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: Reuters
4-29-13
South Dakota is finding it difficult to change time-worn names of locations that are seen as offensive by African-Americans and Native Americans, such as "Negro" and "squaw" creeks, canyons and mountain ridges.The state issued a plea this month for public assistance in renaming five geographic features. The five are part of a total of 18 sites that include the word "squaw" or "Negro" in their names and have been designated by the legislature as needing renaming.But some of the replacement names suggested by the South Dakota Board of Geographic Names have been rejected by an obscure federal body called the U.S. Board on Geographic Names....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
4-30-13
America’s Founding Fathers were actually Essex boys, with Plymouth accused of "hijacking" the Mayflower, the ship that carried them to North America nearly 400 years ago, according to claims.A rival claim to the Mayflower by the port town of Harwich states that the ship's crew were from Essex and only set foot briefly in the West Country before starting their transatlantic voyage.The claim has taken on extra significance as the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage in 2020 nears - Plymouth has already sent an invitation to whoever is the President of the United States in seven years' time.Although Plymouth has become closely associated with the Mayflower, Harwich claims it was no more than luck that the ship stopped at that port at all....
Source: University of Arizona
4-25-13
The Maya civilization is well-known for its elaborate temples, sophisticated writing system, and mathematical and astronomical developments, yet the civilization's origins remain something of a mystery.A new University of Arizona study to be published in the journal Science challenges the two prevailing theories on how the ancient civilization began, suggesting its origins are more complex than previously thought.Anthropologists typically fall into one of two competing camps with regard to the origins of Maya civilization. The first camp believes that it developed almost entirely on its own in the jungles of what is now Guatemala and southern Mexico. The second believes that the Maya civilization developed as the result of direct influences from the older Olmec civilization and its center of La Venta....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
4-30-13
Nudity is an all or nothing kind of thing, as Qatari authorities recently discovered. Seek to drape the naughty bits of a pair of ancient sculptures of nude male athletes, and you end up with no nudes at all.This is precisely what happened at Alriwaq Doha exhibition space. Having loaned the gallery the two sculptures for its Olympics Past and Present exhibition, Athens preferred to see them returned than exhibited with their modesty veiled.The Qatari anxiety about displaying the naked body has a different root — but is no more or less valid — than that which saw thousands of statues suffer the chop across the history of the Western world....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
4-28-13
A lost ancient Egyptian city submerged beneath the sea 1,200 years ago is starting to reveal what life was like in the legendary port of Thonis-Heracleion.For centuries it was thought to be a legend, a city of extraordinary wealth mentioned in Homer, visited by Helen of Troy and Paris, her lover, but apparently buried under the sea.In fact, Heracleion was true, and a decade after divers began uncovering its treasures, archaeologists have produced a picture of what life was like in the city in the era of the pharaohs.The city, also called Thonis, disappeared beneath the Mediterranean around 1,200 years ago and was found during a survey of the Egyptian shore at the beginning of the last decade....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
4-25-13
D-Day veterans have criticised French tourism officials after they unveiled a new promotional campaign about the Normandy landings which ignores one of the beaches where British troops went ashore.The initiative covers only four of the five areas where Allied forces landed on 6th June 1944, omitting 'Sword' beach, where almost 700 British troops were killed or wounded.The new campaign was launched earlier this month by six tourist boards along the Normandy coast. They have joined up to create an area they are promoting with the slogan of the landings’ “secteur mythique” (mythical sector). This stretches from Utah in the west, across all the other beaches where troops came ashore but stops short of Sword, at the eastern end.It also excludes a part of the adjacent Juno beach, where Canadians soldiers invaded, as well as drop zones further inland where airborne troops landed by parachute or glider, including the area around Pegasus Bridge....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
4-26-13
The new note, which will be issued from 2016, will feature the former prime minister against a Westminster background and above the quote: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”The words form part of an inspirational wartime speech made by Sir Winston on May 13, 1940, three days after he became prime minister.The Elizabeth Tower, more widely known as Big Ben, is shown with the hands at 3 o'clock, the time when Sir Winston delivered the speech.The £5 note also features a background image of Sir Winston's 1953 Nobel Prize medal for literature, together with the prize citation: "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values."...
Source: NYT
4-23-13
On Nov. 18, 1941, a struggling Manhattan author wrote to a young woman in Toronto to tell her to look for a new piece of his in a coming issue of The New Yorker. This short story, he said, about “a prep school kid on his Christmas vacation,” had inspired his editor to ask for an entire series on the character, but the author himself was having misgivings. “I’ll try a couple more, anyway,” he wrote, “and if I begin to miss my mark I’ll quit.”He ended the letter by asking for her reaction to “the first Holden story,” which he said was called “Slight Rebellion Off Madison,” and signing, simply, “Jerry S.”The writer was J. D. Salinger, then just 22, with works like “The Catcher in the Rye” still ahead of him and his literary success hardly assured. When Salinger died in seclusion in 2010, at the age of 91, he remained a mystery to his millions of readers, having shared little of himself with the world beyond the few fictional works he had published....
Source: ANI
4-25-13
The builders of the famous Giza pyramids feasted on food from a massive catering-type operation, the remains of which scientists have discovered at a workers' town near the pyramids.The workers' town is located about 1,300 feet (400 meters) south of the Sphinx, and was used to house workers building the pyramid of pharaoh Menkaure, the third and last pyramid on the Giza plateau. The site is also known by its Arabic name, Heit el-Ghurab, and is sometimes called "the Lost City of the Pyramid Builders."...
Source: Xinhua News Agency
4-24-13
A 2,000-year-old bronze mirror workshop has been excavated in east China's Shandong Province, the first such discovery in China, archaeologists announced on Wednesday.More than 100 stone moulds, as well as foundry pits, wells and blastpipes have been unearthed at the site in a village near Zibo City, said Bai Yunxiang, deputy director of the archaeological institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The workshop is believed to have been active in the early period of the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD), when the once-costly bronze mirrors gradually became household objects, according to Bai....
Source: Ahram Online
4-24-13
An Egyptian excavation mission from the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) uncovered on Thursday a complete industrial area that can be dated to the Graeco-Roman era.The discovery was found during routine excavation work at the archaeological site of Tell Abu-Seifi, located east of the Suez Canal and south of Qantara East. The industrial area includes of a number of workshops for clay and bronze statues, vessels, pots and pans as well as a collection of administrative buildings, store galleries and a whole residential area for labours. Amphora, imported from south of Italy, was also unearthed. "It is a very important discovery that highlights Egypt’s economical and commercial relation with its neighbouring countries on the Mediterranean Sea," MSA Minister Mohamed Ibrahim told Ahram Online. He added that it also gives a complete idea of the Egyptian labours’ daily life....
Source: Our Amazing Planet
4-23-13
The grand Mycenaens, the first Greeks, inspired the legends of the Trojan Wars, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." Their culture abruptly declined around 1200 B.C., marking the start of a Dark Ages in Greece.The disappearance of the Mycenaens is a Mediterranean mystery. Leading explanations include warfare with invaders or uprising by lower classes. Some scientists also think one of the country's frequent earthquakes could have contributed to the culture's collapse. At the ruins of Tiryns, a fortified palace, geologists hope to find evidence to confirm whether an earthquake was a likely culprit.Tiryns was one of the great Mycenaean cities. Atop a limestone hill, the city-state's king built a palace with walls so thick they were called Cyclopean, because only the one-eyed monster could have carried the massive limestone blocks. The walls were about 30 feet (10 meters) high and 26 feet (8 m) wide, with blocks weighing 13 tons, said Klaus-G. Hinzen, a seismologist at the University of Cologne in Germany and project leader. He presented his team's preliminary results April 19 at the Seismological Society of America's annual meeting in Salt Lake City....
Source: The Scotsman (UK)
4-25-13
A city car park has been hailed a “real treasure trove of archaeology” after seven more skeletons were unearthed from the grave of a medieval knight.Archaeologists working on the site now believe they have uncovered the remains of a family crypt having found bones from three fully grown adults, four infants and a skull.The exciting discovery comes one month after experts excavated the burial site of a medieval knight – affectionately christened Sir Eck – within the grounds of the new Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation (ECCI) at High School Yards, off Infirmary Street....
Source: The Hindu
4-25-13
A stone idol of Jainism founder Mahaveer, dating back to the 8th century AD, was excavated from the bank of the Amaravathi River at Swaminathapuram village near the temple town on Tuesday.A team comprising archaeologist P. Narayanamurthy, Deputy Superintending Archaeologist Murtheswari and historian Raja conducted the dating of the idolThe five-foot-tall and four-foot-wide idol has been carved out in white granite stone. Mahaveer, with a halo around his head, is seen in a reclining posture. Two cobras are carved on either side of the figure....
Source: Art Daily
4-25-13
A hill in the northeast part of Argentina that holds various cave paintings, which was considered to be a sacred place before the Incan conquest of the region in the fifteenth century, was identified by Mexican investigator Luis Alberto Martos Lopez from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), as part of an archaeological salvage.The exploration of this space is within a much wider project destined to the excavation and restoration of the Incan site known as Potrero de Payogasta, in the wide and contrasting Valle Calchaquí, in Argentina; this is an initiative which has been supported by the Cultural Patrimony of the Salta province. Also, this Project is funded by the National Geographic Society.The exploration of this space is within a much wider project destined to the excavation and restoration of the Incan site known as Potrero de Payogasta, in the wide and contrasting Valle Calchaquí, in Argentina; this is an initiative which has been supported by the Cultural Patrimony of the Salta province. Also, this Project is funded by the National Geographic Society.
Source: WaPo
4-24-13
WASHINGTON — Researchers have identified the voice of Alexander Graham Bell for the first time in some of the earliest audio recordings held at the Smithsonian Institution.The National Museum of American History announced Wednesday that Bell’s voice was identified with help from technicians at the Library of Congress and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The museum holds some of the earliest audio recordings ever made.Researchers found a transcript of one recording signed by Bell. It was matched to a wax disc recording from April 15, 1885.“Hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell,” the inventor said.The experimental recording also includes a series of numbers. The transcript notes the record was made at Bell’s Volta Laboratory in Washington. Other recordings from the time include lines from Shakespeare....
Source: WaPo
4-25-13
DALLAS — All the living American presidents past and present are gathering in Dallas, a rare reunion to salute one of their own at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.Profound ideological differences and a bitter history of blaming each other for the nation’s woes will give way — if just for a day — to pomp and pleasantries Thursday as the five members of the most exclusive club in the world appear publicly together for the first time in years. For Bush, 66, the ceremony also marks his unofficial return to the public eye four years after the end of his deeply polarizing presidency.Bush will be feted by his father, George H.W. Bush, and the two surviving Democratic former presidents, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. President Barack Obama, fresh off a fundraiser for Democrats the night before, will also speak at the event at the sprawling, 23-acre complex housing the presidential library, museum and policy institute....
Source: NYT
4-25-13
There has never been any doubt that Trinity Church is wealthy. But the extent of its wealth has long been a mystery; guessed at by many, known by few.Now, however, after a lawsuit filed by a disenchanted parishioner, the church has offered an estimate of the value of its assets: more than $2 billion.The Episcopal parish, known as Trinity Wall Street, traces its holdings to a gift of 215 acres of prime Manhattan farmland donated in 1705 by Queen Anne of England. Since then, the church has parlayed that gift into a rich portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and, soon, mixed-use residential development.The parish’s good fortune has become an issue in the historic congregation, which has been racked by infighting in recent years over whether the church should be spending more money to help the poor and spread the faith, in New York and around the world. Differences over the parish’s mission and direction last year led nearly half the 22-member vestry — an august collection of corporate executives and philanthropists — to resign or be pushed out, after at least seven of them asked, unsuccessfully, that the rector himself step down....
Source: CNN.com
4-24-13
(CNN) -- Both sides in Syria's civil war were in rare agreement Wednesday: The minaret at a 12th-century mosque in Aleppo has been obliterated.Unclear, however, was who destroyed the tower at the Great Umayyad Mosque, which has witnessed the march of nine centuries. It was just last month that a United Nations official expressed concern about the two-year war possibly damaging the mosque, a World Heritage site.An opposition group blamed the government."Regime forces have committed today a new crime against human and cultural heritage by targeting the minaret of the mosque and completely destroying it," the Local Coordination Committees said. The group released a photograph of the mosque without its signature minaret, apparently reduced to rubble....
Source: LiveScience
4-23-13
Australia's colonization may have been an organized affair rather than an accident, a new analysis suggests.Some 50,000 years ago, aboriginal human settlers arrived on the continent, but how many people it took to found Australia's population is unknown. The new study, published Tuesday (April 23) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that about 1,000 to 3,000 individuals originally landed on Australia's shores.
