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)
May 27, 2010
The lovers in one of the National Gallery's most famous paintings may be depicted experiencing the effects of a hallucinogenic drug, according to an art expert.
Venus and Mars has long been regarded as a tribute to the "conquering and civilising power of love" but new evidence suggests it could contain a subversive message about drug use.
A plant being held by a mischievous-looking satyr in the bottom right corner of the painting has been recognised as a speci
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 27, 2010
After centuries of being kept under lock and key, the Vatican has started opening its Secret Archives to outsiders in a bid to dispel the myths and mystique created by works of fiction such as Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.
The archives, until now jealously guarded from prying eyes, provide one of the key settings in Brown's thriller, in which Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon, played in the 2009 film by Tom Hanks, races against time to stop a secret religious order, t
Source: AP
May 27, 2010
The partyof detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi quietly commemorated the anniversary Thursday of its victory in elections 20 years ago and stood by its decision not to register for new polls to be held later this year.
A faction of the party, however, has split off to participate in the balloting.
About 70 party members gathered at the residence of party Vice Chairman Tin Oo to celebrate the party's 1990 victory.
Source: AP
May 27, 2010
Newly released FBI files show North Carolina's long-serving Sen. Jesse Helms curried favor with director J. Edgar Hoover before starting his 30-year political life.
The conservative Republican icon from Raleigh later called on the FBI occasionally for information and investigations.
Dozens of investigated death threats, forgotten episodes of foreign and domestic intrigues, and personal notes exchanged with one of Hoover's successors comprise the bulk of more than 1,500
Source: CNN
May 27, 2010
Swinging through Iowa Wednesday to promote his new book, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested he and his wife may be spending a lot of time in the key campaign state next year.
Though declining to discuss the specifics of his political future, Gingrich said his wife - who attended college in Iowa - may be preparing to make an extended return to the Hawkeye State.
Gingrich has repeatedly left to the door open to a presidential run, saying last January that he con
Source: Medieval News
May 27, 2010
An international research team has figured out northwest Africa's climate history by using the information recorded in tree rings. The trees sampled contain climate data from the medieval period, including one from Morocco that dates back to the year 883.
The climate of a region that includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia has now been analyzed back to the year 1179 and shows that frequent and severe droughts occurred during the 13th and 16th centuries.
"Water issues
Source: Medieval News
May 27, 2010
A major new archaeology project, starting in early October 2010, will uncover the rich history of the eastern districts of Oxford City. The wide-ranging project has been made possible by a £330,700 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and a grant of £49,787 from the University of Oxford’s John Fell Fund.
The three-year project will involve volunteers and local communities in hands-on investigation of the local landscape, recording discoveries, and presenting interpretations of
Source: China Daily
May 26, 2010
Archeologists in northwest China's Shaanxi province said Wednesday they had found a primitive "icebox" dating back at least 2,000 years in the ruins of an emperor's residence.
The "icebox," unearthed in Qianyang county, contained several clay rings 1.1 meters in diameter and 0.33 meters tall, said Tian Yaqi, a researcher with the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology.
"The loops were put together to form a shaft about 1.6 meters tall,"
Source: WTOC (GA)
May 26, 2010
Hundreds of slaves, trying to outrun confederate soldiers, on their way to freedom, died at Ebenezer Creek in Effingham County.
That was nearly 150 years ago and Tuesday people gathered near that spot to unveil a new historical marker. The marker is located along Georgia Highway 275 North.
"This is a great day, a historic day in many, many ways," said Georgia labor commissioner Michael Thurmond.
Thurmond, along with the Georgia Historical Society
Source: National Parks Traveler
May 23, 2010
Where is the rest of the original English settlement site on Roanoke Island? What more can we learn about the location and condition of German submarines that were sunk along the North Carolina coast? These and other interesting questions are being addressed by underwater archeologists working at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Cape Hatteras National Seashore during May and June.
At Fort Raleigh, a team of divers led by Professor Gordon Watts (Institute of Nautical Archeolo
Source: The Moscow Times
May 25, 2010
Dozens of Muscovites resumed a protest Monday to prevent work to raze historical buildings on a protected plot of land where developers plan to build an elite apartment complex.
About 50 people, including members from the youth branches of Yabloko and A Just Russia, prevented builders from working on Kadashevsky Tupik, a small street in downtown Moscow near the protected Church of the Resurrection in Kadashi.
Preservationists say construction of the Five Capitals apartm
Source: Hampton Roads Pilot
May 26, 2010
Fort Monroe's grocery store would be converted to a visitor center where tourists will be encouraged to park their cars, then take a walk - or ride a bike - to explore the bayfront property. Shuttle buses will circulate, too, dropping visitors inside the nation's largest moated stone fort, at the beach or next to a marsh overlook.
Those are some of the plans presented Tuesday at this historic Army post, which becomes state property in September 2011.
The fate of the 570
Source: AP
May 27, 2010
In life, Ernesto "Che" Guevara fought to overthrow a corrupt, capitalist elite. In death, he is spawning his own tourism industry — soon to include a three-country "Che Trail."
Tourism officials in Argentina, Cuba and Bolivia are collaborating on a historic route that will allow Guevara buffs to retrace the footsteps of the Argentine medical student turned revolutionary in Cuba who was killed in a failed mission to foment an uprising in Bolivia.
Boli
Source: Kansas City Star
May 26, 2010
Dust puffed from the ground with each step Johanna Smith took along the ruts of the Oregon Trail near Glenns Ferry.
A stiff, bone-dry wind swept across the sagebrush plateau overlooking the three islands in the Snake River where pioneers crossed with their stock and wagons.
It was one of the most demanding obstacles along the 2,170-mile trail from Missouri to Oregon in the 1800s.
"I've learned a lot about the emigration," said Smith, who is a volu
Source: CBS News
May 26, 2010
There's an old saying that goes "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," and one Georgia history teacher is probably wishing she had stuck to the remembering part and not the whole bring-it-back-to-life with full Ku Klux Klan costume garb part.
Catherine Ariemma teaches honors history at Lumpkin County High School in Dahlonega, Ga., about 65 miles north of Atlanta, and by all accounts is a good teacher with a spotless record over the past five years
Source: MyNorth.com
May 18, 2010
After days floating on the cobalt, emerald and steely swells of Lakes Huron and Michigan bound for the Straits of Mackinac from Fort Detroit, Jonathan Carver must have become accustomed to the fresh, organic and faintly fishy scent of water. An aroma purified of humans and their business.
So the waft of humanity that greeted the stocky, 56-year-old Carver when he arrived at Fort Michilimackinac’s water gate on a late-August day in 1766, had to have been jolting. Gamey smoke swirled
Source: Democrat & Chronicle (NY)
May 23, 2010
As part of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry and just short of his 18th birthday, Thomas Edward Platner fought bravely in Florida and South Carolina during the Civil War.
He survived combat in Charleston, where 256 other soldiers found their end. After the war, the unmarried former laborer found roots in Rochester, served as one of Frederick Douglass' pallbearers and was instrumental in erecting a monument in Rochester to the civil rights pioneer.
Little else is known abo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 26, 2010
Rome culture officials said that, after several months of work to make the area safe for visits, the public will be allowed to add the underground section to tours of the arena starting in late summer. No exact date has been set.
Architect Barbara Nazzaro said that tourists will be able to see the spaces where lions, tigers and bulls were kept in cages before they were hoisted on elevators to ground level for entertainment in the ancient arena.
Source: Nature
April 15, 2010
Around four tonnes of ancient Roman lead was yesterday transferred from a museum on the Italian island of Sardinia to the country's national particle physics laboratory at Gran Sasso on the mainland. Once destined to become water pipes, coins or ammunition for Roman soldiers' slingshots, the metal will instead form part of a cutting-edge experiment to nail down the mass of neutrinos.
The 120 lead ingots, each weighing about 33 kilograms, come from a larger load recovered 20 years ag
Source: National Security Archive at GWU
May 25, 2010
Today the National Security Archive publishes its fifth installment of the diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, the man behind some of the most momentous transformations in Soviet foreign policy at the end of the 1980s in his role as Mikhail Gorbachev's chief foreign policy aide.
In addition to his contributions to perestroika and new thinking, Anatoly Sergeevich Chernyaev was and remains a strong proponent of openness and transparency, providing his diaries and notes to historians trying to
