Breaking News

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: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
4-30-12

NEH grants total $17 million

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) recently announced $17 million in grants and offers for 208 humanities projects.Institutions and independent scholars in 42 states and the District of Columbia will receive NEH support. Complete state-by-state listings of grants are available here (39-page PDF).Grants were awarded in the following categories:

Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
4-30-12

National Archives Seeking Applicants for Legislative Fellowship

Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero recently announced the National Archives Legislative Archives Fellowship for 2012. Last year Mr. Ferriero created the Fellowship to support scholarly work in United States history, based on research in the records of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The Foundation for the National Archives has provided a total stipend of $10,000 for the Fellowship.Applications for the 2012 Fellowship will be accepted by email until midnight EDT May 16, 2012. The recipient will be selected by July 1, 2012. Research proposals will be considered on any topic requiring research in the historical records of Congress housed at the National Archives Center for Legislative Archives. The records of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives support research in a wide range of topics and subfields including social policy, law-making, leadership, representation (petitioning, constituents, lobbying) and the context in which Congress operates (inter-governmental; political, social, and economic climate).

Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
4-30-12

Byron White papers opened

The papers of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Byron R. White have been opened to research through the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. At the time of his deed of gift, White specified that the papers were to be opened without restriction 10 years after his death. White died on April 15, 2002, at the age of 84.The White papers, which total 183,500 items in 858 boxes (361.4 linear feet), document cases heard during his tenure on the Supreme Court, including material on cases involving the Miranda law, abortion, child pornography, freedom of speech, homosexuality and racial bias. A finding aid to the collection is accessible on the Library’s website.White (1917-2002) was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy. He served until his retirement in 1993, after more than three decades on the court. That year White gave the final installment of his papers to the Library of Congress, where they joined the papers of 39 other associate justices and chief justices of the court, including John Marshall, Roger B. Taney, Charles Evans Hughes, Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren, Harry Blackmun and Hugo Black.

Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
4-30-12

National Archives Releases 1940 Census Online

On April 2, 2012, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released the 1940 U.S. Census online. This marked the first time the agency has released an official decennial census online. The free official website is available at: http://1940census.archives.gov/This is the 16th decennial census, marking the 150th anniversary of the census. The 3.9 million images constitute the largest collection of digital information ever released by the National Archives. The website, hosted by Archives.com, includes a database of Americans living within the existing 48 states and 6 territories on April 2, 1940.The census database is now only searchable at the enumeration district level. An enumeration district is an area that a census taker could cover in two weeks in an urban area and one month in a rural area.

Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
4-30-12

Wendell E. Berry Delivers 2012 Jefferson Lecture

Wendell E. Berry, noted poet, essayist, novelist, farmer, and conservationist, recently delivered the 2012 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.The annual lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.NEH is currently inviting nominations for the 2013 Jefferson Lecture. More information about the lectureship, including a list of previous lecturers and instructions for submitting your nomination, is available at: http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture-nominations.The deadline for nominations is Friday, May 25, 2012.In his lecture, entitled “It All Turns on Affection,” Berry lamented the increasing divergence of modern man from the environment and local communities. Invoking the words of his mentor, the writer Wallace Stegner, Berry observed that throughout history Americans have been divided into two kinds: the “boomers” who “pillage and run,” and the “stickers” who “settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.”

Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
4-30-12

Navy historical programs “at risk”

Core elements of the U.S. Navy’s historical program are “at risk” according to a recently declassified report by the U.S. Navy’s Inspector General’s Office. The IG’s report on the inspection of the Navy’s History and Heritage Command dramatically reinforces concerns that scholars have had in recent years about the state of the navy’s history program.According to the report, released through a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive, historical records and artifacts are housed in a precarious environment and invaluable archival material is in danger. The History and Heritage Command’s leadership has not been using due diligence to ensure that naval commands and fleets are creating historical records on their ongoing activities. Moreover, according to the IG report, the Navy’s professional historians, archivists, curators, and librarians who work for the history command feel “disenfranchised” because of “their marginalization in decision processes and lack of advancement opportunity.”

Source: Newsweek
4-29-12

Dan Rather: Still battling CBS News

Dan Rather just won’t let it go.Nearly eight years after his fabled career at CBS News imploded like a death star over the notorious George W. Bush/Texas Air National Guard segment on 60 Minutes Wednesday, he can’t stop combing the debris for shards of vindication.“I have a story to tell from my point of view,” he says about his new book, Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News, which roasts network management for its “spineless” behavior during the Bush episode; takes potshots at his successor in the CBS Evening News anchor chair, Katie Couric, as a purveyor of “News Lite”; and settles scores with former colleagues who, as he writes, “after pretending to be friends for all those years, stealthily snuck around giving anonymous newspaper quotes and otherwise scheming to put the dirk in deep when I was down and hurting.”Rather explains: “I wanted to tell it as honestly and as candidly as I could with—as Lyndon Johnson used to say—the bark off.”

Source: MinnPost
4-30-12

Students hope to spark apology to Amerindians

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.An old saying, it came to mind as University of Minnesota lecturer Carter Meland talked to me about a thought-provoking video project of the 60 students in his introductory “American Indians in Minnesota” class.Maybe the documentary they premier May 1 will in the end be little more than a classroom exercise. Or, maybe it will spark some kind of official, mighty-oak apology from the state of Minnesota.At any rate, the exercise has already jump-started discussion among students about the tumultuous history of Indians in Minnesota, from their treatment after the bloody Dakota Conflict, to boarding schools for Indian children where they were often forbidden to speak their native language and many say stripped of their culture, to tribal land ownership issues.Students earning required social justice and diversity credits are producing the 60-minute video that also explores a possible apology for what Meland calls “colonist policy and practices,’’ as well as reparations to the state’s Dakota and Ojibwe people, Meland explains. The public is invited to the premier, as well as Gov. Mark Dayton and University president Eric Kaler, though both are unable to attend. Find details at story’s end....

Source: NYT
5-1-12

Biography of Editor Keeps Watergate Twists Coming

It might say something about the state of politics that the biggest story in Washington on Monday happened 40 years ago. And it involves a potted plant.In a new authorized biography of the journalism legend Ben Bradlee, “Yours in Truth,” by Jeff Himmelman, Mr. Bradlee is quoted expressing some anxiety over some of the most provocative and enduring details of “All the President’s Men,” the famous unfurling of the Watergate scandal by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.While Mr. Himmelman uses material from Mr. Bradlee’s old memos, letters, interviews and photos to write a “personal portrait” of the former Washington Post editor, the source of the Watergate conversation was an unpublished interview conducted in 1990 by Barbara Feinman, who was working with Mr. Bradlee on his memoir....

Source: NYT
5-1-12

"Botanical Pompeii" discovered in Illinois mine

In the clammy depths of a southern Illinois coal mine lies the largest fossil forest ever discovered, at least 50 times as extensive as the previous contender.Scientists are exploring dripping passages by the light of headlamps, mapping out an ecosystem from 307 million years ago, just before the world’s first great forests were wiped out by global warming. This vast prehistoric landscape may shed new light on climate change today.Dating from the Pennsylvanian period of the Carboniferous era, the forest lies entombed in a series of eight active mines. They burrow through the rich seams of the Springfield Coal, a nationally important energy resource that underlies much of Illinois and two neighboring states and has been heavily mined for decades....

Source: Marin History Museum Press Release
4-20-12

Marin History Museum Unveils App

The Marin History Museum (MHM), based in San Rafael, joined a select group of prominent institutions on Thursday, with the launch of the Marin History Museum smartphone Application. The Museum is one of less than a dozen museums nationally that have developed applications as part of their public offerings. Other institutions that have developed museum apps include the New York MOMA, the Smithsonian Institutions, the Guggenheim, and the Museum of Natural History. The Museum is currently evolving its organizational focus to emphasize a more user-friendly community experience.

Source: Daily Mail (UK)
4-30-12

The unseen anatomist genius of Da Vinci

He is already recognised as one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance period.Now a stunning new exhibition at Buckingham Palace demonstrates how Leonardo da Vinci was also one of the most ground-breaking anatomists of all time.Indeed his findings dating from the late 1490s and early 1500s were so revolutionary that some could not be conclusively proved until the development of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanners in the 1980s, which use radio waves to take detailed pictures of the body.Da Vinci's fascination with the human body began through his desire to be 'true to nature' in his paintings and led him to embark on what can only be described as a campaign of dissection in hospitals and medical schools throughout Florence.Many of the corpses he worked on were the bodies of executed criminals or those who had no relatives to claim them for burial....

Source: Politico
4-30-12

Woodward rejects new Watergate claims

Bob Woodward is strongly disputing a new report in which it is revealed that his mentor, legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, once expressed “fear in my soul” that Woodward had embellished for dramatic effect certain key details of his reporting on the Watergate scandal.In a New York magazine article posted online Sunday night that was adapted from a forthcoming biography of Bradlee, reporter Jeff Himmelman exposes new memos and transcripts taken from Bradlee’s own archives, including one conversation in which Bradlee expresses his skepticism about the truth of certain aspects of Woodward’s claims about Deep Throat....

Source: Spiegel Online
4-27-12

Mass Grave Begins Revealing Soldiers' Secrets

The morning of November 16, 1632 was foggy, so the mass killing could only begin after some delay. It wasn't until midday that the mist cleared, finally allowing the Protestant army of Sweden's King Gustav II Adolf to attack the Roman Catholic Habsburg imperial army led by Albrecht von Wallenstein. The slaughter lasted for hours in the field at the Saxon town of Lützen."In this battle the only rule that applied was, 'him or me,'" says Maik Reichel. "It was better to stab your opponent one extra time just to ensure there was no chance of him standing up again." The historian und former German parliamentarian for the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) is standing at the edge of a field on the outskirts of Lützen. After the battles here, the ground was soaked with blood. "About 20,000 men fought on each side and between 6,000 and 9,000 were killed," estimates Reichel, who heads the museum in the city castle.

Source: Time Magazine
4-27-12

L.A. riots 20 years yater

For Rodney King, it's all about the next generation, about moving forward and not what happened 20 years ago, to him or to Los Angeles, or even what he or the city has been through since.Two decades ago he watched as the most violent episode of social unrest in U.S. history unfolded before his eyes all because the four policemen accused of delivering a vicious beating to him a year before in a traffic stop were acquitted. But he and others who lived the Los Angeles Riot of 1992 say the city has managed to move on and now faces challenges different from the dense racial tension that divided blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians in those days."It's slowly getting better, but it is getting better," he told TIME between appearances to promote his new book The Riot Within. "I can tell. It's been so bad so long, it's hard for people to see the difference. Speaking for myself I see the difference in police relations especially in Los Angeles and in other parts of the U.S. too."...

Source: BBC News
4-26-12

Is it time to get Anglo-Saxon about England's local government?

The government wants a new era of localism and civic engagement. But rather than thinking up new ideas, should they be looking back into England's distant past for inspiration?Is it time to get "Anglo-Saxon" on our politics?To go back to the days of "pre-England", when the rival kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria slugged it out for dominance of the lands abandoned in the early 5th Century by the Romans?The period characterised by many as the "dark ages" is sometimes credited with a level of engagement in local politics that the Electoral Commission could only dream of.According to its admirers, Anglo-Saxon government originated in "moots", meetings - perhaps held under oak trees - where small communities thrashed out their differences....

Source: Post Star
4-25-12

Court weighs commie probe disclosure

A writer whose parents were targeted by anti-communist investigators in the New York City school system 57 years ago took her fight to the state's top court Wednesday, looking for the records to peel back the veil of secrecy from that chapter in America's Red Scare, including the names of informants.Lisa Harbatkin's parents were among more than 1,100 teachers investigated from the 1930s to the 1960s. Her father resigned. Her mother told investigators she was no longer a Communist Party member and couldn't recall who was. Now Harbatkin, who plans to keep writing articles and possibly a book about it, has asked New York's Court of Appeals to uphold her Freedom of Information Law request to see 140,000 pages of documents with nothing blacked out....Historians say the probes happened for decades across the nation at every level of government on a much larger scale than the well-known Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. In the anti-communist fervor of the Cold War, when Harbatkin's parents were investigated, 378 New York City teachers were dismissed, resigned or retired early, according to The New York Times.

Source: Minnesota Public Radio
4-26-12

Bob Dylan awarded Medal of Freedom

President Barack Obama today named Bob Dylan as one of the latest recipients of the nation's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom. Also honored are Madeleine Albright, John Glenn and Toni Morrison.A release from the White House today describes the Medal of Freedom as being "presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."...

Source: Voice of America
4-26-12

Charles Taylor guilty of war crimes

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was found guilty Thursday of aiding and abetting grave human rights abuses and war crimes in a historic verdict by the Special Court for Sierra Leone.  While Taylor was not found guilty of masterminding the atrocities, he became the first former African head of state to be convicted in an international court.  In Taylor's native Liberia and in Sierra Leone, where the crimes were committed, interest in the verdict was very high. Liberians gathered around radios and televisions or watched online, using slow connections at internet cafes, as former President Charles Taylor was convicted of involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone.From the site of the trial in The Hague, the Special Court for Sierra Leone said Taylor was not guilty of committing the crimes himself.  However, he was guilty of aiding and abetting rebels as they terrorized civilians, carved their initials into the bodies of child soldiers and carried out murder, abductions and rape....

Source: Guardian (UK)
4-18-12

UK destroyed records of colonial crimes

Thousands of documents detailing some of the most shameful acts and crimes committed during the final years of the British empire were systematically destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of post-independence governments, an official review has concluded.Those papers that survived the purge were flown discreetly to Britain where they were hidden for 50 years in a secret Foreign Office archive, beyond the reach of historians and members of the public, and in breach of legal obligations for them to be transferred into the public domain.The archive came to light last year when a group of Kenyans detained and allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion won the right to sue the British government. The Foreign Office promised to release the 8,800 files from 37 former colonies held at the highly-secure government communications centre at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire....