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: ABC News
3-24-13
The engagement ring the young Napoleon "must have broken his wallet" to buy for his fiancee Josephine shattered expectations today at the Osenat auction house in France when it sold for close to $1 million, Osenat's expert Jean-Christophe Chataignier said.The winning bidder, who wanted to stay completely anonymous, paid $949,000, almost 50 times the $20,000 Osenat had expected to bring in. Including the buyer's 25 percent commission to Osenat, the total price for the ring was $1.17 million."In my wildest dreams, I did not think we would outsell the estimate by more than 47 times," said Osenat's Emily Villane, who led today's auction. "We based the estimates in our catalog on the actual market value of the ring, minus Napoleon and Josephine provenance. It is not our job to tell bidders how much they should pay for the historical premium."...
Source: NYT
3-24-13
VATICAN CITY — Sharing lunch is rarely historic, except perhaps when the two people eating are a pope and his predecessor.On Saturday, the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI — who broke church tradition by resigning rather than dying in office — ate with Pope Francis at Castel Gandolfo, the hilltop villa where Benedict is living, while reporters waited outside for any scraps of news about how the meeting went.
Source: NYT
3-24-13
JERUSALEM — Under persistent prodding from President Obama, Israel and Turkey resolved a bitter three-year dispute on Friday with a diplomatic thaw that will help a fragile region confront Syria’s civil war, while handing the president a solid accomplishment as he closed out his visit to the Middle East.
Source: NYT
3-24-13
“This will be easy to see,” said Annelise, our guide, flipping off the lights in the chilly sandstone beer cellar that had been converted to an air-raid shelter during World War II. A small plaque on the wall glowed with electric-lime phosphorescence. It was, she told us, an emergency exit sign for the 50,000 civilians who had fled — two to a square meter — to these cellars-cum-bunkers during Allied firebombings.The sign was a small but poignant reminder of how hundreds of years of beer brewing in Nuremberg — a city that was 90 percent destroyed during the war — linked past and present.Just over an hour by direct train from Munich, Nuremberg (population 510,000) is Bavaria’s often-overlooked second city. Of course, the locals say Bavaria has little to do with the place; a greater allegiance is owed to the smaller administrative district of Middle Franconia, which has its own dialect, history and cuisine. Not to mention beer....
Source: Yahoo News
3-22-13
Workers in Rome have stumbled across a top-secret bunker once belonging to former Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, hidden underneath the historic Palazzo Venezia.The discovery is the 12th such bunker as is said to have been the “most secret” of the former strongman’s hideouts, according to the Italian publication La Stampa.And in what has become a tradition of sorts, the bunker will soon go on display for the public to tour and document, as has been done with other recently discovered Mussolini bunkers. City officials plan to install lighting, a touchscreen system and an air siren, meant to simulate the sounds of an impending air raid....
Source: Trust
03-21-13
, A pre-Viking woollen tunic found beside a thawing glacier in south Norway shows how global warming is proving something of a boon for archaeology, scientists said on Thursday.
The greenish-brown, loose-fitting outer clothing - suitable for a person up to about 176 cms (5 ft 9 inches) tall - was found 2,000 metres (6,560 ft) above sea level on what may have been a Roman-era trade route in south Norway.
Carbon dating showed it was made around 300 AD....
Source: SciDaily
03-21-13
In the middle of the Bronze Age, around 1000 BC, the amount of metal objects increased dramatically in the Baltic Sea region. Around the same time, a new type of stone monument, arranged in the form of ships, started to appear along the coasts. New research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden shows that the stone ships were built by maritime groups....
Source: YahooNews
03-22-13
Contrary to reports by famous Greek historian Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians probably didn't remove mummy guts using cedar oil enemas, new research on the reality of mummification suggests.
The ancient embalmers also didn't always leave the mummy's heart in place, the researchers added.
The findings, published in the February issue of HOMO – Journal of Comparative Human Biology, come from analyzing 150 mummies from the ancient world....
Source: CivilWarNEws
04-13
The exciting discovery of a damaged copper sleeve at one end of the spar on the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley has overturned conventional wisdom about how the vessel became the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in combat.
The new information was revealed at a Jan. 28 press conference at the Warren Lasch Conservation Lab where the recovered submarine is being conserved....
Source: NYT
3-21-13
HAVANA — Kathleen Murphy Skolnik gasped one recent morning as she gazed up into the stairwell of a 1939 downtown apartment building here and pointed at the chevron pattern in the ironwork, at the unpolished rust-pink marble and a simple alcove on the stairway crowned by a stepped arch.“It’s so beautiful,” said Ms. Skolnik, an architectural historian who lives in Chicago. “And it’s so run-down.”Ms. Skolnik’s words serve as an unofficial motto for the rich, wide-ranging and often neglected buildings that, experts say, make Cuba one of the world’s most significant but overlooked troves of Art Deco architecture. As some 250 Cuban and foreign connoisseurs gathered last week in Havana for the World Congress on Art Deco, there was hope the event would foster wider recognition of the island’s Art Deco heritage and the urgent need to preserve it. (The gathering, of the World Congress of the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies, ends on Thursday.)...
Source: NYT
3-20-13
An eight-cylinder 1933 Essex-Terraplane briefly used by the notorious bank robber and jail escapee John Dillinger is on display at the Indianapolis International Airport, where, according to airport representatives, it is attracting crowds of visitors.The car is owned by the Crime Museum in Washington, but has been shown at various other locations for the past four years. It was a guest at Baltimore-Washington Airport for two years, spent two more at the Richmond Convention Center and has now arrived in Indianapolis, where it appears roped off near the ticket counters. The Essex will be at the airport until March 2015....
Source: NYT
3-22-13
President Obama, who has been criticized for favoring oil and gas development over land conservation in his first term, on Monday will designate five new national monuments, according to officials briefed on the decision.They are the First State National Monument in Delaware and Pennsylvania; the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico; the San Juan Islands National Monument in Washington State; Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio and a monument commemorating Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railway in Maryland....
Source: NYT
3-20-13
As a Dartmouth student in the early 1970s, William McDonough went, somewhat casually, to hear a lecture by a visiting celebrity. Mr. McDonough had little idea beforehand who Buckminster Fuller was, but listening to the designer and futurist had a long-term effect.Mr. McDonough was late and took one of the last seats left, in the front row. Three hours later, he realized that the rest of the audience was gone but that Mr. Fuller was still talking. “Do you want me to keep going?” Mr. Fuller asked politely but unnecessarily. They ended up taking a walk around campus, Mr. Fuller expostulating all the way.That evening put Mr. McDonough on the path to becoming a prominent architect, but it exists only in his memory, which used to be where just about everything about our pasts resided. Now Mr. McDonough is in the forefront of efforts to change that, to record instantaneously the major intellectual events in our lives. He will be the first living archive at Stanford University....
Source: Politico
3-22-13
JERUSALEM — President Barack Obama on Friday pledged that with the “survival” of Israel, “the Holocaust will never happen again.”“Here on your ancient land, let it be said for all the world to hear,” Obama said at a service held at Israel’s Holocaust memorial and museum, Yad Vashem. “The state of Israel does not exist because of the Holocaust, but in the survival of a strong Jewish state of Israel the Holocaust will never happen again.”Obama’s third day of his trip to Israel got off to a solemn start on Friday with the Yad Vashem trip as well as trips to grave sites of Israeli heroes....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
3-21-13
London in the 1830s was the biggest city in the world and among the innovations that catered to its vast population was the gin palace. Shops at the time had been spruced up to entice the increasing number of locals who had a disposable income and these businesses, alluringly lit by newly arrived gas lighting and with large plate-glass windows to showcase their wares, provided inspiration for the first wave of gin palaces in the capital.The arrival of London’s gin palaces was preceded by a growing understanding of how to make increasingly sophisticated, palatable spirits, and a desire to consume them in an agreeable setting. Up to that point, most establishments selling alcohol were gloomy, unattractive places; the introduction of gin palaces, illuminated by gaslight and with an unusually ornate exterior, was an exciting addition to the urban landscape. (That said, the palaces’ interiors didn’t mirror their external elegance – they typically contained a long bar at one end, which faced a simple open space without seating.)...
Source: Telegraph (UK)
3-20-13
Francisco Jalics, a Hungarian native who now lives in a German monastery, said that he was following up on comments about the case last week because he had received a lot of questions and "some commentaries imply the opposite of what I meant."He did not elaborate.Fr Jalics and another priest, Orlando Yorio, were kidnapped in 1976.Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, has said he told the priests to give up their work in slums for their own safety, and they refused. Yorio, who is now dead, later accused Fr Bergoglio of effectively delivering them to the death squads by declining to publicly endorse their work....
Source: Guardian (UK)
3-20-13
They are known for nothing if not their patience – which may be one explanation as to why it has taken anglers from the former East and West Germany 23 years to call a cold war truce.What gymnasts, chess players, swimmers and footballers managed fairly soon after unification in 1990, Germany's anglers have finally achieved, but only after years of bitter recrimination, deep suspicion and copious amounts of cultural prejudice on both sides.From autumn, the West German Association of German Sport Fishers (VDSF) and the East German Anglers' Association (DAV) will come together to form the Deutsche Angelfischerverband (German Anglers' Association) or DAFV....
Source: Guardian (UK)
3-21-13
It is probably the only town in Britain campaigning against a new library. But many in Glossop, nestled on the western edge of the Peak District, are very attached to their old one, Victoria Hall, a grand gothic revival hall purpose-built in 1888 on land donated by Francis Edward Howard, 2nd Lord Howard of Glossop.The hall, which is in need of major renovation after years of neglect, including to its unused upper floor with its retro-sprung dancefloor, is now at the centre of a complex and entrenched battle over a £4m pot of public money waiting to be spent.High Peak borough council is trustee of Victoria Hall but leases the ground floor for free to Derbyshire county council, the library service authority....
Source: Guardian (UK)
3-20-13
The pope is infallible when, as head of the bishops of the church, he requires the faithful to believe a matter pertaining to faith or morals. This is the standard definition of infallibility. It goes no further. Should the pope stick his head out of doors and remark that it will be a nice day, he is just as liable to be snowed on as the next man.In practice, this means that the church debates a subject at great length and when the bishops and laity are in agreement, the pope makes an infallible pronouncement. The bishops' discussions before the announcement can take a long time; the doctrine of the immaculate conception was in debate for at least 1,300 years before being made official....
Source: WSJ
3-19-13
SCHAERBEEK, Belgium—This country built continental Europe's first railway line in 1835 and still boasts the world's densest rail network. Belgians ran the world's longest passenger train, which had 70 cars. This country the size of Maryland even has five vintage railways, run by enthusiasts.What Belgium lacks is a national train museum. Officials couldn't agree on where to put it.Now, 178 years after "Le Belge" puffed 15 miles from Brussels to Mechelen, the project has a green light. Work has started just outside Brussels on Train World, which is scheduled to open next year....
