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
August 24, 2005
During a trip here last July to make a documentary on the 1964 killings of his brother and another black man, Thomas Moore stopped at a gas station outside of this town in southwestern Mississippi for a sandwich.
At the store, Mr. Moore lamented to a local man that one of the prime suspects in the killings had died, and the listener asked which one. "James Ford Seale," Mr. Moore replied. The newspapers had said so. Mr. Seale's own son had confirmed it.
Source: NYT
September 24, 2005
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and now, it appears, Hurricane Rita, New Orleans is about to face many of the same problems that plagued Galveston after its natural disaster. Swatches of the city now lie in a toxic stew; they won't be habitable again for years - if ever. Businesses are shuttered. Thousands of people who have fled aren't coming back. In Baton Rouge, companies and refugees who had been in New Orleans a month ago are buying office space and housing stock, relocating on the f
Source: Guardian
September 24, 2005
Pope Benedict XVI was elected with 84 votes and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was second with 26 after four rounds of voting during April's conclave, according to a cardinal's unauthorized diary that was published Friday.
The anonymous diary appeared in the respected Italian political magazine Limes. The magazine said it obtained the diary from a ``trustworthy'' source it had known for years. In the first round of voting, Benedict, the
Source: Guardian
September 24, 2005
A concentration camp survivor who joined the U.S. Army out of gratitude, fought in Korea and spent 2 years in a Chinese prisoner of war camp was awarded a Medal of Honor on Friday, 55 years after his heroism.
President Bush gave the nation's highest military honor to Hungarian-born Tibor Rubin, 76, in the White House East Room. The medal recognizes him for overcoming dangers as an infantryman, trying to save fellow soldiers in battle and as a prisoner of war, even as he faced preju
Source: NYT
September 24, 2005
A federal judge refused to issue an arrest warrant against former President Luis Echeverría in connection with a massacre of student protesters in 1968. On Monday, a prosecutor filed charges of genocide against Mr. Echeverría for the massacre, in which soldiers fired on student protesters, killing dozens, but the judge said there was insufficient evidence for the charge.
Source: NYT
September 24, 2005
After a Turkish court's decision to cancel an academic conference on the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I, the conference's organizers said Friday that the event would go ahead at a new location on Saturday. The organizers were encouraged by a wave of support from the European Union and senior Turkish government officials. A court on Thursday blocked Bogazici University in Istanbul from holding the event, a debate and symposium on the killing
Source: BBC
September 23, 2005
Scientists are to present new evidence that the tiny human species dubbed "The Hobbit" may not be what it seems. The researchers say their findings strongly support an idea that the 1m- (3ft-) tall female skeleton from Indonesia is a diseased modern human. The Hobbit's discoverers are adamant it is an entirely separate human species, which evolved a small size in isolation on its remote island home of Flores.
The bones were unearthed during
Source: American Historical Association's Perspectives
September 23, 2005
The AHA reports: The doors to graduate study in elite private universities are largely closed to students who received their degrees in public colleges and universities outside of a few with top-tier PhD programs. Receiving an undergraduate degree from an elite school appears to be an important marker of future success in the academic job market.
Source: Armenialibery
September 21, 2005
More than 60 Turkish, Diaspora Armenian and Western academics have sent a joint letter to official Ankara expressing “deep concern” about what they see as a continuing persecution of Turkish intellectuals challenging its vehement denial of the Armenian genocide.
“We think Turkish state and society can only attain peace within Turkey and abroad by critically confronting its own history,” reads the letter obtained by RFE/RL on Wednesday. “A critical analysis, discussion and debate of
Source: WSJ
September 2, 2005
A new class of best sellers has arisen--mainly old books, given new life by the Internet, specialty bookstores, librarians and word of mouth--for parents who home-school their children. There is no one book they all read, but each group of home schoolers has its favorites, and some have crossover appeal. Conservative Christians, for example, have flocked to the Elsie Dinsmore books, by Martha Finley, 28 novels that sold millions when they were published between 1867 and 1905. The books tell the
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
September 23, 2005
Kate Brown, an assistant professor of history at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, tells in the Chronicle of Higher Education how she came to visit Chernobyl in June 2004 after reading a blog that turned out to provide a bogus account of life there now. Brown writes: "I had come to the Zone because I had seen a Web site (http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html) by a certain elusive "Elena." E
Source: Reuters
September 23, 2005
Slovenia said on Friday it would formally ask Italy to return 94 artworks seized before World War II from churches, monasteries and museums in a Slovenian region then ruled by Italy.
"The Slovenian government has decided that it will send to the Italian side a request for the return of all artworks that were taken from the (Slovenian part of) Istria," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. "The artworks taken from Istria are very val
Source: US Newswire
September 23, 2005
A book about America's failure to rescue Jews from the Holocaust helped convince then-Vice President George H. W. Bush to order the U.S. airlift of 900 Ethiopian Jewish refugees to Israel in 1985, a U.S. ambassador has revealed.
John R. Miller, a former Congressman (R-Wash.), who is now the U.S. ambassador for combating human trafficking, revealed the episode for the first time in public, in a statement presented to more than 200 participants in a conference at the Fordham Universit
Source: Slate
September 23, 2005
No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese's documentary about Bob Dylan's early years, is but the latest item in a flood tide of Dylanalia that, in trying to pay due homage to America's most important rock artist, constricts his four-decade career to its first six years.
Something is happening here. To be sure, few Dylanologists would deny that, except for Blood on the Tracks (1975), Dylan created his very best music between 1965 (the year of Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisi
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
September 23, 2005
Reports to the NCH office suggest that Mississippi appears to be somewhat ahead of Louisiana in access to and recovery of records largely because of the type of damage that occurred. Collections are being evacuated from coastal locations and architects and engineers have been assessing damage to Jefferson Davis’s home, Beauvoir; the good news is that the house appears restorable. There still remain some serious questions about the status of public records in Hancock and Jefferson counties.
Source: National Geographic
September 22, 2005
Fueled by the warm late-summer waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Rita exploded overnight into the third-most powerful hurricane on record for the Atlantic Basin.
Since the invention of the barometer in the 17th century, a hurricane's lowest barometric pressure reading has become a standardized way for meteorologists to measure a storm's intensity. As of 5 a.m. today the hurricane's strongest winds were blowing at 175 miles an hour (280 kilometers an hour) and the barometric p
Source: KTHV Littlerock
September 23, 2005
Dr. Isaac Cline knew it wasn’t just any storm as he galloped around Galveston on horseback warning people to get out.The U.S. Weather Bureau forecaster had known a bad squall was coming. But it wasn’t until he saw the dropping mercury in his barometer that he realized a monster hurricane was about to hit. His efforts to save lives couldn’t compare to Mother Nature.
On Sept. 8, 1900, 6,000 to 12,000 people died as the Category 4 storm ripped through the affluent port city on the Gulf
Source: Xinhua (China)
September 23, 2005
European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union (EU), on Friday slammed a decision by Turkish judges to ban an academic conference on the Armenian genocide.
"We strongly deplore this decision to stop the Turkish people from discussing their history," said a Commission spokeswoman. A ruling by a Turkish court banning a meeting planned for Saturday on the massacre of Armenians in World War One is the second attempt to ban the conference. The
Source: Boston Globe
September 21, 2005
Sonically, the trio shared little -- from the California group's soaring harmonies to Sinatra's crooning to Liberace's marshmallow soft vocals. But their offstage antics were music to the ears of the FBI, where all three became the subject of muckraking files in the agency's Washington headquarters.
The portfolios contain innuendo and allegations, with the occasional revelation thrown in. The Beach Boys' penchant for psychedelic drugs and Sinatra's alleged sex parties with President
Source: BBC
September 21, 2005
Latest technology proved an unexpected aid to unearthing the past when an Italian man decided to look at internet maps of his home. Computer programmer Luca Mori found the remains of an ancient Roman villa when he browsed Google Earth maps showing satellite images of his local area. His curiosity was sparked by unusual shading by his home in Sorbolo, Parma.
He contacted local archaeologists who investigated and confirmed it was once the location of a Roman villa
