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: Guardian (UK)
7-7-13
William the Conqueror has been deposed, along with Edward III and Henry V, and Elizabeth I has kept her head but lost her horse, but the survivors of one of the oldest tourist attractions in the world, suited and booted in shining armour, their horses pawing the ground and tossing their wooden manes, are almost ready to ride out again.On Wednesday visitors to the White Tower, the oldest part of the Tower of London, will see the latest version of a display almost 400 years old, extolled in countless guide books, maps, journals and letters. In 1652 a Dutch diplomat, Lodewijck Huygens, wrote that he had been to see "wooden horses with armed men on them" – and the tall tales were also already in place, since he was shown not only the genuine armour of Henry VIII, but that of John of Gaunt, "a renowned warrior of a few hundred years ago"."It was the one sight any visitor to London worth his salt had to see," said Thom Richardson, curator of armour at the Royal Armouries, which runs the White Tower within the Historic Royal Palaces Tower of London site....
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
7-1-13
High on the facade of Santa Maria Antica, among soaring Gothic spires and forbidding statues of knights in armor, pathologist Gino Fornaciari prepared to examine a corpse. Accompanied by workmen, he had climbed a 30-foot scaffold erected against this medieval church in Verona, Italy, and watched as they used hydraulic jacks to raise the massive lid of a marble sarcophagus set in a niche. Peering inside, Fornaciari found the body of a male in his 30s, wearing a long silk mantle, arms crossed on his chest. The abdomen was distended from postmortem putrefaction, although Fornaciari caught no scent of decomposition, only a faint waft of incense. He and the laborers eased the body onto a stretcher and lowered it to the ground; after dark, they loaded it into a van and drove to a nearby hospital, where Fornaciari began a series of tests to determine why the nobleman died—and how he had lived.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
7-7-13
The crew of a British Second World War bomber that was shot down over Italy are to be laid to rest almost 70 years after they went missing in action.Six months after Warrant Officer John Hunt failed to return from a bombing raid over northern Italy in the last days of the Second World War, his mother sent a letter to the military authorities pleading for information about her missing son.Jeanette Madge wrote that the months since she had received the telegram notifying her he had not returned from the mission had been “just hell, waiting for something to come through” adding “please let me know if he is alright or if he is gone”....
Source: Der Spiegel
7-5-13
Over 20 years ago, a landscaper in eastern Germany discovered a formation of trees in a forest in the shape of a swastika. Since then, a number of other forest swastikas have been found in Germany and beyond, but the mystery of their origins persist.Blame it on the larches. Brandenburg native Günter Reschke was the first one to notice their unique formation, according to a 2002 article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. To be more precise, however, it was the new intern at Reschke's landscaping company, Ökoland Dederow, who discovered the trees in 1992 as he was completing a typically thankless intern task: searching aerial photographs for irrigation lines.Instead, he found a small group of 140 larches standing in the middle of dense forest, surrounded by hundreds of other trees. But there was a crucial difference: all the others were pine trees. The larches, unlike the pines, changed color in the fall, first to yellow, then brown. And when they were seen from a certain height, it wasn't difficult to recognize the pattern they formed. It was quite striking, in fact....
Source: NYT
7-5-13
PERUGIA, Italy — As tomb heists go, it was an odd job.The robbers were not professional tombaroli, the looters of ancient sites who have over the centuries despoiled countless graves in Italy. They were people, the authorities said, who had stumbled onto a trove of important Etruscan artifacts a decade ago while digging to build a garage in a villa just outside the city center here.Rather than notify authorities, investigators say the looters divided up the stash and looked around for years before trying to cash in on their good fortune....
Source: NY Post
7-5-13
It might have been around for what feels like an ice age, but a refrigerator still chilling after almost 85 years could be the oldest in America.The fridge -- which shows no signs of freezing up -- cost around $300 when it was first produced by General Electric, equivalent to a staggering $4,225 today.It is believed to be the oldest working fridge in the US -- a title once belonging to a 1938 flat top GE model owned by Mike Ansel from Pennsylvania.But the three-foot-tall Globe Top monitor top cooler, currently owned by Mark Vail and Jane Galyean from Montgomery, New York, was purchased around eight years earlier....
Source: Vanity Fair
7-1-13
If you saw that blessedly short-lived television series called Pan Am a couple of years ago, you probably think, as I do, that the best thing about it was the Pan Am terminal at J.F.K., a cheerful, round structure with a gigantic overhanging concrete roof that seemed to emerge out of the naïve notion that flying could be fun: airport as midcentury modern circus. The building was certainly more exuberant, not to say more convincing, than any character in the show.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
7-5-13
Look deep into the enormous Lego Acropolis going into the Nicholson Museum tomorrow and you'll see a tiny amphitheatre in which a Lego Oedipus is stabbing his eyes out with a sword. Lego blood spills all over the stage. An audience of Lego mini figures looks on, aghast.''It's a performance of Oedipus Rex,'' explains Michael Turner, the museum's senior curator. ''It's the perfect show for the Theatre of Dionysus and the audience looks like it's having a wild time.''Built by Ryan McNaught, the only Lego-certified professional in the southern hemisphere, the Lego Acropolis contains more than 120,000 bricks and took about 300 hours to build. The buildings, including The Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, the smaller Erechtheion temple and the Propylaia, the monumental gateway, are made from gleaming white bricks....
Source: AFP
7-5-13
ROME (AFP).- Alarm bells are ringing once more over the upkeep of Italy's historic monuments, from the Roman city of Pompeii to the Colosseum, with budget cuts hampering repairs and UNESCO issuing a stern rebuke."Over the last five years, the culture budget has been reduced by two thirds," Culture Minister Massimo Bray complained in an interview on Monday published in Italian newspapers.Italy is now lagging well behind its European counterparts: the country allocates just 1.1 percent of its budget to culture, compared to 7.4 percent in Ireland, 3.3 percent in Spain and 2.5 percent in France.The lack of funds is having a disastrous affect on the country's archaeological treasures, with many sites closed due to fears of rock collapses and others sporadically shut by protests and strikes....
Source: Guardian (UK)
7-5-13
An Australian bushman and naturalist claims to have captured video footage of the night parrot, a bird not seen alive for more than a century.John Young, who describes himself as a wildlife detective, showed the footage and a number of still photos of the bird to a packed room of enthusiasts and media at the Queensland Museum on Wednesday. The desert-dwelling night parrot, Pezoporus occidentalis, has never been photographed and the only evidence of its continued existence has been two dead birds found in 1990 and 2006.Wildlife authorities and birders responded to the sighting with excitement, saying the evidence supporting Young's claim was overwhelming....
Source: CNN.com
7-4-13
(CNN) – With signs of patriotism abounding for the Fourth of July, a new survey indicates seven in 10 Americans think the Founding Fathers would be disappointed by the way the United States has turned out, 237 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.But that doesn't mean Americans themselves are displeased. The same poll, released Thursday by Gallup, shows the number who say they're very or extremely proud to be American remains steady at 85%....Despite the high level of patriotism, 71% of Americans think the signers of the Declaration of Independence wouldn't be pleased with the nation today. That number has steadily risen since 2001, when the number stood at 42%....
Source: Toronto Star
7-3-13
They came with kilts and bagpipes, among other Canadian military accoutrements. And now the members of the top-secret World War II unit the Devil's Brigade are leaving with something altogether astonishing -- a Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest honours the United States can bestow.Canadian Ambassador Gary Doer hailed the news in Washington today after both houses of Congress, in a rare show of bipartisanship, found two-thirds majorities required to grant the medal."We are grateful that the U.S. Congress has recognized the brave accomplishments of the First Special Service Force in World War II," Doer said in a statement."The Devil's Brigade were the first of their kind, and the legacy of bilateral defense cooperation that they inspired continues between our two countries to this day."...
Source: BBC News
7-3-13
The Queen has officially reopened the former home of author Sir Walter Scott in the Scottish Borders after its multi-million pound restoration.Abbotsford House, near Melrose, will open to the public on Thursday.The royal visitor was given a tour of the house, which shut for major renovations nearly two years ago.The Abbotsford Trust hopes the historic building can become both an "important cultural centre and tourist destination" for the region....
Source: Japan Times
7-2-13
PHNOM PEL, CAMBODIA – More than 100 burial jars and a dozen coffins arranged on a ledge in remote Cambodian jungle have for centuries held the bones — and secrets — of a mysterious people who lived during the Angkor era.Why the bones were placed in jars on a cliff some 100 meters high in the Cardamom Mountains — or indeed whose remains they are — has long puzzled experts.For seven years Nancy Beavan, an archaeologist who specializes in carbon dating, has been looking for an answer, painstakingly piecing together clues left by the enigmatic people at 10 sites dotted across the area in southwestern Cambodia....
Source: Knoxville News
7-1-13
The campaign to create a national park dedicated to the once-top-secret Manhattan Project is moving through Congress, but supporters aren’t ready to declare victory just yet.“It is by no means a fait accompli,” says Nancy Tinker, senior field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.Still it’s the closest the park has come yet to being a done deal.The U.S. House approved in June the $552.1 billion defense authorization bill, which included funds to establish the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which would include sites in Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, N.M., and Hanford, Wash....
Source: Bloomberg News
6-30-13
Croatia became the 28th member of the European Union, capping a decade of judicial and economic overhaul to shed the remnants of communism and its wartime past.Tens of thousands celebrated the entry of the second former Yugoslav republic into the EU with fireworks, five-story projections of its history and technology, concerts, dance performances and street parties across Zagreb. European Commission President Jose Barroso and other EU officials gathered at the central square as Croatian and blue-and-yellow EU flags fluttered in the evening breeze above revelers’ heads.The Adriatic country, which emerged as an independent state in 1991 during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia, is looking to EU membership to help solidify peace throughout the Balkan region as tensions still smolder in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Leaders are also counting on EU ties to lure foreign investors to the $63 billion economy and end four years of recession and stagnation....
Source: BBC News
6-30-13
The 1,300-year-old Lindisfarne Gospels have gone on display in the north-east of England for three months.The major Durham University exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see them outside the British Library in London.An e-book version of the manuscript with "zoomable" digital pictures has been produced by the library.Head of history and classics Dr Scot McKendrick said it "extends the reach and accessibility" of the Gospels and hoped it would be "very inspiring.""It's one of the great frustrations of exhibiting books - we all know there is lots more wonder beyond that one opening that you see," he said....
Source: Toronto Star
6-30-13
MONTREAL—Generations of toil at dizzying heights have culminated in this towering achievement.Ironworkers from a Mohawk community were part of the team that installed the final section of spire at the top of the new One World Trade Center in New York last month.John McGowan was one of those involved as he and colleagues wrote a special page in a history filled with high-level triumph, and also with tragedy.“It was a clear nice day. It couldn’t have been a nicer day,” said the 48-year-old resident of Kahnawake, Que., near Montreal....
Source: New Zealand Herald
7-1-13
Today marks the start of the 38th Te Wiki o te Reo Maori (Maori Language Week). It began in 1975 amid concerns about the health of the language and has grown into a week where community groups, companies and schools celebrate with a raft of activities.The Minister of Maori Affairs, Dr Pita Sharples, is calling for more iwi investment in te reo revitalisation and a wider acceptance from Maori that the language still stands in a precarious position.Census data from 2001 to 2006 revealed a drop in ability to hold an everyday conversation in Maori from 25.2 to 23.7 per cent. The figures are the most recent available until this year's figures are released.A new government language strategy is due by the end of the year but officials are already signalling that community initiatives which aim to get Maori speaking their own reo within their homes are an increasing focus....
Source: Pioneer Press
6-29-13
In the smoky twilight outside Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, several regiments from Alabama were fighting their way down a slope into a rocky creek bed. Union soldiers were fleeing in front of them. The Confederates were almost at their goal -- to completely break the Union line and take a battery of big guns a few hundred yards away at the top of another slope called Cemetery Ridge. But out of the smoke, a line of Minnesotans came running toward them, firing and charging with leveled bayonets. Two major Civil War anniversaries are coming up this week. Given the choice between visiting Vicksburg, Miss., and Gettysburg, Pa., there was never any question of where dignitaries from Minnesota would pay their respects. The fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, may have been more important to defeating the South, and several thousand Minnesota soldiers were part of the siege that preceded the city's surrender.
