the classroom."We won't have to do February if in fact we teach this in the regular curriculum," said Payne.
New J
Source: Press Release -- International Campaign for Academic Freedom
February 9, 2006
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has announced today that after careful deliberation and consultation, they have decided to postpone the conference on academic boycotts and their relation to academic freedom, originally scheduled for February 13 - 17th in Bellagio, ItalyThe conference was originally sponsored by the Ford, Rockefeller and Nathan Cummings foundations. After the New York Sun published that more than a third of the conference participants
Source: Discovery Channel News
February 8, 2006
Italian researchers have recovered part of a lost ancient Greek treatise, the earliest cartography of the Greek-Roman era, and a sketchbook for ancient painters — all by piecing together 50 fragments of a first- century B.C. parchment used in a mummy's wrapping.Known as the papyrus of Artemidorus, the 2.5-meter- (eight-foot-) long and 32.5-centimeter- (13-inch-) wide parchment will go on display for the first time this week in Turin at the exhibition "The three lives of
Source: BBC News
February 9, 2006
Two hundred years after Anglican reformers helped to abolish the slave trade, the Church of England has apologised for profiting from it.Last night the General Synod acknowledged complicity in the trade after hearing that the Church had run a slave plantation in the West Indies and that individual bishops had owned hundreds of slaves.
It voted unanimously to apologise to the descendents of the slaves after an emotional debate in which the Archbishop of Canterbur
Source: BBC News
February 9, 2006
Almost 100 years ago, on 18 April 1906, San Francisco was wrecked by a massive quake. Hundreds died. Click the Source link above to see.
Source: BBC News
February 9, 2006
A "lost" science manuscript from the 1600s found in a cupboard in a house during a routine valuation is expected to fetch more than £1m at auction. The hand-written document - penned by Dr Robert Hooke - contains the minutes of the Royal Society from 1661 to 1682, experts said.
It was found in a house in Hampshire, where it is thought to have lain hidden in a cupboard for about 50 years.
Source: NYT
February 8, 2006
For decades, even as a renewed Berlin grew up around it, one large lot that might otherwise have been prime territory for development has lain vacant, and not surprisingly.During the Nazi era, from 1933 to 1945, the site was the headquarters of the Gestapo, perhaps the most dreaded of Hitler's secret police. What to do with the land, where such tides of suffering were put in motion, has long been a matter of uncertainty.
But now, after much discussion and
Source: Inside Higher Ed
February 8, 2006
A new generation of Northwestern University students is learning what many of their predecessors found out during their time in Evanston: A tenured member of the faculty is also a prominent Holocaust denier.
Arthur R. Butz, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has been sharing his views about the Holocaust since the 1976, when he published The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, shortly after
Source: Yahoo News
February 8, 2006
Due to a series of quirks in Italian history, the Interior ministry -- and not the Vatican or the Roman Catholic Church -- actually owns some 700 of Italy's most famous basilicas, cathedrals, churches and monasteries and all the masterpieces inside.Whenever Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu wants a respite from the rigours of protecting the country's borders and preventing terrorism, he can turn to master artists like Caravaggio or Giotto for solace.
Source: Yahoo News
February 8, 2006
A unique Anglo-Saxon gold coin, found by an amateur treasure hunter in 2001, was saved for the nation on Wednesday after the British Museum paid a record 357,852 pounds to the American owner. It is the highest amount ever paid for a British coin.
The acquisition of the 1,200-year-old coin, minted in the reign of Coenwulf who ruled Mercia from 796 to 821, turns a neat profit for American collector Allan Davisson who bought it at auction in October 2004 for
