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
January 12, 2006
Lee Marinelli opened her dorm room to find everything just as she left it last August -- the books and school supplies on the shelves, half-unpacked clothes in the closet, her giant stuffed bear Cinnamon lying on the bed.
Four-and-a-half months ago, the Hurricane Katrina evacuation canceled Tulane University's freshman orientation after just a few hours. But on Thursday, the school finally came back to life.Students moved in on a day called "Orientation Dej
Source: Boston Globe
January 10, 2006
In the first such collaboration of its kind, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library is announcing today that it will host a conference jointly sponsored by the National Archives and all 12 presidential libraries.
Among those set to participate in ''Vietnam and the Presidency" March 10-11 are two former secretaries of state, Henry A. Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig Jr., Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, TV journalist Dan Rather, and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Fra
Source: San Jose Mercury News
January 12, 2006
One hundred years after the San Francisco earthquake, the state's top historic libraries are unveiling a massive $1 million online archive that chronicles in amazing detail what happened on that fateful April 18.
Thanks to the digital age, the project brings the quake of '06 alive in ways never possible before. You can read scribbled recollections as aftershocks hit, hear voices of San Franciscans screaming as the big temblor relentlessly shakes, and view photos of what your neighbo
Source: BBC News
January 12, 2006
Charles Darwin's former home in Bromley, south-east London, has been nominated as a World Heritage Site. Down House at Downe was Darwin's home for 40 years and where he developed his revolutionary theory of evolution.
The property also includes the scientist's experimental garden where he studied plants and animals.
Announcing the UK's 2006 nomination, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said: "Darwin was one of the greatest scientists of the modern age."
Source: People's Daily (China)
January 12, 2006
Archaeologists have discovered a new site of human activity in remote antiquity in Sai Kung, Hong Kong.
Zhang Shenshui, researcher of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua here Wednesday that the important archaeological discovery not only rewrites the history when Hong Kong began having human activity, but also puts forward new topics of research for archaeologists. More than 6,000 artifacts have been unearthed at the site, which is located at the Wong Tei Tu
Source: Macedonian Information Agency
January 12, 2006
The history lesson on what happened in the armed conflict in Macedonia in 2001 is the result of project "Understanding Recent History", implemented by the Macedonian Helsinki Committee and Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution within the Institute for Sociological and Political-Legal Institutions.The project included 25 history teachers from 14 high schools with Macedonian and Albanian instruction, who have prepared a joint version on the 2001 conflict fo
Source: Newsday
January 11, 2006
Although the Raynham Hall Museum in Oyster Bay wasn't able to bid on a letter by Gen. George Washington about Revolutionary War spy Robert Townsend in a November auction, it has received a consolation prize.
An Oyster Bay Cove couple who are supporters of the museum situated in the Townsend house recently donated two letters written by Townsend enclosed in a signed first-edition copy of a book about Washington's spies written by Long Island historian Morton Pennypacker. The letters
Source: Chicago Sun Times
January 11, 2006
Charred beams, gaping holes in the outside walls and the stench of burned rubble are all that's left of a 90-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright home that preservationists hoped to see restored.
A blaze that started at the rear of the vacant house late Monday all but destroyed the building at 600 Fillmore in Gary, known to local historians as the Wynant House.Investigators late Tuesday still had not determined what caused the fire but said the blaze is suspicious becaus
Source: WSJ
January 10, 2006
In the course of an editorial about congressional opposition to the administration's eavesdropping program, the WSJ recommends that what congress really should be doing is renaming the FBI building.
J. Edgar Hoover, the editorial states, was the worst public servant in US history. Quoting from the editorial:
Eternal vigilance, it's been rightly said, is the price of liberty. But Americans are not well served by politicians in Washington who keep
Source: NYT
January 3, 2006
In the Andean foothills of Peru, not far from the Pacific coast, archaeologists have found what they say is evidence for the earliest known irrigated agriculture in the Americas.
An analysis of four derelict canals, filled with silt and buried deep under sediments, showed that they were used to water cultivated fields 5,400 years ago, in one case possibly as early as 6,700 years ago, archaeologists reported in a recent issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: cronaca.com
January 12, 2006
A routine clean-up of an Irish country graveyard in County Meath has turned up a dozen stone artefacts dating back more than a thousand years.
Experts say they are astonished that the discovery, centring on monastic sculptures, should have been made by accident rather than through planned excavation.
Source: BBC News
January 6, 2006
Archaeologists have unearthed a Roman road, a Bronze Age ditch and some medieval artefacts during major road improvement works in Wiltshire.
The historical remains - including three iron horseshoes - were found in the upper layers of the Roman road.
Archaeologist Neil Holbrook said the findings had been recorded and added: "The Romans didn't have horseshoes.
"We seem to have proved by the discovery that the road continued in use into the medieval per
Source: Dan Cohen Blog
January 11, 2006
George Mason University's Dan Cohen has used a Syllabus Finder search engine he created to track the most popular syllabi in the country over the last three years. There have been half a million searches. And the most popular syllabus?
#1 - U.S. History to 1870 (Eric Mayer, Victor Valley College, total of 6104 points).
Click on the Source link above to see the rest of the syllabi on the Top 10 list.
Source: Baltimore Sun
January 11, 2006
Plaques that separately list local blacks and whites who served in World War II will stay in the county courthouse, but a new sign explaining the history of segregation will be added to help put the display in context.
The Taylor County Commission voted 5-0 Tuesday to keep the historical plaques, while adding the new sign and a third plaque that would list everyone from the county who served in the war. The original display dates from December 1944, and i
Source: Reuters
January 11, 2006
More than 60 years ago, a group of Czech and Slovak exiles parachuted into their Nazi-occupied homeland and assassinated SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, the man known as the "Butcher of Prague."
For the first time since the end of the World War Two, a German museum is offering a close look at "Operation Anthropoid," the codename for the only successful assassination of a member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle.Michal Burian of the Mili
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
January 9, 2006
The last surviving member of the Gang of Four - the fanatical Maoists who were blamed for the terror of the Cultural Revolution - has died at the age of 74, the Chinese Government announced.Nicknamed "the killer with a pen", Yao Wenyuan was the chief propagandist of the ultra-leftist cabal, who helped to turn children on their parents, students on their teachers and civilians on bureaucrats in a class struggle that destroyed millions of lives between 1966 and 1976.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
January 8, 2006
Other historians are joining Marc Stein's attack on the fairness of the National Endowment for the Humanities, claiming that the NEH discriminates against queer studies scholarship.
Stein's attack published on HNN and presented as a paper at the American Historical Association this past weekend was widely discussed at the history meeting, with other gay scholars saying that he had demonstrated that their work was being unfairly evalua
Source: History Today
January 9, 2006
A new project has been launched to discover the most famous cultural treasures of the nation. Organised by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Icons - a portrait of England asks the public to nominate their favourite symbols of the country’s culture. The DCMS has released a list of 12 icons and the public votes will add a dozen symbols every three months. The current list includes Stonehenge, Henry VIII’s portrait by Hans Holbein, the King James Bible, the SS Empire
Source: Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Education
January 11, 2006
For the military historian, war is by no means a blessing. Sure it may produce source material for a new book, but it also probably means that people will attempt to put your research (which may or may not be relevant) into the framework of a current war. It means demands on your time that probably won’t advance your standing among historians. Of course, a war may also make your research more relevant than ever before, as Linn has found.
When historians gathered this weekend in Phil
Source: Inside Higher Ed
January 11, 2006
At the AHA meeting Saturday, historians joked about the phrase “chilly climate,” but their barbs about holding on to their winter coats reflected disappointment about what many said was a backlash against efforts to recruit female and minority professors.
History has made more progress than many other disciplines, and many graduate programs have a relatively even mix of men and women — and more minority students than are in many other disciplines. But a series of studies have found
