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
6-12-12
(CNN) -- A priceless piece of American presidential history will go on sale next week in New York.President George Washington's personal copy of the Acts of Congress, including the United States Constitution and a draft of the Bill of Rights with his own handwritten notations will be sold at auction.It is estimated to fetch between $2 million and $3 million, according to Christie's Auction House."It gives us a very clear picture of the first president and his determination to be president according to the rules bound by the Constitution and later by the Bill of Rights," said Chris Coover, senior specialist in books and manuscripts at Christie's....
Source: Guardian (UK)
6-12-12
Four and a half thousand Irishmen who were branded deserters for joining Britain's struggle against Nazi Germany are to be pardoned, the Irish government announced on Tuesday.Irish justice minister Alan Shatter told the Irish parliament that the government apologises for the way they were treated by Ireland after the second world war. The men deserted from the Irish defence forces at a time when the neutral Irish Free State was playing no direct part in the battle against the Third Reich.In August 1945, the government summarily dismissed soldiers who had absented themselves during the war and disqualified them for seven years from holding employment or office remunerated from the state's central fund.It is estimated that about 100 of them may still be alive....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
6-11-12
An increasing number of Holocaust survivors are only now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder decades after the horrors of the Nazi death camps.Most patients with PTSD, such soldiers returning from conflict, develop symptoms within six months of a traumatic event.But in the cases of those incarcerated or fleeing Hitler during World War Two, the incubation period is proving to be many years longer.Holocaust researchers say the problem is coming to the fore partly because few survivors sought psychiatric help soon after the event....
Source: NYT
6-11-12
KYTHIRA, Greece — A jarring public-awareness ad that has appeared recently on Greek television news shows a little girl strolling with her mother through the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, one of the country’s cultural crown jewels. The girl skips off by herself, and as she stands alone before a 2,500-year-old marble statue, a hand suddenly sweeps in from behind, covering her mouth and yanking her away.An instant later, she reappears, apparently unharmed but staring forlornly at an empty plinth: The kidnappers weren’t after the girl — they were after the statue.
Source: ABC News
6-8-12
Teenager Anne Frank's diary about the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in the early 1940s has inspired more than just plays and films since her death in a German concentration camp in 1945 at age 15. She started writing it 70 years ago today, June 12, 1942, on her 13th birthday.Her first entry reads, "I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support." You can read the book online at Google Books....
Source: Reuters
6-6-12
(Reuters) - Archaeologists in London have discovered the remains of an early playhouse used by William Shakespeare's company where "Romeo and Juliet" and "Henry V" were first performed.Pre-dating the riverside Globe, the Curtain theater, north of the river Thames in Shoreditch, was home to Shakespeare's company - the Lord Chamberlain's Men.Remains of walls forming the gallery and the yard within the venue have been discovered by archaeologists from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA)....
Source: AP
6-11-12
DAYTON, Ohio - The buffed silver fuselage of the Memphis Belle now belies the famed B-17 bomber's six punishing months of World War II air combat and the subsequent decades of neglect that left the plane battered by the elements and stripped by souvenir hunters while on public display in its namesake city.The most celebrated American aircraft to emerge from the great war rests these days in a cavernous hangar at a southern Ohio Air Force base undergoing a loving and fastidious restoration — from its clear plastic nose cone down to the twin .50-calibremachine-guns bristling in the tail.About the only section left untouched so far is the signature "nose art" on the pilot's side: the leggy Esquire pinup girl in a blue bathing suit seductively perched above the Memphis Belle nickname, as much a part of the plane's legend as its odds-defying 25 bombing missions over occupied Europe in 1942-43....
Source: AP
6-12-12
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The dingo really did take the baby.Thirty-two years after a 9-week-old infant vanished from an Outback campsite in a case that bitterly divided Australians and inspired a Meryl Streep film, the nation overwhelmingly welcomed a ruling that finally closed the mystery.A coroner in the northern city of Darwin concluded Tuesday that a dingo, or wild dog, had taken Azaria Chamberlain from her parents' tent near Ayers Rock, the red monolith in the Australian desert now known by its Aboriginal name Uluru.That is what her parents, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton and Michael Chamberlain, had maintained from the beginning....
Source: Yahoo News
6-12-12
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The names of the two little girls are an enduring mystery, their images found among crumpled bodies on Civil War battlefields. Each is posed primly on chairs, ringlets cascading past the rouged cheeks of one, the other dressed in a frilly hoop dress.But no one knows the identities of the girls in the photographs, or the stories they might tell.The photograph of one girl was found between the bodies of two soldiers — one Union, one Confederate, at Port Republic, Va., 150 years ago this June. The other was retrieved from a slain Union soldier's haversack in 1865 on a Virginia farm field days before a half-decade of blood-letting would end with a surrender signed not far away at Appomattox....
Source: Time Magazine
6-11-12
(BERLIN) — German military divers are working to hoist the wreck of a Stuka dive bomber from the floor of the Baltic Sea, a rare example of the plane that once wreaked havoc over Europe as part of the Nazis’ war machine.The single-engine monoplane carried sirens that produced a distinctive and terrifying screaming sound as it dove vertically to release its bombs or strafe targets with its machine guns. There are only two complete Stukas still around.The Stuka wreck, first discovered in the 1990s when a fisherman’s nets snagged on it, lies about 10 kilometers (6 miles) off the coast of the German Baltic island of Ruegen, in about 18 meters (60 feet) of water....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
6-10-12
Unfortunately for Cromwell the king was repulsed when he finally saw his bride because she looked nothing like her portrait - and he was beheaded.At the time, Cromwell was Henry's chief minister and is the central figure in Hilary Mantel's latest novel, Bring up the Bodies.The letter, dated November 8, 1539, was sent to the clerical diplomat, Dr Nicholas Wootton.The diplomat was in Cleves in Germany finalising arrangements for what would turn out to be the shortest of Henry's six marriages....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
6-11-12
Hebrew graffiti thanking Adolf Hitler and denouncing Zionism have been sprayed inside Israel's own Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.One giant slogan at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem read: 'Thank you Hitler for your wonderful Holocaust that you arranged for us, it's only because of you that we got a state at the UN.'It was sprayed across walls in Warsaw Ghetto Square near to a sculpture depicting the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, in which 13,000 were killed in the first uprising in Nazi occupied Europe....That slogan fuelled suspicion that a small fringe of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are virulently opposed to the state of Israel, were to blame....
Source: PR Newswire
6-12-12
Only steps from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, in the most historic part of the country’s most historically significant city, The American Revolution Center today unveiled the architectural design for The Museum of the American Revolution.The museum, to be built at 3rd and Chestnut Streets, will house the original artifacts, manuscripts, rare books and works of art owned by The American Revolution Center, the non-profit educational organization that is building the museum. The museum will tell the full story of the American Revolution and explore its ongoing legacy, providing context to the many regional and national museums that present key aspects of our nation’s founding era.During the ceremony attended by cultural leaders, tourism officials, and friends of The American Revolution Center, philanthropist H.F. (Gerry) Lenfest announced a $40 million challenge grant to encourage donations to the project. Lenfest said, “The American Revolution secured our independence and led to the creation of this great Nation. Yet two centuries have passed and there is still no national museum that tells the entire story of this remarkable period. I am offering this challenge grant because now is the time to establish The Museum of the American Revolution and ensure that the spirit of the American Revolution is carried forward for generations to come.”
Source: Gadling.com
6-3-12
The ancient city of Cahokia in Illinois was the center of an advanced civilization from about 700 to 1400 A.D. Covering six square miles and home to up to 20,000 people, it was the largest prehistoric city north of Mexico. It ruled over a large area and had trade networks stretching across North America....Cahokia's importance is recognized by it being designated a state historic site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It makes a good day trip from St. Louis and has an excellent interpretive center. You can also climb up some of the mounds to get a sweeping view of the site.Now archaeologists have discovered one of its suburbs in a derelict neighborhood of East St. Louis. It's not much to look at today. The excavation is taking place between a derelict meatpacking plant and an abandoned strip club. Back in the day, though, it was a prosperous suburb of an important city with more than a thousand dwellings and earthen pyramids just like those of Cahokia....
Source: NYT
6-8-12
For sheer intensity and outsize characters, for a sense of history being made as it unfolded, the 2012 election has paled before the 2008 presidential race. However gratifying or dispiriting the possibility of winning or losing might be to partisans on both sides, this campaign has struggled, so far at least, to avoid feeling like a bitter anticlimax.But maybe we should all take another look, because 2012 is shaping up in many ways to be more important to the direction of the country than 2008 was.Unlike the last race, when both candidates competed for the center and the differences between the parties often seemed bridgeable, this campaign is asking voters to choose between starkly different paths.Will the Keynesian principles that have guided economic policy for generations be affirmed or replaced by a belief that smaller government will make room for a more vibrant private sector?
Source: CBS News
6-9-12
On the 40th anniversary of a Pulitzer Prize-winning iconic photograph of 9-year-old girl, naked and crying from the horror of the Vietnam War, the photographer and the girl from the picture reunited to mark the occasion. Tony Guida reports. (video)
Source: Seattle Weekly
6-6-12
Your ride back into history begins at the Seattle ferry dock and ends 50 minutes later as you glide into Bremerton's harbor.
Source: Fox News
6-8-12
Underneath the thick, virgin rainforest cover in the Mosquitia region of Honduras, archaeologists have discovered ruins they think may be the lost city of Ciudad Blanca. Legends say the "White City" is full of gold, which is why conquistador Hernando Cortes was among the first Ciudad Blanca seekers in the 1500s. But the method the modern researchers used was a little different from previous explorers' techniques. The modern-day researchers flew over the area in a small plane and shot billions of laser pulses at the ground, creating a 3D digital map of the topology underneath the trees.This is one of the first times this technique, called light detection and ranging (LiDAR), has been used to map ancient ruins. Beyond archaeology, LiDAR researchers at the National Science Foundation are looking to develop the technology for mapping disasters using drones, for military spying and for tracking erosion under rivers and shallow parts of the ocean....
Source: CNN.com
6-7-12
Washington (CNN) – More than three years after leaving office, former President George W. Bush remains unpopular with the public, according to a new national poll.A CNN/ORC International poll also indicates that two-thirds of Americans have a positive view of Bush's predecessor, former President Bill Clinton.According to the poll, released Thursday morning, 43% of people questioned had a favorable opinion of Bush, with 54% saying they had an unfavorable view of the former president. Bush's 43% favorable rating is the same as it was in 2010 in CNN polling, but is up from his mid-30's favorable rating during 2009, his first year out of the White House....
Source: CNN.com
6-8-12
Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) -- April 13, 1975 -- one of the darkest dates in Lebanese history. An attack on a busload of Palestinians in Beirut that day sparked a civil war that would rage for 15 years, leaving some 150,000 dead, the capital divided along sectarian lines and sections of the country in ruins.But ask students in the city today of the significance of the date, and you get mixed responses."I think it was a very important occasion for Lebanon," says Noor El-Hoss, a student in West Beirut's Al Iman School. "But I don't know what happened."Explains fellow student Zeina Naous: "We are studying about ... World War Two. We are not studying about the civil war, or what happened to Lebanon."...
