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: Telegraph (UK)
August 19, 2010
A butterfly house where Winston Churchill took refuge in the turbulent post war years has been renovated by the National Trust.
The former prime minister and wartime leader converted a summer house in the grounds of his home Chartwell in Kent at the end of the Second World War.
The building, which fell into disrepair in the 1950s, became a refuge of peace in the turbulent post war years where despite his heroics during the war led to him being defeated in the general election
Source: CNN
August 19, 2010
When I was a little boy, my dad and I would sit on the floor next to his old reel-to-reel tape deck, taking turns talking into it and playing our voices back -- the same reel-to-reel he unwittingly used to gain his 15 minutes of fame.
It was October 3, 1951, when Larry Goldberg, a 26-year-old travel agent living with his parents in Brooklyn, set up the deck next to a radio before setting off to work in Manhattan.
He asked his mom to record the 9th inning of the third ga
Source: BBC News
August 19, 2010
While memories of the Battle of Britain remain fresh in the minds of The Few who flew, and the staff who supported them, veterans fear its significance could soon be forgotten by others.
Seventy years ago the RAF was locked in a life and death struggle with the Luftwaffe in the skies over England.
The three weeks between mid-August and early September in 1940 were decisive for the Battle of Britain.
The bravery of the RAF pilots was captured in Winston Chur
Source: BBC News
August 19, 2010
Veteran screen star Ernest Borgnine is to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) next year, organisers have announced.
The 93-year-old, who won an Oscar for his role in the 1955 film Marty, has appeared in more than 200 movies during his lengthy career.
SAG president Ken Howard said Borgnine still had "boundless energy" and boasted an "impressive body of work".
He will collect his honour at an awards cere
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 19, 2010
Georges Freche ordered five statues for the southern city of Montpellier, celebrating Lenin, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Franklin Roosevelt and the French socialist leader Jean Jaures.
Each weighs in at between 850 kilos (1,874 pounds) and a tonne and each cost local taxpayers an estimated 200,000 euros (260,000 dollars). They were unveiled on Wednesday and will be formally inaugurated next month.
Mr Freche, a former Socialist who was expelled by the party aft
Source: AFP
August 17, 2010
South Korean archaeologists said Tuesday they have unearthed a rare neolithic period wooden boat oar, believed to date back about 7,000 years but still in good condition.
The oar was discovered in mud land in Changnyeong, 240 kilometres (140 miles) southeast of Seoul, the Gimhae National Museum said.
One of the oldest boats or related artefacts was found in China's Zhejiang province in 2005 and was believed to date back about 8,000 years....
Source: BBC
August 18, 2010
A 4,000-year-old skeleton, known as the Queen of the Inch, is to be re-interred in the tiny island of Inchmarnock in the Firth of Clyde.
The grave was found by a farmer in the 1950s as he ploughed a field.
Preserved in an ancient cist, the remains included a necklace and dagger.
Despite being examined by archaeologists and reburied in the 1960s, the skeleton was recently exhumed and studied using modern research techniques.
Scientists have sinc
Source: BBC
August 16, 2010
Humans helped drive a species of giant turtle to extinction almost 3,000 years ago, according to a study in PNAS.
It is one of the first cases that clearly shows that humans played a role in the demise of the giant, extinct animals known as "megafauna".
An Australian research team discovered turtle leg bones - but not shells or skulls - on an island of Vanuatu.
The bones date to just 200 years after humans' arrival, suggesting they were hunted to
Source: Art Daily
August 15, 2010
Archaeologists have discovered, 16 meters from the tomb of the Great Lord of Sipan, the remains of a teenager belonging to the Moche society who was buried over 1600 years ago in Peru.
The discoverer of the Lord of Sipan, Peru's Walter Alva, explained that eight days ago he proceeded to clean the grave in a hitherto unexplored area in northern Peru.
The tomb is located on the same funeral platform where the Lord of Sipan was found in 1987, one of the most important ar
Source: Reuters
August 17, 2010
Archaeologists in Afghanistan, where Taliban Islamists are fighting the Western-backed government, have uncovered Buddhist-era remains in an area south of Kabul, an official said on Tuesday.
The excavation site extends over 12 km (7.5 miles) in the Aynak region of Logar province just south of Kabul, where China is mining copper ore as part of its multi-billion dollar investments in the Central Asian country.
Rasouli said the mining work had not harmed the sites -- which
Source: BBC
August 18, 2010
They are popularly called "terror birds", and with good reason.
The giant, flightless beasts that roamed South America for more than 50 million years following the demise of the dinosaurs were fearsome predators.
New research shows the birds' huge beaks could deliver swift and powerful pecks, very probably killing their victims in one blow before ripping the flesh from their bodies....
Source: BBC
August 18, 2010
The former head of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, Jeremy Ractliffe, has resigned from the charity's board after admitting he secretly kept diamonds received from the model Naomi Campbell.
Mr Ractliffe admitted he had the gems only when Ms Campbell mentioned him at the war crimes trial of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor two weeks ago.
Prosecutors say she received the diamonds from Mr Taylor in 1997.
Mr Ractliffe had apologised for his secrecy, th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 18, 2010
Colonel Gaddafi's son has arranged for 500 youths from around the world to fly to Tripoli to celebrate the first anniversary of the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has spent millions of pounds bringing hundreds of foreign teenagers to Tripoli for an event which was supposed to mark the UN Year of the Youth.
But those attending the gathering will find themselves at the centre of national celebrations commemorating the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 18, 2010
A Second World War veteran who was once a driver for General Eisenhower in France has been murdered by a thief who escaped with just his bus pass and £40.
Geoffrey Bacon, 90, was attacked from behind on the doorstep of his home on a south London estate where he had lived since he was six years old.
He was punched and had his hip broken by being thrown to the floor, before the mugger stole his belongings and fled.
Family members paid tribute yesterday to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 18, 2010
The debate over whether to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in New York is a "local decision", Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives has said.
The controversial Cordoba Muslim cultural centre has become a national debate and created a split in the Democratic party ahead of November's mid-term elections.
Ms Pelosi said she backed calls for transparency regarding who is funding the project - an Isl
Source: AP
August 18, 2010
A year after Scotland's release of the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber caused an uproar, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi is still stirring outrage simply by surviving.
Loved ones of those killed in the 1988 jetliner bombing, who were told he would likely die within three months, feel betrayed. U.S. lawmakers are investigating whether oil giant BP pushed for his release from prison to get Libya's oil and are assailing Scotland for freeing him.
And with the anniversary Friday of a
Source: CNN
August 18, 2010
A DNA test on the remains of chess legend Bobby Fischer has determined that he is not the father of a Filipino girl, the girl's lawyer told CNN on Wednesday.
Results of the test "excluded" the possibility that Fischer, who died in January 2008, was the father of Jinky Young, lawyer Thordur Bogason said.
In June, Iceland's supreme court ruled in favor of a request by Young to exhume Fischer's remains in order to settle the question of paternity....
Source: CNN
August 16, 2010
Nearly 150 years after it was left behind at a Civil War prison camp, the 3-inch clay pipestem still shows a Union soldier's teeth marks.
The pipe, whose stem features the name of its manufacturer, proves the resourcefulness of a prisoner who really wanted his tobacco. He fashioned the bowl from lead, possibly by melting rifle bullets.
No one knows what became of the unknown soldier at Camp Lawton, which during its short existence in south Georgia was the Confederacy's
Source: Newsweek
August 17, 2010
With Republicans already viewing controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero in New York as an opportunity to mobilize discontented voters, Democrats are fighting back with their own accusations: namely, that the GOP is exploiting the September 11 attacks by politicizing the mosque debate.
Unfortunately, disagreement over the mosque (or whatever it’s being called) isn’t the first occasion that campaigners have used to kick around the 9/11 political footba
Source: Guardian (UK)
August 17, 2010
Enormous religious site in French countryside may have been devoted to worshipping many gods.
Excavations near the antique city of Vindunum (now Le Mans) have revealed a vast religious site dating from the first to the third centuries AD with remarkably well-preserved offerings.
Sometimes archaeology requires imagination. And you need it to conjure up the vast complex of temples that stood nearly 2,000 years ago on this flat two-hectare strip of land, in what is now Neu
