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: CNN
August 4, 2010
A British navy ship abandoned and lost in Canadian Arctic waters since the mid-19th century has been found in relatively good shape at the bottom of a bay, the Canadian government says.
Parks Canada has released images of the HMS Investigator, found late last month at the bottom of Mercy Bay. The bay is located in the Northwest Territories' Aulavik National Park. The discovery is part of two Canadian archaeological missions to locate the Investigator and two other ships.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 3, 2010
Alexander the Great was killed by a deadly bacterium found in the River Styx, rather than by a fever brought on by an all-night drinking binge in ancient Babylon, scientists believe.
American researchers have found a striking correlation between the symptoms suffered by Alexander before his death in 323BC, and the effects of the highly toxic bacterium.
They have speculated that the Macedonian king, who conquered vast swaths of territory between Greece and India, could
Source: Fox News
August 4, 2010
The son of the U.S. Air Force pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb in the history of warfare says the Obama administration's decision to send a U.S. delegation to a ceremony in Japan to mark the 65th anniversary of the attack on Hiroshima is an "unsaid apology" and appears to be an attempt to "rewrite history."
James Tibbets, son of Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., says Friday's visit to Hiroshima by U.S. Ambassador John Roos is an act of contrition that his l
Source: The Sofia Echo
August 2, 2010
Bulgarian media has reported that the excavations at St Ivan island off the Bulgarian coast have unearthed relics belonging to Saint John the Baptist. The discoveries were announced on August 1 2010 following the excavation on the island near the seaside town of Sozopol.
Last week it was reported that excavations on St Ivan island, the largest of five Bulgarian islands in the Black Sea, discovered artefacts and exquisite marble reliquary incorporated into the church’s altar, the his
Source: Independent (UK)
August 4, 2010
During the six centuries of its storied existence, there was nothing else quite like Nalanda University. Probably the first-ever large educational establishment, the college – in what is now eastern India – even counted the Buddha among its visitors and alumni. At its height, it had 10,000 students, 2,000 staff and strove for both understanding and academic excellence. Today, this much-celebrated centre of Buddhist learning
is in ruins.
After a period during which the influen
Source: Miami Today
August 4, 2010
If all goes according to plan, the public will have limited access to the Miami Circle site by the end of the year.
Construction on the park at the mouth of the Miami River in Brickell, designed by the Orlando-based architectural firm Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, began in June, said Ryan Wheeler, chief of the state's
Bureau of Archaeological Research.
Miami-based Zurqui Construction Services is construction manager.
"Things are lo
Source: The Independent (UK)
August 4, 2010
Filthy lucre, booze and high drama – and that was behind the scenes. Archaeologists digging in East London have unearthed compelling new evidence of the seamier side of life at London's oldest playhouse.
Excavations at the site of The Theatre in Shoreditch, which hosted premieres of several Shakespeare plays and which pre-dates The Globe, is shedding new light on a theatre that was called a "school for all wickedness and vice".
Archaeologists, led Heather Knig
Source: Latin American Herald Tribune
August 4, 2010
A Dominican man discovered in the northern town of Monteclaro a cave with petroglyphs and other examples of prehistoric cave art, the daily Listin Diario said Tuesday.
The discovery was made by area resident Raul Fernandez.
The cavern has 61 petroglyphs and two bas-relief sculptures, the newspaper learned from Spanish archaeologist Adolfo Lopez, who is in charge of researching the area and believes that the petroglyphs and sculptures could be 5,000 years old.
Source: National Parks Traveler
August 4, 2010
A signature triplet staccato rings sharply across the ranch compound from the smithy's anvil in the blacksmith shop, signaling another creation from fire and iron. Though only symbolic these days, the hammering at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site recalls perhaps the greatest cattle baron America ever produced and captures a moment in history depicted in Lonesome Dove.
A self-taught smithy, Lyndel Meikle can hammer you out a hoof pick in minutes, or offer you a slice of lodge
Source: Seattle Pi
August 3, 2010
If Scott Sloan felt any regret as he watched the last of two remaining Liberty Ships cut into scrap, he concealed it well.
The expression on his face looked more like pure relief.
"These were war veterans, but they were almost 70 years old," Sloan said, watching as a gantry crane lifted one of the last chunks of the SS Woodbridge Ferris into the air and swung it toward a waiting barge.
"They weren't designed to withstand the ocean environment
Source: Daily Press
July 31, 2010
The Allies stormed Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, and Army medic James E. Baker landed there the next day.
Germans fired from the hills and bodies were in the water. Wounded soldiers cried out for help, and Baker came across an Army lieutenant who had caught a bullet in the knee. But this officer wasn't happy to see a medic, at least not Baker, who recalls the officer's greeting.
Get your black hands off me.
Today, the retired psychiatrist who will soon turn
Source: BBC News
August 4, 2010
Norman names such as William, Henry and Alice have been popular for 1,000 years. Why did the English copy their invaders?
The date 1066. William the Conqueror. King Harold with the arrow in his eye. Soldiers in those nose-protector helmets.
But many people will struggle to come up with more than these sketchy facts about how the Normans invaded England and overthrew the Anglo-Saxons on one bloody day almost a millennium ago.
But it was then the seeds were s
Source: BBC News
August 3, 2010
The US military is to use manga-style comics to teach Japanese children about the two countries' security alliance.
Four comics featuring a Japanese girl and a visiting US boy will be posted online, each exploring how US and Japanese troops work together.
A US spokesman said they were intended as a light-hearted explanation of the history of the alliance.
The comics, marking 50 years of the security pact, come amid strained ties over US bases in Okinawa.
Source: CHE
August 3, 2010
...Roughly 800 miles from P'yongyang in Tokyo's leafy western suburbs, Korea University is an anomaly, an intellectual oasis in a society that distrusts and even despises the ethnic group it caters to—native Koreans loyal to P'yongyang. The institution has never received financial support or even official recognition from the government of Japan....
"The atmosphere now is very, very bad," said Kim Yang-Sun, an administrator at the university....
Mr. Kim's ance
Source: WaPo
August 4, 2010
Once, this was a stout ship, with oak futtocks and floor timbers, fastened with iron nails, built with saw and adz and the calloused hands of shipwrights now long dead.
Two centuries ago, it was a simple coaster, hauling goods around the eastern capes, armed against pirates, and ending its days at a wharf in New York City. As the years went by, it sank into the harbor mud, entombed beneath what would one day become the World Trade Center site.
Shortly after noon Monday
Source: NYT
August 3, 2010
Soon, grave sites at the Canarsie Cemetery will be for sale again.
They have not been since 1993, when the city stopped selling dirt three feet under — the law in New York requires that bodies be buried at least three and not six feet deep — because the cemetery’s fate was uncertain. The city inherited the cemetery, which it did not want, when the five boroughs merged in 1898.
But now, a generation after the first sale attempt in 1982, the city has found a taker. Cypres
Source: NYT
August 3, 2010
CARACAS, Venezuela — The clock had just struck midnight. Most of the country was asleep. But that did not stop President Hugo Chávez from announcing in the early hours of July 16 that the latest phase of his Bolivarian Revolution had been stirred into motion.
Marching to the national anthem, a team of soldiers, forensic specialists and presidential aides gathered around the sarcophagus of Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century aristocrat who freed much of South America from Spain. A state
August 3, 2010
The United Nations tribunal for Rwanda has sentenced a Rwandan former official to 25 years in jail for his role in the 1994 genocide.
Dominique Ntawukulilyayo, 68, was accused of transporting soldiers to an area of the southern Gisagara district where Tutsis had taken refuge.
Thousands of people who had been promised protection were killed.
About 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu militias in 100 days during Rwanda's genocide.
Source: BBC
August 3, 2010
A letter which describes how Scottish poet Robert Burns was "reduced and shattered" in his final days has been unveiled.
The letter, which was written in 1796 by Burns's boss at the Excise, where he worked, has only recently been discovered.
It describes how the poet made a journey to Dumfries to collect his salary exactly a week before his death.
The letter, which was written to the Commissioner of Excise, was found by David Brown, the head of co
Source: BBC
August 3, 2010
A rare medieval roof finial which was found in London's River Thames offers an insight into how the capital looked 600 years ago, experts have said.
The object, which dates from the late 12th Century or 13th Century, is in the shape of an animal and would have embellished the ridges of tiled roofs.
It is thought the object was made in the Woolwich area and brought to the city with other pots and roof tiles.
The object was found by the Museum of London durin
