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: BBC
August 12, 2010
Archaeologists at the University of Edinburgh are hoping to uncover the scene of a historical unsolved crime.
Work has begun to unearth remnants of buildings which became infamous for the murder of the second husband of Mary Queen of Scots, Lord Darnley.
The remains of the buildings have been buried beneath Old College for more than 200 years.
The dig is being carried out prior to a £1m landscaping project which is being funded by a private donor....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 12, 2010
Sierra Leone's Human Rights Commission has called for blood diamonds allegedly given to Naomi Campbell by Charles Taylor to be returned to the country to benefit victims of the brutal civil war.
The commission has also written to the 40-year-old British supermodel to suggest she make a personal donation to the country's War Victims' Fund.
Tests on the stones have established that they are diamonds but not their origin. Under South African law, stones which are unclaim
Source: AP
August 12, 2010
Japan prides itself on the world's longest life expectancy but is struggling with a disturbing footnote to that statistic — revelations that hundreds of people listed as its oldest citizens are either long dead or haven't been heard from for decades.
The mystery of the missing centenarians has captured the attention of this rapidly graying nation with reports of scamming relatives and overworked social workers and sad tales of old people, isolated and forgotten, simply slipping out
Source: CNN
August 12, 2010
Archaeologist Gregory Fox is the U.S. military's version of Indiana Jones, but looks more like Jerry Garcia than Harrison Ford.
Fox travels the world digging for his version of treasure -- the remains of missing U.S. service personnel who died in battle.
Fox is part of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, a unique team of nearly 400 civilian and military personnel. The unit is two-thirds military and one-third civilian, with each branch of the military represe
Source: CNN
August 12, 2010
Former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush surprised 145 troops returning home from war Wednesday, greeting them at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
The service members, most returning for a two-week break, arrived on a charter flight expecting to be met by the Dallas-based Welcome Home A Hero organization.
The Bushes joined with more than 30 youth football players through the Slant 45 organization to take part in the ceremony. The group is part of the S
Source: CNN
August 12, 2010
The founder of WikiLeaks said Thursday the whistle-blower website is preparing to release another roughly 15,000 documents about the war in Afghanistan.
Assange has previously said his Web site has an additional 15,000 documents that it wants to publish but that it is redacting information that could endanger people named.
Through The New York Times, the organization has asked the Obama administration for its guidance on what to redact. A recently published report sugge
Source: AOL News
August 12, 2010
Newt Gingrich is a phoenix. He's risen again and again from political ashes and appears to be ascendant once more. Rumored to be running for president in 2012, Gingrich is an icon in the Republican Party, an eminence grise at a time of lost leadership. His fall from grace in the late 1990s seems a blip, rather than a political ending.
Thus the cover story in Esquire Magazine, September issue, written by John H. Richardson.
If anyone knows something about Newt Gingrich,
Source: Lee White at the National Coaliton for History
August 6, 2010
The National Park Service recently awarded $1.2 million for 25 grants that will be used to help preserve and protect America’s significant battlefield lands. The funding from the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) will support projects at more than 100 battlefields nationwide. A list of the projects is available online at http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp.The grants
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
August 6, 2010
The National Archives recently announced the launch of its first public wiki called “Our Archives” on Wikispaces located at: http://www.ourarchives.wikispaces.net. “Our Archives” provides a collaborative space for members of the public, researchers, and staff to share knowledge about National Archives records, resources and research.The wiki is an opportunity for researchers, historians, archivists, an
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
August 6, 2010
On July 28, the National Archives released a group of papers from the “Grace Tully Archive” that was recently donated to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. The Grace Tully Archive is a collection of documents and memorabilia pertaining to President Franklin Roosevelt that is comprised of items that were gathered by his personal secretary throu
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
August 6, 2010
The National Archives National Declassification Center (NDC) recently issued its first status report, covering the reporting period of January 1- June 30, 2010. During this time, nearly 8 million pages of material were processed and made available to the public.The creation of the NDC is specified in the
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
August 6, 2010
On July 30, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s scheduled mark up of legislation (H.R. 5616), to reauthorize the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) at a $20 million level from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2015, was postponed indefinitely.Although no official reason was given as to why the bill was
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
August 6, 2010
Before Congress left for its annual August recess, action on the long-stalled fiscal year 2011 budget bills began apace. A number of bills of interest to the historical and archival communities saw action in the final week before the recess.1. Fiscal Year 2011 Financial Service and General Government Appropriations bill (S. 3677) (
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
August 7, 2010
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced the award of $115.3 million to 124 school districts to improve the quality of teaching American history in our nation’s schools. For a list of grantees, click here.The Teaching American History grant program aims to enhance teachers’ understanding of American history th
Source: Global Post
August 11, 2010
“Not only idiotic but a crime,” read the cover the Przeglad weekly on Aug. 1, the anniversary of the Warsaw uprising.
Such an overt negative assessment of the uprising against the German occupiers that ultimately failed after 63 bloody days, leaving the capital a sea of ruins and more than 200,000 dead, was once unthinkable.
Sixty-six years later, closer scrutiny of events surrounding the uprising has emboldened critics.
Controversy has surrounded the upri
Source: Boston Globe
August 11, 2010
MUNICH—A German historian on Wednesday presented evidence at the trial of John Demjanjuk that suggested he worked as a guard at the Nazis' Flossenbuerg concentration camp.
Matthias Meissner of Germany's Federal Archive showed the Munich state court original documents from Flossenbuerg listing a man called "Demianiuk" and "Demenjuk" as a guard there in October 1943.
The ID number on the card was the same as on the key piece of evidence in the trial --
Source: MSNBC
August 11, 2010
Check out the red coats.
They will be easy to spot in Boston this month, especially if you are willing to do a little time travel.
Travel back to the 18th century and you can even ask a British Regular, famous for their red coats, what it was like to serve so far from home where everyone seemed to hate them. (Not so much different from today, is it?) Watch the Regulars' Changing of the Guard at the site of their original garrison at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. The British
Source: Haaretz (Israel)
August 12, 2010
New research shows how a group of Dutch farmers that trekked to Ukraine and Lithuania in World War II was spurned as 'white Jews'.
They came in their thousands from Holland to Eastern Europe to be good Nazis and help the Germans colonize more land during World War II. But according to the first major research into the Dutch settler movement, their German brethren despised them, dubbing them "white Jews."
Approximately 5,000 farmers trekked from Holland to the
Source: CNN
August 12, 2010
A rare gold coin dating back 2,200 years was discovered by a combined university research team in Israel, a top Israeli antiquities official said Thursday.
Dr. Donald T. Ariel, head of the Coin Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), said the coin ranked in the top five of the rarest finds in that country's history.
"Intrinsically, for coin research, it's a very exciting find," Ariel told CNN. "This is an amazing numismatic find. The coin is beaut
Source: BBC News
August 12, 2010
Ceremonies are being held in Russia and on board its naval vessels to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster.
The submarine, one of the Russian navy's most advanced vessels, sank in the Barents Sea on 12 August, 2000 with the loss of all 118 people on board.
An explosion of fuel from an old torpedo caused the disaster.
Moscow's response to one of the greatest disasters in Russian naval history was widely criticised.
