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: Yahoo News
June 29, 2010
Following in others' grand tradition of demonstrating gaps in knowledge while addressing a university, Sarah Palin told a crowd at a fundraiser at California State University in Stanislaus last weekend that Ronald Reagan, personal hero and inspiration, was a California college graduate. She told the cheering crowd: "This is Reagan country, and perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California's Eureka College would become so woven within and interlinked to the Golden State."
Source: AFP
June 29, 2010
Prehistoric man enjoyed a primitive version of cinema, according to Austrian and British researchers, who are currently seeking to recreate these ancient visual displays.
Rock engravings from the Copper Age found all over Europe in remote, hidden locations, indicate the artwork was more than mere images, researchers from Cambridge University and Sankt Poelten's university of applied sciences (FH) in Austria believe.
Cambridge University and FH Sankt Poelten have now lau
Source: AP
June 29, 2010
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the longest-serving senator in history, often told his colleagues that he loved them, but he loved the Senate more. Fittingly, that's where Washington will bid him farewell on Thursday, when his body will lie in repose before returning home to West Virginia for a public funeral.
Byrd's final appearance on the Senate floor, where he became famous for soaring oratory and record-setting speeches, will be as historic as the senator himself. A senator's casket last l
Source: BBC
June 29, 2010
The heritage status of a pier in Cornwall has been upgraded by English Heritage.
The South Pier at Penzance harbour was already a Grade II listed building, but it has now been given Grade II* status.
It means the historical significance of the pier is of particularly importance.
The upgraded listing will be one of the factors the government will have to take into account before deciding if the harbour can be redeveloped.
Source: BBC
June 29, 2010
The use of so-called "deep-cover illegals" and a patient approach to espionage are two hallmarks of Russian spying dating back nearly a century.
The golden age of the great Russian "illegals" - who were not just living without diplomatic cover and the protection that this provides, but were pretending to be nationalities other than Russian - lies back in the midst of time before even the dawn of the Cold War.
In the 1930s, the KGB's predecessor sent
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 29, 2010
China and Taiwan signed a landmark tariff-slashing trade deal on Tuesday, boosting economic ties and easing political tensions six decades after the rivals split amid civil war.
The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) cuts tariffs on 800 products and opens up service industries, giving a major boost to around $100 billion (£66.5 billion) in annual two-way trade.
But it covers only the easiest of potentially thousands of items targeted for tariff cuts in yea
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 29, 2010
An ancient Indian tribe with just 350 surviving members is at risk of becoming extinct after a rise in alcohol consumption and tourism to their Andaman Islands home have threatened to wipe them out.
The United Nations is leading a campaign to save the last surviving members of the Jarawa tribe amid growing calls for them to be integrated into mainstream society.
The tribe on India's tropical Andaman Islands, believed to be descendants of migrants who left Africa 65,000
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 29, 2010
Cleopatra did not die from a snake bite but a lethal drug cocktail that included opium and hemlock, according to German scientists.
The Queen of the Nile ended her life in 30BC and it has always been held that it was the bite of an asp – now called the Egyptian cobra – which caused her demise.
Now Christoph Schaefer, German historian and professor at the University of Trier, is presenting evidence that aims to prove drugs and not the reptile were the cause of death.
Source: Fox News
June 28, 2010
A group of retired Marines is asking Connecticut's attorney general to allow the "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden flag to fly over the state Capitol on July 4 after Capitol Police refused the request saying it doesn’t fall within the state’s flag flying parameters.
The group says the yellow banner, which sports a coiled rattlesnake and its trademark motto, is the original flag of the U.S. Marine Corps and clearly fits into the section of the policy which states that the Connect
Source: CNN
June 29, 2010
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said Tuesday she continues to oppose the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bans openly gay and lesbian soldiers from military service.
In the first heated exchange of her confirmation hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kagan sparred with Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama over her role as dean of Harvard Law School in barring military recruiters from the university's Office of Career Services.
Severa
Source: CNN
June 29, 2010
Considered one of modern Africa's founding fathers, Zambia's first President Kenneth Kaunda has spent much of his life fighting some of Africa's toughest battles.
From his struggles against the racism and oppression of colonial rule in the 1950s to the fight against AIDS today, it's been an eventful life for Zambia's former leader.
But his fight for independence was not without consequence and in 1959 Kaunda was arrested and jailed for ten months.
After his
Source: CNN
June 29, 2010
A bronze statue was unveiled in Seoul on June 22, honoring a young American hero who fell in the battlefield in September 1950. A doctorate candidate of honor at Harvard University, William Hamilton Shaw did not hesitate to answer the call to defend Korea and protect freedom and peace.
The Navy lieutenant fought courageously, being proud to be among the U.N. troops led by Commander-in-Chief Douglas MacArthur in the blitz Incheon landing against the North Korean Army. His dream of b
Source: Hutchinson News (Kansas)
June 26, 2010
To the naked eye, this 160-acre section of windswept prairie tucked in the far southeast corner of Ness County is just a pasture.
Dig deeper, Kansas researchers Leo Oliva and George Elmore say. Evidence rests below the soil, in old documents stored in Washington and in the diaries of the past.
It once was a Cheyenne and Sioux village of around 1,500, dotted by 300 lodges - a wintering spot before the spring buffalo hunts.
Until, that is, the U.S. military b
Source: Irish Examiner
June 24, 2010
IF you were to go off searching for gold, you’d hardly expect to find it lurking in between the sunlotion, plasters and bathsets at your nearest pharmacy.
However, a robbery at a Roscommon pharmacy started gardaí on a hunt that ended up with the discovery of 4,000-year-old gold artefacts.
Now known as the Coggalbeg Hoard, the early Bronze Age gold dates to 2300-1800 BC and now is on display at the National Museum in Kildare Street, Dublin.
Source: BBC News
June 29, 2010
Democratic Republic of Congo gained independence from Belgium 50 years ago amid high hopes but the country remains mired in war, corruption and poverty. Here is a selection of the 50 Congolese photographed by Stephan Vanfleteren to mark the anniversary.
Source: Politico
June 29, 2010
A student of history, Robert Byrd became a chapter onto himself: a half-century in the Senate and remarkable life that was its own Pilgrim’s Progress from Wolf Creek Hollow through American politics....
“He was very much a man of the Senate,” recalls former Republican leader Howard Baker of Tennessee. Sam Nunn, the former Democratic senator from Georgia, still finds himself reciting Byrd lines — the Senate as the “anchor of the republic” — or hearing his old teacher say “senator” al
Source: AP
June 29, 2010
China and Taiwan signed a tariff-slashing trade pact Tuesday that boosts economic ties and further eases political tensions six decades after the rivals split amid civil war....
The deal was signed in the southern Chinese city of Chongqing -- a venue with an evocative history. Communist leader Mao Zedong and Nationalist President Chiang Kai-shek tried to negotiate a truce there after World War II -- but failed. The two sides then resumed the civil war that ultimately saw Chiang's go
Source: CNN.com
June 27, 2010
One of South America's largest historical archives -- 35 million pages that chronicle widespread killing, forced disappearances and torture committed by Brazilian military rulers from 1964 to 1985 -- is rotting away in an obscure government building in Brazil's capital.
Carlos Fico, a leading historian of the so-called "lead years" in Brazil, confirmed accounts first reported in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo about deteriorating conditions at the Brazilian nati
Source: Science Daily
June 28, 2010
The hidden secrets of some of the world's most famous paintings have been revealed thanks to a partnership between EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and the National Gallery.
Culminating in the first major exhibition of its kind in summer 2010, scientists at the Gallery have been using the latest equipment to shed new light on the history behind some of the Gallery's priceless works of art.
A state-of-the-art, EPSRC-funded gas-chromatography-mas
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 28, 2010
Two Canadian teachers who wanted a memento of their trip to Auschwitz have been arrested by Polish police for stealing pins from the camp's railway track, according to reports.
The two male teachers were caught in possession of retaining pins used to hold down the rails which once transported hundreds of thousands to their death.
RMF FM, a Polish radio station, reported that the Canadians, who, allegedly admitted to stealing the pins, took them because they wanted a m
