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: NYT
February 17, 2012
Bill O'Reilly made the best-seller lists for "Killing Lincoln," his historical exploration of the death of Abraham Lincoln. Now he has moved on to John F. Kennedy.Henry Holt and Company said on Thursday that it would publish "Killing Kennedy" this fall, as the second book in Mr. O'Reilly's presidential history series. The book will be written with Martin Dugard, the co-author of "Killing Lincoln."
Source: Yahoo News
February 5, 2012
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The recording was forgotten, and so, too, was the odd twist of history that brought together Malcolm X and a bespectacled Ivy Leaguer fated to become one of America's top diplomats.The audiotape of Malcolm X's 1961 address in Providence might never have surfaced at all if 22-year-old Brown University student Malcolm Burnley hadn't stumbled across a reference to it in an old student newspaper. He found the recording of the little-remembered visit gathering dust in the university archives."No one had listened to this in 50 years," Burnley told The Associated Press. "There aren't many recordings of him before 1962. And this is a unique speech — it's not like others he had given before."...
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 16, 2012
Flying Officer Derek Allen crammed more aviation heroics into eight days than many RAF comrades did in six years of World War II.The 22-year-old flyer saw frenetic fighting almost every day in his short career and was credited with four outright and three shared enemy kills.He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bringing down a German bomber wreaking havoc on British armour during the Battle of France in May 1940....He was listed as missing in action presumed dead and his status remained that way for seven decades until historian Andy Saunders began researching the case.He discovered FO Allen's body had been removed from his wrecked plane on May 18 by locals and buried in an unmarked grave in the village of Poix-de-Nord, near Cambrai....
Source: Jamestown Press
February 16, 2012
The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) is currently engaged in a multi-year search to locate and identify 13 British transport ships that sunk in Newport Harbor in 1778. The British navy scuttled the ships in an effort to blockade the French fleet that was threatening the city.RIMAP is an organization that is interested in the state’s maritime history. Its goal is to locate, identify and study cultural resources in Rhode Island waters such as shipwrecks, debris fields, submerged man-made structures and inundated terrestrial sites. Such discoveries can include Native American watercraft and Colonial and Revolutionary war wreckage. It also studies local slaving, steamship and naval histories.Carolyn Frank is a Jamestown resident who teaches history at Brown University. At one time she participated in RIMAP wreck dives, including those in Newport Harbor, and she has followed the progress of the search since that time.
Source: Independent (UK)
February 16, 2012
Riots and protests by the disaffected poor, with the looming spectre of "mob rule", have often troubled MPs and lords at Westminster. No lawmaker, though, has ever raised his voice on behalf of the mutinous have-nots as boldly as one 24-year-old peer did during his maiden speech in the House of Lords on 27 February 1812. Over the previous nine months, the Luddite revolt against new technology in the weaving trades that boosted profits but eliminated jobs had spread through the villages of the young lord's native Nottinghamshire. Under cover of darkness, unemployed stocking-weavers moved from workshop to workshop, smashing the "wide frames" that had wrecked their livelihoods and starved their families.In panic, the Tory government had sent in the troops to put Nottingham and the surrounding districts under virtual martial law: 1,000 infantry and 900 cavalry in December 1811; two more regiments in January. Then it turned to the criminal statutes. On 21 February the Frame Work Bill, which made frame-breaking a capital crime, passed the House of Commons. When it came before the Lords, who better to speak on the subject than the noble possessor of Newstead Abbey, unexpectedly inherited in 1798? From his country seat, he could almost see the flames of the rioters.
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
February 14, 2012
In a course reversal, state senators apparently are ready to act a bit as if they have moved the clock back 99 years to the era before the 17th Amendment was ratified — and legislatures, not the voters, chose U.S. senators.The Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee voted 3-0 to endorse SR1 by Sen. Casey Anderson, R-Cedar City, and sent it to the full Senate. It would order a secret-ballot poll among state senators each election year to show the public which U.S. Senate candidate they prefer.The same committee two weeks ago failed to pass — on a tied 3-3 vote — a similar resolution, SJR11, which would have ordered a similar poll among all legislators, and not just senators.Anderson said that, after the earlier failed vote, other senators suggested he try the new bill for a state Senate-only poll. He added that legislative researchers are unsure whether the entire Legislature or just the state Senate elected U.S. senators in various elections before the 17th Amendment....
Source: Nature
February 15, 2012
Metal scrapes on hard sand as archaeologist Chris Henshilwood shaves away the top layer of sediment in Blombos Cave. After just a few moments, the tip of his trowel unearths the humerus of a pint-sized tortoise that walked the Southern Cape of South Africa many millennia ago. Next come shells from local mussels and snails amid blackened soil and bits of charred wood, all remnants of an ancient feast. It was one of many enjoyed by a distinct group of early humans who visited Blombos Cave over the course of thousands of years.The Still Bay culture was one of the most advanced Middle Stone Age groups in Africa when it emerged some 78,000 years ago in a startlingly early flourishing of the human mind. Henshilwood's excavations at Blombos Cave have revealed distinctive tools, including carefully worked stone points that probably served as knives and spear tips, and bits of rock inscribed with apparently symbolic designs. But evidence of the technology disappears abruptly in sediment about 71,000 years old, along with all proof of human habitation in southern Africa. It would be 7,000 years before a new culture appeared, with a markedly different toolkit, including crescent-shaped blades probably used as arrowheads.
Source: Guardian (UK)
February 17, 2012
MI5 opened a file on Charlie Chaplin while he was being hounded by J Edgar Hoover's FBI for alleged communist sympathies.The FBI, which described the star of Modern Times and The Great Dictator as one of "Hollywood's parlour Bolsheviks", asked MI5 for information to help get him banned from the US. The results, including information gathered through eavesdropping, are contained in an extensive personal MI5 file released on Friday at the National Archives."Chaplin has given funds to communist front organisations … He has been involved in paternity and abortion cases," an MI5 liaison officer in Washington warned in October 1952.MI5 noted that a decade earlier Chaplin had told the Los Angeles branch of the National Council of American Soviet Friendship: "There is a great deal of good in communism. We can use the good and segregate the bad."...
Source: KVAL
February 15, 2012
EUGENE, Ore. - Efforts to document the first Native American Medicine Wheels ever reported in Oregon - led by Patrick O'Grady of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History - will be featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting's "Oregon Field Guide" television program at 8:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 23.O'Grady, an archaeologist with the UO archaeology field school, has been using aerial photography to document the medicine wheels, which are large circular stone formations, sometimes with spokes radiating from the center.Researchers believe Native peoples may have used them for ceremonial or religious purposes.The story starts in 2007, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) discovered two large stone circles in the Stinkingwater Mountains of southeastern Oregon. Their importance was immediately recognized and brought to the attention of the University of Oregon....
Source: Science Daily
February 16, 2012
ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) — Researchers have long been fascinated by the secrets of Ramat Rahel, located on a hilltop above modern-day Jerusalem. The site of the only known palace dating back to the kingdom of Biblical Judah, digs have also revealed a luxurious ancient garden. Since excavators discovered the garden with its advanced irrigation system, they could only imagine what the original garden might have looked like in full bloom -- until now.Using a unique technique for separating fossilized pollen from the layers of plaster found in the garden's waterways, researchers from Tel Aviv University's Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology have now been able to identify what grew in the ancient royal gardens of Ramat Rahel. And based on the garden's archaeological clues, they have been able to reconstruct the lay-out of the garden.According to Prof. Oded Lipschits, Dr. Yuval Gadot, and Dr. Dafna Langgut, the garden featured the expected local vegetation such as common fig and grapevine, but also included a bevy of exotic plants such as citron and Persian walnut trees. The citron, which apparently emigrated from India via Persia, made its first appearance in the modern-day Middle East in Ramat Rahel's royal garden....
Source: WaPo
February 16, 2012
In the late 1980s, when organizers of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum were searching for Nazi-era artifacts, they sought to tell a story that was industrial in its magnitude and horrifying in its detail. The results, a widely acclaimed permanent exhibition that broke new ground in museum design, may be in jeopardy as the museum deals with demands to return one of its most powerful and haunting objects.Little known outside the Holocaust Museum is that many of the objects borrowed from Poland almost a quarter-century ago were on a 20-year loan, and over the past few years, those loans have expired. In some cases, the museum has returned objects, renegotiated loans or exchanged existing materials, such as shoes, suitcases and prayer shawls, for equivalent pieces....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
February 18, 2012
Its iconic stones are said to mark an ancient burial site, form an astronomical calendar or even be a monument to the fertility gods. But no one has claimed Stonehenge to be the result a trick of the mind - until now.A major science conference heard yesterday that the blueprint for the mystical stone circle came other-worldly visions triggered by music.While the theory may seem outlandish, legend has it that some stone circles were formed when maidens who danced in a circle to magical pipers were turned to stone....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
February 17, 2012
When his comic genius became an international phenomenon, it was a source of great pride back home in England.But it seems Charlie Chaplin may not have been English at all – but a Frenchman with the alias Israel Thornstein.The startling claims are made in MI5 papers released for the first time today.Classified files reveal how the Security Service was baffled to find there were no records of Chaplin’s supposed birth in South London....
Source: Yahoo News
February 17, 2012
Greek Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos resigned on Friday after masked armed robbers stole more than 60 objects of "incalculable" value, including a gold ring, from a museum in ancient Olympia.Sixty-eight objects were whisked from a museum dedicated to the ancient Olympic Games after two masked men immobilised the museum's sole female guard as she arrived for her early morning shift, officials said.The police said "bronze and clay objects and a gold ring" had been removed from display cases at the museum, which is built on a forested hilltop on the outskirts of the small town of Olympia."There were two of them, and they had a gun," Olympia Mayor Thymios Kotzias told Flash Radio....
Source: Gaston Gazette
February 16, 2012
In Cleveland County, livermush is a staple, barbecue is nearly sacred and the region has a distinctive history marked by several key Revolutionary War battles fought in the area.Advocates in North and South Carolina are fighting to have a region made up of 58 counties recognized as a national heritage area, specifically focusing on the contributions made by the Carolinas during the American Revolution.The national heritage designation is a way to celebrate, protect and preserve what makes a region unique and can be used as a tool for tourism.Examples of places with a national heritage designation include the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area and Iowa’s Silo and Smokestacks National Heritage Area....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
February 17, 2012
Nazi forgers ‘destroyed’ confidence in British currency by flooding Europe with forged Bank of England notes, the MI5 files reveal.There were so many counterfeits in circulation that officials even considered recalling all British bank notes and starting afresh.The papers describe how the Germans first began forging the notes in 1940 in preparation for Hitler’s planned invasion of Britain.According to a captured German agent, the plan was to scatter the notes, £5 denominations and above, over the country from the air ‘in order to create loss of confidence and general confusion’....
Source: Guardian (UK)
February 17, 2012
The treachery of the first German agent to penetrate MI5, a Dutchman who hoodwinked Britain's security and intelligence throughout the second world war, is spelt out in the files released on Friday.Folkert van Koutrik was taken on by MI6 before the war. He was subsequently recruited by Germany's military intelligence service, the Abwehr, which gave him the codename Walbach.On 9 November 1939, two MI6 officers, Richard Stevens and Sigismund Best, were called to a clandestine meeting at Venlo, on the Dutch-German border. They were expecting to meet German army officers plotting to get rid of Hitler. Instead, they were seized by the Gestapo....
Source: LiveScience
February 16, 2012
The largest volcanic event of the last 300 million years may not have been triggered by a meteor, researchers now say.About 120 million years ago, as much as 1 percent of the Earth's surface may have been covered with volcanic eruptions. The origin of these massive 7-million-year-long eruptions in the Pacific Ocean, known as the Greater Ontong Java Event, has long been unclear, but some have suggested a cosmic impact as the trigger, smashing into the crust and causing lava to burst forth.To see whether or not a meteor might have caused the Greater Ontong Java Event, scientists analyzed rocks from Gorgo a Cerbara in central Italy. This area was connected to the Pacific Ocean during the eruptions....
Source: Meath Chronicle (IE)
February 1, 2012
A conservation plan has been commissioned for the State-owned lands on the Hill of Tara by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan.The minister, in collaboration with the Office of Public Works (OPW) and the Heritage Council, has commissioned the Discovery Programme to undertake the plan which, he said, "will illustrate the unique cultural and historical significance of Tara and identify appropriate policies to ensure its preservation and presentation".The area to be examined includes the immediate environs of the Hill which contribute to the experience and enjoyment of the monument.While the conservation plan will also consider access and visitor amenity issues, Mr Deenihan stressed that Tara was "essentially an outdoor experience and that should not change".The minister emphasised that the emerging conservation plan would "place a key emphasis on consultation with stakeholders, and the local community in particular". Ultimately, it is intended that the conservation plan for the Tara complex will act as an overarching framework for management and interpretation....
Source: Offlay Independent (IE)
February 14, 2012
EVERY February 14, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and why do we celebrate St. Valentines Day?The first legend, and perhaps the best known, began in Rome, when the Emperor, Claudius II, was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. 'Claudius the Cruel', as he was called, was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues.He believed the reason was that Roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. So, he cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome.The good St. Valentine, who was a priest in Rome in the year 269 A.D., together with his friend St. Marius, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret....
