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: The Philadelphia Inquirer
July 2, 2010
Near the terminus of a dead-end road, on a bulblike hill in the midst of a grassy meadow, a group of Temple University archaeology students and volunteers is excavating what may be one of the most important African American historical sites in New Jersey.
An entire village lies beneath the grassy hill near Rancocas Creek in Westampton Township outside Mount Holly - at least 18 houses, remains of a church, two roadways, an alley, a number of privies and wells, possibly schools, and l
Source: BBC
July 2, 2010
Archaeologists are to start excavations on a suspected ancient burial site to try to understand the significance of a Llangollen landmark.
But the team will have to work carefully because the 9th Century Pillar of Eliseg, a CADW-protected ancient monument, stands directly on top of the barrow - burial mound - and the archaeologists can't disturb it.
Medieval archaeology Professor, Nancy Edwards, from Bangor University says it is the first time the site has been dug sin
Source: BBC
July 5, 2010
An ancient anchor found buried in peat is to return to Skye following analysis by experts at National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh.
Graeme MacKenzie discovered the rusting artefact while digging a drain close to his home on the island.
Under Treasure Trove rules, the crofter said he would receive a "modest sum".
Mr MacKenzie, a member of Sleat Local History Society, said he was pleased it would be displayed at the Museum of the Isles in Armadale.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 5, 2010
The fifth most wanted Nazi fugitive is living out his old age safe within Germany, despite being wanted in Britain and the Netherlands on war crimes charges.
Klaas Faber, now 88, volunteered for Adolf Hitler's notorious SS during the Second World War and worked as part of a Gestapo death squad.
Despite being sentenced to death for his crimes in 1947, Faber is immune from prosecution because he escaped from prison in the Netherlands in 1952 and fled back to Germany.
Source: AP
July 5, 2010
A cancer expert whose medical assessment of the Lockerbie bomber helped lead to his early release has been quoted as saying the Libyan could live for another 10 years.
Last year, Karol Sikora examined Abdel Baset al-Megrahi for Libyan authorities and estimated he had three months to live. Al-Megrahi, who has prostate cancer, was freed from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds and sent to Libya.
He had been convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which
Source: CNN
July 5, 2010
An extradition hearing for former Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic started Monday, the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court confirmed.
London Metropolitan Police arrested Ganic at Heathrow Airport in March at Serbia's request. He is wanted in Serbia for conspiracy to murder in breach of the Geneva Conventions, a spokesman at Britain's Foreign Office said in March.
Ganic's lawyer, Stephen Gentle, denied Ganic had any role in the 1992 killings in question and in April,
Source: CNN
July 5, 2010
The body of chess legend Bobby Fischer was exhumed Monday in Iceland, law enforcement officials have told CNN. His body was reburied shortly after DNA samples were taken, the officials said.
Iceland's supreme court ruled last month in favor of a request by Jinky Young, Fischer's alleged daughter, to exhume his remains in order to settle a paternity question....
Source: NYT
July 4, 2010
There’s always been a forlorn tale about history slipping away in the Miller House, a farmhouse where George Washington slept and plotted strategy during the Battle of White Plains in 1776.
It has been hanging on by a thread for many years, almost forgotten in an industrial area opposite a cement plant: roof near collapse, ceiling beginning to crack, porch sagging, barely (if at all) open to the public.
So maybe it was just more of the same last week when the Westcheste
Source: NYT
July 4, 2010
Thousands of languages spoken by small numbers of people, including many of the Creole languages born in the last centuries of human history, are facing extinction. But a little-known language spoken on a handful of islands near the coast of Venezuela may be an exception.
Papiamentu, a Creole language influenced over the centuries by African slaves, Sephardic merchants and Dutch colonists, is now spoken by only about 250,000 people on the islands of Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. But c
Source: NYT
July 4, 2010
Four hundred years after Michelangelo Merisi, the painter known as Caravaggio, died in this coastal Tuscan town — wretched, feverish and on the run from numerous enemies — what are said to be his remains received a hero’s welcome on Saturday.
Laid on a red velvet cushion inside a transparent case, the bones — fragments of the cranium, an incomplete femur, and part of a bone from the base of the spine — reached the port on a striking tall ship, greeted by a small crowd clapping and c
Source: NYT
July 4, 2010
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. drew an analogy to the signers of the Declaration of Independence on Sunday in exhorting Iraqi leaders to end the paralysis that has stalled the formation of a government since the parliamentary elections four months ago.
“When they signed that declaration, many of them did not even like one another,” Mr. Biden, making his fourth trip to Baghdad as vice president, told a group of Iraqi leaders at a Fourth of July reception at the residence of the U
Source: WaPo
July 5, 2010
"Tea party" activists across the nation tried to put the "independence" back in Independence Day this weekend with festivals and other gatherings focused on the Constitution -- and how to use it for political gain....
"The rallies were a start, but the goal now is to get people to stop and really think about things," said Kerry Scott, an organizer of the Alexandria Tea Party, one of several hundred conservative activists who attended "An American E
Source: NYT
July 5, 2010
“THIS case is quite perplexing,” Clarence Darrow wrote his ex-wife in 1924, “and will most likely be a hard struggle to save the lives of the boys.”
The “boys” were Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two brilliant teenagers from wealthy Chicago families who conspired to commit the perfect crime. They failed, with tragic consequences for their kidnapping victim, 14-year-old Bobby Franks, and for themselves.
Still, Darrow, a champion of unpopular causes (think Spencer Tracy
Source: AP
July 4, 2010
...The Gulf is lined with wooden shipwrecks, American-Indian shell midden mounds, World War II casualties, pirate colonies, historic hotels and old fishing villages. Researchers now fear this treasure seeker's dream is threatened by BP PLC's deepwater well blowout.
Within 20 miles of the well, there are several significant shipwrecks — ironically, discovered by oil companies' underwater robots working the depths — and oil is most likely beginning to cascade on them.
The
Source: AOL News
July 4, 2010
In the Vermont hamlet where Calvin Coolidge was born, folks will celebrate his star-spangled birthday the way they always do.
A Vermont National Guard contingent and a color guard will gather at noon on the village green and walk down to the Plymouth Notch Cemetery, where Coolidge is buried, trailed by hundreds of people - Coolidge descendants, presidential history buffs and locals.
Next month, a new museum dedicated to Coolidge will opens its door at the historic site
Source: AOL News
July 4, 2010
Jim Leyden was waiting for word on the installation of his new backyard pool when he received a startling phone call.
In fact, while digging 8 feet beneath Leyden's Brighton, Tenn., backyard on June 30, contractors discovered the bones of a prehistoric mammal, possibly a trilophodon, part of the mastodon family. Mastodons are extinct relatives of today's elephants.
Leyden said he was shocked to learn that fossils, which one expert says could be anywhere from 30,000 year
Source: Independent (UK)
July 4, 2010
The final resting places of six German U-boats sunk in the final months of the Second World War's greatest naval conflict have finally been identified. After years of research, maritime experts say their discoveries will force historians to re-evaluate the battle for control of the Atlantic.
Evidence from the wrecks suggests many U-boats were sunk by mines rather than attacks by Allied air and naval forces, as had previously been believed. The findings show coastal minefields were
Source: CS Monitor
July 3, 2010
Quill pen in hand, Thomas Jefferson invited the King's noose when he set out to write what his fellow founders at first thought would be a mundane legal document: a declaration of independence from the British crown.
But despite a preamble that became a paean to individual liberty that has rivaled the Magna Carta in the breadth of its global impact, Mr. Jefferson apparently committed a slip of the pen.
To usher in the Fourth of July weekend, the Library of Congress reve
Source: BBC
July 4, 2010
The Scottish government is standing by the medical advice on which it released the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
It follows claims one cancer expert who gave Abdelbaset al-Megrahi a three-month prognosis last year has said he could survive for 10 years or more.
However, other newspaper reports said he was expected to die within weeks.
The newspaper reported Professor Sikora, dean of medicine at Buckingham University, had denied he came under any p
Source: BBC
July 4, 2010
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the US will donate $15m (£10m) to preserve the site of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Mrs Clinton was on a visit to Poland, where she oversaw the signing of a key missile base agreement.
She warned of a "steel vice" of repression crushing democracy and civil liberties activists in countries such as Iran, Egypt and Zimbabwe.
She held up Poland, which elects a new leader on Sunday, as a mod
