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: CNN.com
1-11-13
The Founding Fathers are frequently quoted in the gun control debate, but many of those quotations turn out to be fake.
Source: CBS News
2-20-13
Cameras and microphones are virtually everywhere these days, and it seems just about everything that happens is preserved forever on the internet.Of course, it wasn't always that way. The Library of Congress has just reported that 80 percent of motion pictures filmed before 1930 -- and countless audio recordings from that era -- are gone. But the library has a plan to stop this bleeding of priceless history.A 1936 Louis Armstrong recording is an artifact nearly lost to time. It's a nickel-plated disc widely used to record sound in the first half of the 20th century.
Source: Guardian
2-19-13
Finding Richard III (on the premises of Leicester social services no less) is testament to the ingenuity of archaeologists. Weaving together findings from historical analysis of texts with scientific analysis of the skeleton and the site, they have made an overwhelming case that these are the remains of the king....
Source: SciNor
2-15-13
This is the crux of a doctoral dissertation that researcher Ingrid Ystgaard will defend this spring at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
She has studied weapons found in graves and the battle techniques they suggest during the transition from the early to the late Iron Age. The division between these periods was around 500 AD....
Source: PopuArch
2-20-13
Its remains rest almost unnoticeable near the small village of Rakhigarhi in northwest India. On the surface, its most visible features consist of well-ordered mounds of cow dung cakes, nature's fertilizer for the present-day local villagers' farming operations. Ox carts routinely transport their agricultural supplies over its ancient mounds and into the fields every day. Below the surface, however, lay an expansive network of ruins and artifacts that would betray an ancient city that would rival, and likely exceed, the enormity of the Indus Valley civilization's best known archaeological site, Mohenjo-Daro. At 224 hectares, it is the largest known Harrapan (Indus Civilization) site in India....
Source: PopuArch
2-20-13
Aleppo's medieval covered market has already been gutted by fires which also ripped through the city's Umayyad mosque. Illegal excavations have threatened tombs in the desert town of Palmyra and the Bronze Age settlement of Ebla, and Interpol is hunting a 2,700-year-old statue taken from the city of Hama.
In a country which also boasts stunning Crusader castles, Roman ruins and a history stretching back through the great empires of the Middle East to the dawn of human civilisation, the task of safeguarding that heritage from modern conflict is a daunting responsibility....
Source: CBS News
2-19-13
It's the original Iwo Jima monument. It was inspired by combat photographer Joe Rosenthal's picture of five marines and a sailor raising the American flag during a battle that cost 6,000 U.S. lives. Sculptor Felix de Weldon was so moved he used his own money to create it, finishing the 12-foot statue six months after the battle. The monument was displayed in front of the Federal Reserve building in Washington during the late 40's. But then the government asked de Weldon to build a 32-foot-tall version -- the Marine Corps War Memorial -- which sits just outside of Arlington National Cemetery. The smaller one was forgotten ....
Source: ArtDaily
2-19-13
In a pharmaceutical company’s premises, located in the municipal district of Miguel Hidalgo of Mexico City, specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH-Conaculta) recovered two burials that are over 500 years old, as well as other ceramic remains. Given the possibility that there could be more pre Hispanic element findings in the area, INAH elaborated an archaeological salvage project that will take place in said area....
Source: PastHorizons Blogger
2-18-13
In the course of my research of Viking Age woodcraft, I somewhat unexpectedly turned up information about a most delightful archaeological find: an entire hoard of children’s toys, found at Market Harborough parish church, England. A charming stash of the everyday playthings of sixteenth or seventeenth century children, the hoard throws a rare spotlight on the material culture of children in the archaeological record....
Source: Novinite
2-18-13
A Bulgarian team of archaeologists have discovered well-preserved remains of a Roman bath in the ancient Bulgarian town of Sozopol.
The news was revealed by National Museum of History director Bozhidar Dimitrov.
"The team, led by Sozopol Archaeology Museum director Dimitar Nedev has made the discovery as part of its digs in the area in front of Sozopol's fortress walls," said the historian....
Source: SciDaily
2-17-13
DNA preserved in calcified bacteria on the teeth of ancient human skeletons has shed light on the health consequences of the evolving diet and behaviour from the Stone Age to the modern day.The ancient genetic record reveals the negative changes in oral bacteria brought about by the dietary shifts as humans became farmers, and later with the introduction of food manufacturing in the Industrial Revolution....
Source: NEH
2-14-13
Pittsburgh’s Hill District, or “The Hill” as it is locally known, was the heart of the city’s African-American community during the twentieth century. As a freelancer, newspaper man, and portrait studio owner Charles “Teenie” Harris (1908–1998) lovingly captured his community’s vibrant cultural, economic, and political life through nearly 80,000 photographs. These pictures tell much more than just a local story....
Source: NaParksTrav
2-17-13
Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin near present-day Hodgenville, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809; and the curious case of his well-traveled birthplace cabin is a historical labyrinth of veneration, profit seeking, confused identity, and cross-pollination with historic relics from the Confederate States of America. Could it be that those Lincoln Logs you played with as a child were really Jeff Davis logs?...
Source: ArchNews
2-19-13
Back in 1995, a hoard of 400 Roman coins was discovered west of Didcot in Oxfordshire (England), indicating the land had been lived on for centuries. When archaeologists began digging the fields in 2010 they knew it was a site of historical interest, but even they were surprised by the wealth of finds their trowels unveiled, proving that people have been living in Didcot for about 9,000 years....
Source: CNN
2-17-13
One hundred years ago, the United States completed what was then the most expensive, complex but ultimately successful government program in human history. It was a project where everything went wrong.
The French had tried to build the Panama canal a few years earlier, but despite putting the builder of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, on the job, they left in total failure. The American project’s first chief engineer quit after the first year. His replacement left as well. Only with the third did the project start moving. Yellow fever killed thousands of workers and caused others to flee in fright. The engineering challenges were immense and they often seemed insurmountable. Media reports about the project were largely negative....
Source: Reuters
2-17-13
President John F. Kennedy's Air Force One bomber jacket sold for $570,000 at an auction on Sunday of items that belonged to a longtime aide, nearly 50 years after the president's assassination.The jacket was among thousands of items, including letters, photographs and books, that had been tucked away in drawers and file cabinets at the home of David Powers, who died in 1998, said Dan Meader, auction appraiser at John McInnis Auctioneers.They were discovered in recent years by relatives as they prepared Powers' Arlington, Massachusetts, residence for sale, Meader said....
Source: NYT
2-15-13
Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg’s frequent collaborator, snags himself a seat on Mr. Spielberg’s bandwagon on Sunday when he turns up as the narrator of “Killing Lincoln,” a docudrama on the National Geographic Channel. If Mr. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” achieves greatness largely through the detailed performances of Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and others, “Killing Lincoln” also has details to recommend it — historical details, the kind of tidbits that (along with Mr. Hanks’s assured narration) can hold your attention, even though the tale is familiar. “Killing Lincoln,” based on the book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, puts its focus just where the title suggests: on the final days of Lincoln’s life and the pursuit of those behind the assassination. And yes, for anyone who can’t get enough of the 16th president, on Sunday it will be possible to arrange a Lincoln trifecta, seeing “Lincoln,” Salvador Litvak’s new film; “Saving Lincoln” (about the president’s bodyguard); and “Killing Lincoln” in a single day. Happy belated birthday, Abe.
Source: NYT
2-14-13
JERUSALEM — In one room sits a sarcophagus of reddish-pink limestone believed to have held the body of King Herod, painstakingly reconstructed after having been smashed to bits centuries ago. In another, there are frescoes from Herod’s elaborate underground palace, pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. Throughout, elaborate animated videos show the king’s audacious construction — atop the desert fortress Masada; at his burial place, Herodium; and his most famous work, the Second Temple of Jerusalem.The Israel Museum on Tuesday opened its most ambitious archaeological exhibition and the world’s first devoted to Herod, the lionized and demonized Rome-appointed king of Judea, who reigned from 37 to 4 B.C.E. and is among the most seminal and contentious figures in Jewish history. But the exhibition, which the museum director described as a “massive enterprise” that involved sifting through 30 tons of material from Herodium and reconstructing 250 artifacts, has also brought its own bit of controversy.
Source: Discovery News
2-13-13
Is the world only a Pope away from the End? Yes, if you believe a chilling 12th-century prophecy.Attributed to St. Malachy, an Irish archbishop canonized in 1190, the Prophecy of the Popes would date to 1139. The document predicted that there would be only 112 more popes before the Last Judgment — and Benedict XVI is 111.The list of popes originated from a vision Malachy said he received from God when he was in Rome, reporting on his diocese to Pope Innocent II.The story goes that St. Malachy gave the apocalyptic list to Innocent II and that the document remained unknown in the Vatican Archives some 440 years after Malachy’s death in 1148. It was rediscovered and published by Benedictine Arnold de Wyon in 1590....
Source: PHYS
2-13-13
Crews renovating a public square in the U.S. Virgin Islands have discovered a 1,500-year-old landfill stuffed with shells, bones and pottery fragments.Public Works Commissioner Darryl Smalls says a team of specialized archaeologists will arrive soon to further excavate the pre-Columbian site. It is located in the capital of Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas....
