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: Chicago Sun-Times
September 13, 2005
A financial services firm in line to be co-underwriter of a $1.5 billion O'Hare Airport bond issue acknowledged Monday that its founding partners owned not one, but several, slaves during the Civil War era and that, "in all likelihood," it "profited significantly" from slavery."This is a sad part of our heritage. . . . We're deeply apologetic. ... It was a terrible thing. . . . There's no one sitting in the United States in the year 2005, hopef
Source: LAT
September 13, 2005
Ansel Adams, the venerated photographer, was notably scrupulous about recording the details of his craft — camera apertures, shutter speeds, film type — as he documented the Western outback in monochrome. But he also was notoriously poor at writing down dates.
Now a team of Texas astronomers has found that one of Adams' photos of the Yosemite backcountry, a solitary shot from Glacier Point of the moon rising over saw-toothed peaks beside a pillow of clouds, was misdated by four year
Source: WP
September 11, 2005
Forcing all first-year students to read the same classic texts by Homer, Plato and Virgil used to be fairly common at U.S. colleges. But the academic rebellions of the 1960s and 1970s led to more student choice and less contact with dead white male writers of classic literature and philosophy. But recently, there has been a return to idea of core courses for freshmen.
Source: WP
September 12, 2005
Sometime between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, the Neanderthals abruptly disappeared after a run of perhaps 200 millennia in the Near East, west Asia and, most notably, in the ice age caves of Europe. On that score, there is no dispute.
How this happened, and why, is another matter. For years, paleontologists have argued about whether anatomically modern humans invading from the east either wiped out the Neanderthals or out-innovated them; or, alternatively, whether Neanderthals and
Source: Pittsburg Post-Gazette
September 11, 2005
It was 78 years ago, in an era far different from the present, that hundreds of thousands of flooded Mississippi River valley residents spent months in temporary housing. They received meals from the Red Cross. They cursed the federal government's failure to help. In many cases, they left their hometowns and started anew in strange places hundreds of miles away. Yet New Orleans itself was spared heavy damage. Still, the scope of the devastation from that Great Mississippi Flood may most closely
Source: Merco Press (Uruguay)
September 12, 2005
Chilean Army Commander in chief General Juan Emilio Cheyre said that as far as the Army was concerned "the matter of September 11 is closed" referring to the September 11, 1973 bloody coup which installed the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet.The Army commemorated the day with a private Mass Sunday morning honouring the soldiers killed in the coup that overthrew Socialist President Salvador Allende and brought Pinochet to power. However the elderly former
Source: SF Chronicle
September 11, 2005
As San Franciscans prepare to celebrate the centennial of the city's triumph over the great earthquake and fire of 1906, we are reminded by events in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina of the darker side to such cataclysms.
When San Francisco Mayor Eugene Schmitz made his way down Market Street on April 18, 1906, on the morning of the disaster, he observed saloons in full swing and evidence that looting had already taken place. He ordered that all alcohol sales be suspended.
Source: CNN
September 11, 2005
In a country where movements of tired, poor and huddled masses are an intrinsic part of who we are, the unprecedented mass exodus of people from their homes in the Gulf Coast region -- more than half a million people -- could unleash changes for years to come.
"We've never faced this type of relocation because of a natural disaster. It's likely to have an enormous impact on our entire country," he said Steven Hahn, a University of Pennsylvania history professor who chronic
Source: boingboing
September 10, 2005
Libraries and history/archives organizations are attempting to salvage as many of the historic artifacts as possible from New Orleans and other areas. Obviously, efforts to save human lives and care for survivors are first priority. But history professionals say that private resources offered to salvage irreplacable artifacts have been blocked by -- you guessed it -- government red tape.
Source: NYT
September 10, 2005
There has been no healing, really. Four years have passed since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and the road to recovery at ground zero looks bleaker than ever. A rebuilding effort that was originally cast as a symbolic rising from the ashes has long since turned into a hallucinogenic nightmare: a roller coaster ride of grief, naïveté, recriminations, political jockeying and paranoia.The Freedom Tower, promoted as an image of the city's resurrecti
Source: OAH
September 9, 2005
By establishing this message board, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association would like to assist members of the historical community affected by Hurricane Katrina.Post to the Message Board
You can 1.) post a request for assistance by area of need or 2.) post an offer of assistance by area of need.
To read postings on the board, please select from one of the fol
Source: C-Span
September 9, 2005
On C-Span Doiglas Brinkley, the Tulane historian, says that he plans to begin taking oral histories from Katrina victims and officials.
Brinkley fled to Houston after the hurricane hit New Orleans. He returned later to try to help the victims.
He told Brian Lamb that the oral histories will be taken under the auspices of the Roosevelt center, which he heads.
Source: NYT
September 9, 2005
The former secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, says in a television interview to be broadcast Friday that his 2003 speech to the United Nations, in which he gave a detailed description of Iraqi weapons programs that turned out not to exist, was "painful" for him personally and would be a permanent "blot" on his record.
Source: NYT
September 9, 2005
The firefighters had 29 minutes to get out of the World Trade Center or die. Inside the north tower, though, almost none of them realized how urgent it had become to leave. They had no idea that less than 200 feet away, the south tower had already collapsed. Until last month, the extent of their isolation from critical information in the final 29 minutes had officially been a secret. For three and a half years, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg refused to release the Fire Department's oral histories of
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
September 9, 2005
Former Clinton administration national security advisor Samuel "Sandy" Berger was caught smuggling classified terrorism-related documents out of the National Archives last year. On 8 September 2005 federal Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson ordered Berger to pay a $50,000 fine as well as $6,905 in administrative costs, give up his security clearance for three years, serve a two year probation, and perform 100 hours of community service as penalty for smuggling classified documents b
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
September 9, 2005
On 8 September 2005, Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein announced the award of a $308 million, six year contract to Lockheed Martin to build the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) system for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The ERA system seeks to capture and preserve the electronic records of the federal government, regardless of format; ensure hardware and software independence; and provide access to the American public and Federal officials.
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
September 9, 2005
As emergency officials continue to find and rescue survivors, recover bodies, and clean up the wreckage from Hurricane Katrina, which devastated a significant portion of the Gulf Coast nearly two weeks ago, efforts are also underway by various history and archival organizations to pitch in and begin to survey the damage done to sites of historical significance and to preserve as much as possible. This rescue and salvage effort takes on special importance in a part of the country that is especial
Source: LA Times
September 9, 2005
Paper is everywhere in New Orleans — floating in the water, trapped in tree branches, ground into curbside mud. Millions of pages are soaked in courthouse basements, businesses and homes. Among the items are records of families, land ownership and commercial transactions, along with all the paper that charts the minutiae of everyday life.In the basement of the Civil District Courthouse on Poydras Street, three blocks from the Superdome, water has lapped over 20%
Source: SF Chronicle
September 9, 2005
The official biography for Michael Brown, the beleaguered head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, contains a discrepancy about his background in emergency management, it was reported.
A 2001 press release on the White House Web site says that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing emergency services divisions. "But a former mayor of Edmond, Randel Shadid, told The Associated Press on Friday that Brown had been an assistant to the
Source: Romanesko
September 9, 2005
NBC's Brian Williams, who had a run-in this week with a police sergeant, says: "I don't like being told when I can and cannot walk on the streets and take pictures." Washington Post reporter Timothy Dwyer says he heard an officer telling a camera crew allowed on a boat in a flooded area near downtown New Orleans: "If we catch you photographing one body, we're going to bring you back in and throw you off the boat."
