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: Daily Mail (UK)
April 7, 2012
Rudolph Hess believed the Jews had hypnotised Winston Churchill into taking a negative stance towards Nazi Germany, according to the Deputy Nazi leader's recently discovered psychiatric records.Notes written by Dr Henry Dicks, one of the Army psychiatrists who monitored Hess while he was a prisoner in Britain, detail his bizarre convictions.Hess believed Churchill had been 'mesmerised' by evil forces who were trying to kill him because he was the 'only person who knew of their secret psychic powers'....
Source: WaPo
April 12, 2012
...President Obama cited two specific Reagan speeches — one (June 28, 1985) in which Reagan quoted from a letter he had received from a wealthy executive and another (June 6, 1985) in which he said it was “crazy” for some multimillionaires to pay zero in taxes.Why did Reagan give those speeches? Contrary to Obama’s suggestion that he was specifically arguing for a new tax provision aimed at the superwealthy, Reagan was barnstorming the country in an effort to reduce taxes for all Americans, mainly by cutting rates, simplifying the tax system and eliminating tax shelters that allowed some people to avoid paying any taxes at all.In other words, Reagan was pushing for a tax cut for everyone, not just an increase on a few. (The highest tax bracket at the time was 50 percent.) He even wanted to cut the tax rate on capital gains from 20 percent to 17.5 percent....
Source: Kingston Whig-Standard (Canada)
April 11, 2012
Why is the battle of Vimy Ridge marked when other battles during the First World War that may be of greater significance to the victory in Europe are rarely mentioned or even commemorated?Many military historians agree that Vimy Ridge, fought 95 years ago this week in 1917, didn't contribute to the victory that ended the war. Those battles took place between August and November 1918, 18 months later.Jonathan Vance, a professor of history at the University of Western Ontario, says there are many reasons why Canadians mark the Battle of Vimy Ridge.“The importance is in the symbolism,” said Vance, who has a master's degree in history from Queen's University....
Source: NYT
April 12, 2012
The N.F.L.’s last bounty scandal of note did not provoke outrage or condemnation. It did not result in fines or suspensions. The accused perpetrators showed no remorse. The only person to receive any penalty was the victim.Mostly, the incident was played for laughs.There had been bad blood between Buddy Ryan’s Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys since 1987, when the Cowboys sent their stars onto the field against Philadelphia’s overmatched replacement players during the strike. The feud intensified in 1989 when Ryan released kicker Luis Zendejas after a string of poor games, and Zendejas criticized Ryan before signing with Dallas....
Source: The News-Press
April 12, 2012
A handful of mud and wood has given new insight into an ancient 4,150-foot canoe canal that once connected the Gulf of Mexico to Naples Bay.Now, archaeologists want to excavate part of the canal, which has been filled in since the 1920s, on property owned by the city of Naples, Bob Carr, executive director of the Archaeological & Historical Conservancy in Davie, said Wednesday.“We hope to look carefully at the canal,” Carr said. “We have big ideas, possibly opening an area where tourists can see the excavation and having a marked Naples Canal trail. This would be good for tourism and science.”...
Source: WaPo
April 12, 2012
ROME — One of Italy’s top culture officials has pushed private investment in the country’s museums and galleries and the seemingly insatiable Chinese and Indian appetites for art and archaeology as the way to pull the country out of its recession.Mario Resca, a former CEO of McDonald’s Italian operations who was appointed in 2008 by the government of Silvio Berlusconi to be director-general of the Culture Ministry, said that an increase in ticket sales to Italian museums has not been matched by an increase in state finding.Chatting with a small group of foreign correspondents in Rome, Resca said the number of visitors to state museums and archaeological sites increased by some 15 percent from 2009 to 2010 and by about 7 percent from 2010 to 2011.But budgets and investment have not risen with visitor numbers. Resca acknowledges that the budget shortfall isn’t about to be reversed, thanks to the latest round of austerity cuts ordered by Berlusconi’s successor, Premier Mario Monti....
Source: Discovery News
April 12, 2012
On April 12, 1961, the world met Yuri Gagarin, a former Soviet Air Force pilot who shot from obscurity to international fame after making one full orbit around the Earth in his Vostok 1 spacecraft.But the mission records the Soviet Union submitted to international authorities to secure Gagarin's place as the first man in space present a very different mission. Specifically, his landing was deliberately falsified. During the year, lies about the Vostok landing system called into question whether or not Vostok 1 deserved its place as history's first spaceflight at all....The Soviet Union statement presented to the FAI stated that the cosmonaut had landed inside Vostok 1 as per the organization's guidelines on spaceflight. Signed by the sports commissar of the USSR, the document asserts that "at 10:55 a.m. Moscow time on the 12th of April 1961 ... the pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Alexeyvich Gagarin landed with the 'Vostok' spaceship."He hadn't. He couldn't have even if he'd wanted to....
Source: LiveScience
April 11, 2012
A century ago on Sunday, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank to a watery grave, killing 1,514 passengers. The disaster conjures images of luxury and hubris, cowardice and heroism, as well as one haunting question: Could it happen again?In many ways, it already has, according to maritime experts. The Northern Maritime Research shipwreck database, for example, lists more than 470,000 shipwrecks in North America in the 20th century alone. Extremely deadly shipwrecks are much more rare, of course, but even the infamous Titanic disaster was only the sixth-deadliest shipwreck in history. The deadliest, the sinking of the German hospital ship the MV Wilhelm Gustloff by Soviet torpedoes, killed more than 9,000 people. That disaster occurred in 1945 — long after the Titanic's wreck in 1912....
Source: LA Times
April 11, 2012
In rejecting freedom for Charles Manson, a California parole board Wednesday said they were swayed in part by comments he made to prison psychologists.John Peck, a member of the parole panel, quoted from the statements."'I'm special. I'm not like the average inmate,'" Peck said, according to the Associated Press. "'I have spent my life in prison. I have put five people in the grave. I am a very dangerous man.'"Before the hearing, his attorney, DeJon R. Lewis, said he would like to see Manson transferred to Atascadero State Hospital from the state prison near Corcoran. "Charles Manson does not need incarceration at this point in his life," Lewis told CNN. "He needs hospitalization."...
Source: Discovery News
April 11, 2012
"Come at once. We have struck a berg." The Titanic's radio engineers sent this emergency message and many like it in Morse code wirelessly to anyone listening.Two employees of Marconi, the company that made the system, operated the radio. It was the most powerful system of its kind, and the clear night helped the signal go far.Many ships did receive the call. So did land-based stations in the United States and Greenland. Radio operators at the time were also skilled at transmitting messages quickly in code -- 80 to 100 words per minute. With such capabilities, what went wrong?For starters, Titanic's communications system had its limits....
Source: LiveScience
April 10, 2012
Dramatic warming at the end of the last ice age produced an intense rise in sea level and a massive ice sheet collapse in the Antarctic.The sea level rise is known as Melt-Water Pulse 1A, and new research indicates it increased sea level by about 45 feet (14 meters) sometime between 14,650 and 14,310 years ago, during the same time as a period of rapid climate change known as the Bølling warming.Understanding the impacts of earlier warming and sea-level rise is important for predicting the effects of future warming....
Source: LiveScience
April 11, 2012
Two thousand years ago, an Egyptian purchased a mummified kitten from a breeder, to offer as a sacrifice to the goddess Bastet, new research suggests.Between about 332 B.C. and 30 B.C. in Egypt, cats were bred near temples specifically to be mummified and used as offerings.The cat mummy came from the Egyptian Collection of the National Archeological Museum in Parma, Italy. It was bought by the museum in the 18th century from a collector. Because of how the museum acquired it, there's no documentation about where the mummy came from....
Source: WaPo
April 11, 2012
A team of archaeologists and volunteers is close to locating a 1662 chapel at Newtowne Neck in Compton.Scott Lawrence of Grave Concerns and James Gibb of Gibb Archaeology Consulting were hired by St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and the Knights of Columbus to look for the original chapel. The two have completed an archaeological survey of the church’s original cemetery. St. Francis Xavier is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the original church chapel this year....
Source: Discovery News
April 9, 2012
Farming without fire in tropical regions, like indigenous populations did in Pre-Columbian times, may be the key to both feeding people and managing land more sustainably.For hundreds of years before Columbus arrived in Central America, indigenous people converted vast swaths of tropical savannas into agricultural fields with raised beds for growing crops -- all without the use of slash-and-burn or other fire-intensive techniques, which are common today and a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.But soon after 1492, there came a sharp surge in uncontrolled burns throughout the Amazon’s coastal landscapes, found a new study that dug into more than 2,000 years worth of soil. Those carbon-emitting burning practices, which continue today, contribute significantly to global warming....
Source: Independent (UK)
April 10, 2012
Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a Neolithic portal dolmen, one of Western Europe's oldest ritual burial chambered monuments, in an isolated field in Wales.It is thought the tomb was built from giant boulders about 5,500 years ago. Its capstone bears a seemingly random pattern of dozens of circular holes gouged into its surface – symbols of Neolithic or Bronze Age ritual burial activity.What makes it particularly interesting is that the site has rare remains of human bones and shards of decorated pottery. An official burial licence must now be sought before the bones can be removed, but eventually radiocarbon-dating and other tests planned for the remains may give new insight into our early farming ancestors....
Source: AP
April 10, 2012
It's a game that every Ukrainian knows about: The "Death Match" of 1942, when top Kiev soccer players trounced a team of Nazi occupiers and reportedly paid for it with their lives.But Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday froze the release of a movie depicting that Soviet defiance of Nazi Germany because of concerns it could ignite explosive emotions just weeks before Ukraine co-hosts the 2012 European Championship.Officials fear that "The Match," which extolls the heroism of Ukrainian soccer players but portrays many Kiev residents as Nazi collaborators would teach Ukrainian audiences the wrong image of their country and history.Some experts also fear that it may stoke hostility toward German players fans as Ukraine hosts several games played by Germany's national team....
Source: WaPo
April 10, 2012
A telltale sign that Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara no longer believed in the Vietnam War came not from anything he said publicly, but how he said it.Harold Brown, who served under McNamara at the Pentagon as director of defense research and engineering and later as secretary of the Air Force, came to recognize the mannerisms McNamara would display when voicing public support for policies with which he privately disagreed.McNamara would “lean forward and pull his socks up,” Brown said Tuesday.“Bob became skeptical about the Vietnam War well before he stopped talking about how great it was going,” added Brown, who later served as secretary of defense under President Jimmy Carter....
Source: NYT
April 9, 2012
What doomed the Titanic is well known, at least in outline. On a moonless night in the North Atlantic, the liner hit an iceberg and disaster ensued, with 1,500 lives lost.Hundreds of books, studies and official inquiries have addressed the deeper question of how a ship that was so costly and so well built — a ship declared to be unsinkable — could have ended so terribly. The theories vary widely, placing the blame on everything from inept sailors to flawed rivets.Now, a century after the liner went down in the early hours of April 15, 1912, two new studies argue that rare states of nature played major roles in the catastrophe.
Source: Times of India
April 9, 2012
History books are inching back on the shelves - but with a dash of drama and peppy language to hook the average reader."I think there are two major attractions that a historical narrative holds for us. First, history is all about stories...stories about people and places with the benefit of hindsight. And who doesn't like a good story?" asked Udayan Mitra, publisher of Allen Lane and Portfolio imprints at Penguin Books India, said."And the second: historical epics are full of heroism, grandeur and romance - something that entertains everyone," Mitra said.People read historical fiction because they give readers a window into a time they have no idea of, says Priya Kapoor, editor and director of Roli Books."Historical fiction brings alive history in a more entertaining way. We would certainly like to know how people of that time lived, what they ate and what did they do. Such books take history to another level," Kapoor said....
Source: Voice of America
April 5, 2012
In Moscow, adults are snapping up school notebooks for children.Why? The cover has a heroic image of Stalin.The Stalin notebook is part of a “Great Russians” series.On one level, it is depressing that the art director of the Alt publishing house does not seem to know that “Stalin,” was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, a Georgian.But far more importantly, Russia’s amnesia towards its Stalinist past is dangerous.Winston Churchill, no friend of his wartime ally, once noted that Stalin dragged Russia from the wooden plow to the H-bomb. Similarly, many Russians prefer to focus on this “positive” of Stalin’s three decades of rule.As to the sinister side, Stalin’s close collaborators called him: “Genghis Khan with a telephone.”...
