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: NYT
8-12-13
NEW HAVEN — William Howard Taft was not born there; he did not live or even die there. But for a few years, the 27th president did own the house at 111 Whitney Avenue in New Haven, and that association has conferred on the structure a certain historical gravitas.Now a group of current and former Yale students is betting the building can do the same for the William F. Buckley Jr. Program, which seeks to “expand political discourse on campus and to expose students to often-unvoiced views.” (It is a goal Mr. Buckley himself might have expressed, albeit with more syllables.)Thanks to $500,000 from a single, unnamed donor, the group will soon move into the William H. Taft Mansion — with a two-year lease and an option to buy — and attempt the transformation from a local undergraduate venture into a conservative policy institute with a presence on the national political landscape....
Source: NYT
8-12-13
LONDON — Not that it is unusual to see shabby old buildings being gutted by construction workers in a rapidly gentrifying area of east London like Hackney Road, but I felt a pang of regret when I spotted them starting work on one last week. I wasn’t concerned about its architecture, which is much the same as that of any of the other 19th-century terraced houses in the neighborhood, but about the signage.“To all responsible person” is painted in big black letters on the front of the building, and a description of a locksmith and safe maker is engraved on the side wall. “John Tann’s Reliance Locks, Fire & Burglarproof, Safes, Iron Doors,” it begins. Both signs have long outlived their usefulness: like the missing “s” at the end of “person,” Tann’s workshop disappeared decades ago.Will those signs survive the house’s renovation? I doubt it. The only reason they are still there is because the building has been neglected for so long, and was not deemed to be worth repairing or rebuilding until recently. Yet if the signs are removed, the neighborhood will be the poorer, having lost part of its character and some poignant symbols of its history....
Source: NYT
8-12-13
For 10 months, the world’s most valuable coin sat wrapped in plastic on a folding chair in a little cagelike compartment behind a bright blue door at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was only a step or two away from billions of dollars’ worth of neatly stacked bars of gold bullion.On Monday, a man in a dark suit stashed the coin in his briefcase and coolly walked out of the Fed’s heavily guarded limestone-and-sandstone building, a couple of blocks from the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan. He nodded politely to the guards on the front steps of the Fed. They did not stop him.The man with the briefcase, David N. Redden, an auction-house executive, was not pulling off a heist. He was taking the coin on a 6.7-mile ride to the New-York Historical Society on Central Park West....
Source: NYT
8-13-13
BOSTON — James (Whitey) Bulger, the mobster who terrorized South Boston in the 1970s and ‘80s, holding the city in his thrall even after he disappeared, was convicted Monday of a sweeping array of gangland crimes, including 11 murders. He faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.The verdict delivers long-delayed justice to Mr. Bulger, 83, who disappeared in the mid-1990s after a corrupt agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation told him he was about to be indicted. He left behind a city that wondered if he would ever be caught — and even if the F.B.I., which had been complicit in many of his crimes and had relied on him as an informer, was really looking for him.“This was the worst case of corruption in the history of the F.B.I.,” said Michael D. Kendall, a former federal prosecutor who investigated Mr. Bulger’s associates. “It was a multigenerational, systematic alliance with organized crime, where the F.B.I. was actively participating in the murders of government witnesses, or at least allowing them to occur.”...
Source: The Scotsman (UK)
8-13-13
A MEDIEVAL castle in the Highlands has revealed signs of its bloody past after a musket ball and cannonball were found by archaeologists.The artifacts are the latest discoveries by the team tasked with excavating Mingary Castle in west Ardnamurchan, Lochaber, for the first time.The castle is thought to be the best preserved 13th-century castle in Scotland.The musket ball is just under an inch in diameter and has been described as being “extremely heavy” due to having a high lead....
Source: The Scotsman (UK)
8-13-13
THE Titan crane in Clydebank, the world’s first giant electrically-powered cantilever crane, will today receive the same international heritage honour as held by the Eiffel Tower in Paris.The 106-year-old former shipyard crane on the River Clyde will be designated as an international historic civil engineering landmark by four leading civil and mechanical engineering institutions.The crane, which became a visitor attraction in 2007, helped to fit out some of the world’s biggest battleships and liners, such as the Queen Mary, QE2 at the John Brown’s shipyard....
Source: The Scotsman (UK)
8-12-13
THE Great Train Robbers ditched a huge haul of cash from their infamous raid because they were Scottish banknotes, it has been claimed.Gang members were said to be too wary of the “foreign” money snatched in the 1963 robbery, in which they stole £2.6 million (the equivalent of over £40m today) so they left it in their countryside hideout.But this proved to be one of the key pieces of evidence that led to most of the 15-man gang’s eventual capture.Author Nick Russell-Pavier, who carried out a series of interviews with mastermind Bruce Reynolds before he died, revealed the gang left behind a large sum in Scottish and Irish banknotes because they were wary of the currency....
Source: Guardian (UK)
8-10-13
On 20 May 1609, the publisher Thomas Thorpe stepped off Ludgate Hill into Stationers' Hall, and registered what was to become perhaps the most famous poetic works of all time: Shakespeare's Sonnets. It was a slim volume on publication, containing 154 poems over 67 pages, and the edition is now extremely rare: only 13 copies survive. But its influence has been all-encompassing, providing a template for language, for literature, for love, ever since. Recent years have seen the sonnets disseminated in ways that Shakespeare could never have imagined. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is quoted 5m times on the internet. Apps have been created in which famous voices recite the poems, sonnets are tweeted, T-shirts are printed, and poetry that was once said to circulate only among Shakespeare's "private friends" is now stored for ever in the cloud.
Source: The Local
8-9-13
The discovery was made by police divers off the coast of Porto Maurizio, Liguria, Il Secolo XIX reported.At least 50 Roman vases were found in the ship, 50 metres below sea level, which remains completely intact.“This is an exceptional discovery,” Lieutenant Colonel Francesco Schilardi told the newspaper.“Now it’s a matter of protecting the ship and keeping the grave...
Source: Toronto Globe and Mail
8-9-13
The search for the wreckage of the ill-fated Franklin expedition in Canada’s Arctic will resume this weekend.The HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror were lost after an 1845 expedition led by Sir John Franklin disappeared while attempting to find the Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean.Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq says a group of scientists will spend six weeks conducting underwater searches using high-tech equipment, including military-grade sonar and remotely operated vehicles....
Source: Toronto Globe and Mail
8-9-13
Researchers opened a centuries-old Florence tomb on Friday in a search for remains that could confirm the identity of the woman whose enigmatic smile Leonardo da Vinci immortalized in the Mona Lisa, one of the world’s most famous paintings.A round hole, just big enough for a person to wriggle through, was cut in the stone church floor above the family crypt of Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, whose wife, Lisa Gherardini, is thought to have sat for the Renaissance master in the early 16th century....
Source: The Scotsman (UK)
8-8-13
ARCHAEOLOGISTS who have published the full analysis of a Scottish Iron Age hill fort first excavated in the 1970s have revealed fragments of “human trophy” bones were discovered on the site.Broxmouth hill fort in East Lothian, which had first been identified from aerial photographs, was examined before the site was destroyed by a cement works.It had been known that there had been a community of a couple of hundred people living at the fort for almost 1,000 years before the site was abandoned when the Romans left.
Source: The Scotsman (UK)
8-9-13
IT WAS one of Scotland’s most catastrophic defeats, a battle that robbed the country of its king and countless lairds.Now, in the run-up to the 500th anniversary of the battle of Flodden, an expert has blamed the defeat on the Scottish army’s inability to master their weapon of choice: an unwieldy, 18ft pike.The forces of James IV were destroyed by the English troops of Henry VIII because they were unable to use their long pikes properly and did not have enough time to get used to them, according to military archaeologist Dr Tony Pollard, of Glasgow University....
Source: National Post (Canada)
8-8-13
An Ottawa historian’s discovery of a 19th-century manuscript previously unseen by scholars has shed new light on the 1867 unearthing of “Champlain’s Astrolabe,” the navigational instrument famously — though controversially — believed to have been lost by French explorer Samuel de Champlain during his pioneering journey up the Ottawa River exactly four centuries ago this year.The 13-centimetre-wide, 629-gram circle of brass, repatriated from a U.S. collection in 1989 for $250,000 by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, is widely considered one of country’s most important and evocative historical artifacts — though there is no direct proof it ever actually belonged to Champlain, the 17th-century founder of New France.And Carleton University historian Bruce Elliott’s discovery of an 1893 document penned by Capt. Daniel Cowley — an Ottawa Valley steamboat entrepreneur who had been a key part of the astrolabe saga when it was found 26 years earlier — appears to strengthen the case against Champlain’s ownership of the object....
Source: Guardian (UK)
8-8-13
The 17th-century Hôtel de Savoie on the Rue des Grands Augustins in the chic 6th arrondissement of Paris is one of the grand mansions for which the French capital is famous.A greying plaque next to the building's wrought iron gates, however, reveals added historic value. "Pablo Picasso lived in this building between 1936 and 1955. It is in this studio he painted Guernica in 1937", it proclaims.Today, the Hôtel de Savoie has seen better days. However, the studio, which Honoré de Balzac – whose name is also noted on the plaque – described as "so large that the skylight fails to illuminate the corners" and which is reached via an impressive entrance hall and spiral staircase, is recognisable from photos showing Picasso at work here....
Source: BBC News
8-8-13
The FBI has reopened an investigation into the disappearance of a newborn boy stolen from a Chicago hospital in 1964.It comes after DNA tests showed that the child who was returned to the missing boy's parents is not their son.Paul Fronczak, 49, was raised by Chester and Dora Fronczak after detectives found him abandoned in New Jersey in 1965....
Source: Der Spiegel
8-8-13
Locals believe that the Spanish town of Aielo de Malferit is where Coca-Cola originated -- and that the factory which developed the formula that inspired the world's best-selling soda has been cheated of its rightful place in history. Not to mention profits.It's allegedly the birthplace of the world's best-known soft drink, but these days, it's looking a little run-down. Lined with houses that are for sale, the streets of Aielo de Malferit in the province of Valencia are deserted. With the younger generation escaping chronic unemployment and moving to major cities such as Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid, only the elderly still live here.Gray-haired and bespectacled, 74-year-old Juan Micó wears a white lab coat as he pours a brown liquid into a thin glass tube. Shards of pale sunlight filter through the grimy windows of his factory, and a smell of damp wood pervades the air. "The grated kola nut and herbs blended with alcohol mature in a clay jug for a month," he explains. "What happens then is a secret." ...
Source: BBC News
8-8-13
Rare evidence that humans lived on the River Thames 9,000 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists working on the Crossrail project.A Mesolithic tool-making factory featuring 150 pieces of flint was found at the tunnelling worksite in Woolwich.Archaeologists said prehistoric Londoners were using the site to prepare river cobbles which were then made into flint tools.Gold has also been discovered at its site in Liverpool Street....
Source: Sacramento Bee
8-8-13
The only original building left intact at Sutter's Fort is getting an upgrade.For the past month, California State Parks employees have been working to seismically stabilize and reshingle the roof of the historic Central Building at Sutter's Fort Historic Park.When originally constructed in 1840, the 6,500-square-foot building was the largest in the region, and it has since served alternatively as an office space, an entertainment hub, an Army headquarters and a miners dormitory....
Source: Kansas City Star
8-8-13
Margaret Pellegrini, 89, who played the flowerpot Munchkin in the 1939 movie, died Wednesday, a spokesman for the Munchkins told news outlets, including CNN.Spokesman Ted Bulthaup said that Pellegrini, one of the Sleepy Head kids in the film, suffered a stroke at her Phoeniz area home on Monday....Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/08/08/4396713/margaret-pellegrini-one-of-last.html#storylink=cpy..
