This page lists news stories related to history that we have found by surfing the Net. Descriptions of events are frequently taken directly from the websites where the news is found; quotation marks are dispensed with in such cases. Click here for news about historians. Click here for Breaking News Archives.

Week of 3-29-04

Obituary: Derek Jarrett was best known to the world at large for his definitive four-volume edition of Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of King George III, for a series of rigorously researched comparative studies of 18th- century England and France, and for his thoughtful and combative reviews in the New York Review of Books.

Explorers: The discovery of unpublished diaries has for the first time revealed the strained relations between Scott of the Antarctic and his second in command.

Queen: In the event of a nuclear attack on Britain, the Queen was to be taken to a secret cabinet bunker and then flown out of the country, possibly to Canada, secret government files show.

Obituary: George H. Hamilton, a leading authority on modern art, as died at age 93. "George Hamilton was the most important American scholar of modern art in the 20th century, no question," Richard Brettell, professor of aesthetic studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, said.

Korea: In a politically touchy move, an official re-evaluation of the man who killed Korea's military dictator, President Park Chung Hee, is getting under way to determine whether the assassin should be looked upon as a heroic fighter for democracy.

Nukes: A claim that Britain considered using live chickens in a nuclear weapon aroused skepticism Thursday, but officials insisted it was not an April Fool's hoax. "It's a genuine story," said Robert Smith, head of press and publicity at The National Archives. The archives released a secret 1957 Ministry of Defence report showing that scientists contemplated putting chickens in the casing of a plutonium landmine.

Historian Selected: The Asia Society, founded in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller III to foster understanding of Asia, has a new president, Vishakha N. Desai, the first woman and the first Asian-American to head the organization. She was trained in art history.

Presidential Papers: A case involving the release of papers of former presidents has ended with no clear result. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court in Washington dismissed a lawsuit brought by historians challenging a Bush executive order that expands a president's power to keep secret a former president's papers, saying that the case was moot.

Corruption: Suharto heads the list of leaders of third world countries who plundered their treasuries, according to a new survey compiled by Transparency International. Suharto suspected of stealing more than $15 billion, Marcos more than $5 billion.

Argentina: President Kirchner dedicatesa "museum of memory" to honor the victims of Argentina's harsh military rule.

Slavery: Descendants of black American slaves are suing London's oldest insurance firm, Lloyd's of London, for compensation for allegedly underwriting the ships used in the slave trade.

Alamo: Critics worry that Alamo traditionalists may not like the new Disney version.

Anti-Semitism: Attacks against Jews in Europe have sharply increased, says a report by a European anti-racism watchdog. The study singles out Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, where it says the rise in anti-Semitism has been of particular concern.

Anti-Semitism: Attacks against Jews in Europe have sharply increased, says a report by a European anti-racism watchdog. The study singles out Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, where it says the rise in anti-Semitism has been of particular concern.

Textbooks: Report by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute concludes that Pakistani textbooks are rife with biased comments about Hindus: they portray Hindus as backward and superstitious, burning their widows and wives. They portray Brahmins as inherently cruel, asserting their power over the weak, especially Muslims and Shuddras.

Pope: The Pope says that "Christ is the great interpreter and Lord of history, who reveals the hidden thread of divine action that runs through it."

Iraq: NYT says 10 months after it was looted, the Iraq Museum has recovered half its artifacts.

Nixon: Bob Woodward one of 6 panelists at a symposium in memory of Watergate, nearly 30 years after Nixon's resignation.

Iraq: NYT reports that the Bush administration is using Vietnam as a template in choosing the first ambassador to the new Iraq; the choice: select someone like Henry Cabot Lodge, as Kennedy did, or Gen. Maxwell Taylor, as LBJ did.

Obituary: Historian Michael King, author of a celebrated history of New Zealand, has died. He and his wife were killed in a car crash.

Israel: Historian Lawrence Davidson (West Chester University, PA) has issued an open letter signed by 300 people to protest alleged academic violations of freedom at Palestinian universities by Israel. Previously, he helped organize a worldwide boycott of Israel. Israeli leaders say he holds Israel to a double standard.

Fired: Editor of the American Scholar says she was fired. She disputes charge that it was because of budget problems.

Obituary: Alistair Cooke, the urbane and erudite journalist who was a peerless observer of the American scene for almost 70 years, died at his home in New York, the BBC said today. He was 95.

Kerry: A San Francisco-area historian yesterday reported the theft of three boxes of confidential FBI documents, some detailing government surveillance of presidential hopeful John F. Kerry when he was a spokesman for a 1970s veterans group protesting the Vietnam War. "I don't know who could have done this," Gerald Nicosia said yesterday. "It could be somebody who saw the boxes via news reports and wanted a piece of the presidential candidate for posterity, like a piece of the Berlin Wall."

Hitler: The Hitler Cup, commissioned by Adolf Hitler for the winners of a golf tournament after the Berlin Olympics and thought missing for decades, has turned up in Glasgow. The whereabouts of the amber-encrusted brass salver have been the source of competing theories since it provoked a temper tantrum from Hitler when it was won unexpectedly by English golfers in 1936, the Daily Telegraph said.

Racism: Two proposed state laws could change some Florida place names, replacing racially offensive epithets with names more acceptable by today's standards. The issue divides proponents who say the offensive names are a "needless irritant" and others who fear changing place names will cause us to lose parts of our history.

Week of 3-22-04

Historians Against the War: At the annual meeting of the OAH, the executive board approved a resolution sponsored by Historians Against the War (HAW) to investigate alleged instances of repression involving historians. Eric Foner and James Horton signed a HAW petition denouncing the "doctrine of pre-emptive war."

Library of Congress: The LC has picked another round of historic recordings, adding them to the government's official "national register." The list includes William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech (reenactment).

Jail for a Historioan?: The controversy over American scholar James Laine's book Shivaji: Hindu king in Islamic India took a new turn on Monday with Maharashtra's home minister and state NCP president R R Patil deciding to seek Interpol's help in arresting and bringing the author to Mumbai.

Disney: 2 of Disney's big history epics are in trouble: Hidalgo cost $140 million and has taken in just $49 million; the upcoming Alamo cost $107 million ... $32 million over budget ... and the critics suspect the movie's going to flop. Disney delayed the Christmas opening by months.

Plagiarism: A George Mason University review panel has rejected the claims of plagiarism directed against author and George Mason faculty member Beverly Lowry and her Knopf biography, Her Dream of Dreams: The Rise and Triumph of Madam C.J.Walker.

DNA: The mystery over whether Queen Victoria had an illegitimate grandson could be decided by DNA tests - if the country's highest ecclesiastical court allows a body to be exhumed in Kent.

Confederacy: Joseph A. Ridgeaway, a Confederate Navy quartermaster and a crewman aboard history's first successful attack submarine, H.L. Hunley, to be buried nearly 140 years after he died.

History Theme Park: Lincoln, Illinois officials are considering building a Disney-style Lincoln theme park to help their economically stagnant community; Richard Norton Smith commented: "Can you just quote my laughter?"

Bush and Saud: A controversial new book that casts a critical eye on the three-decade-old relationship between the Bush and Saud families, "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties," by Craig Unger, has been dropped by its British publisher just weeks before it was scheduled to arrive in stores.

Korea & Japan: South Korea and Japan have agreed to produce a comprehensive report next year, containing the results of a three-year bilateral research on the history they share.

History Channel: History Channel announces six new series on its primetime schedule this year as part of its 2004-05 programming slate.

Tulsa Race Riot: Survivors of a race riot that destroyed Tulsa's black neighborhood 83 years ago cannot seek reparations in court because of the long-expired statute of limitations, a federal judge has ruled.

Censorship: Under Putin Russians are once again rewriting history; a new textbook on 20th century Russian history makes no mention of Stalin's ethnic deportations (perhaps to avoid a "distorting" connection with the current Chechen war), largely reduces the period of the Red Terror to 1936-38 and describes the years of Putin's rule in laudatory terms.

Censorship: BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde has called for a ban on the floor of the assembly on Jawaharlal Nehru's book Discovery of India.

Segregation: Hoping to preserve buildings that tell the history of segregation, struggles and successes, Phoenix today embarks on a $40,000 study to identify properties important to the African-American community.

Carter: In an interview with a British newspaper former president Jimmy Carter said: "There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq last year. That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."

Kerry: As a high-profile activist who crossed the country criticizing the Nixon administration's role in the Vietnam War, John F. Kerry was closely monitored by FBI agents for more than a year, according to intelligence documents reviewed by the LAT.

Mass Graves: The Guardian reports that dramatic corroboration of the massacre of Afghan prisoners by the US-backed Northern Alliance at the start of the war in 2001 has been provided by American pathologists commissioned to investigate the claims by the UN.

History Standards: History professors at Georgia's two largest universities blasted the proposed social studies curriculum for middle and high school students, saying it would leave young Georgians poorly prepared for college and for citizenship.

Emmett Till: The Justice Department is considering acting on new evidence in the decades-old case of Emmett Till, the black 14 year old who was killed while visiting Mississippi after he allegedly whistled at a white woman.

Week of 3-15-04

Plagiarism: Connecticut college president facing claims that he plagiarized material for an op-ed column published in The Hartford Courant announced his retirement on Friday.

Slavery: A historian has found a 19th century cemetery near Lexington, VA, with gravemarkers that have African symbols etched on their surface, a rare link to the nation's slave-trading past. Rachel Malcolm-Woods, a James Madison University teacher, said the inscriptions, or ideograms, are from the West African Igbo culture and could be the only known examples in the United States.

Mussolini: Secret papers show Mussolini tried to stop persecution of Jews.

Barbara Bush: Bush mum fears repeat of history.

Greece: The new Greek government has stopped work on a pounds 700 million museum being built to house the Elgin Marbles and legal action has begun against those who authorised the project.

Bancroft Prize: Books on the Civil War, theologian Jonathan Edwards and the struggles of Southern blacks were this year's winners of the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history sponsored by Columbia University.

Mel Gibson Movie: The film Hollywood predicted would bomb has exploded, threatening to shatter all-time box-office records as the highest-grossing motion picture in film history.

Genocide: President Paul Kagame of Rwanda yesterday accused France of direct responsibility for the 1994 genocide of at least 800,000 people in the central African country.

Black Women's History: Historians say that black women's history is finally coming its own.

Flunking History: Questions raised about the usefulness of the Kerry campaign's comparison of Bush and Hoover; just 43 percent of the 634 adults questioned by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey correctly identified Herbert Hoover as a past president.

Daniel Pipes: Pipes denounced an event sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace on which he serves; Pipes says that the USIP is working with an organization whose personnel is associated to a group that celebrated 9-11.

Middle East Studies: Columbia University has released the names of the donors who endowed the Edward Said Chair; critics note the list includes the United Arab Emirates among the donors.

Supreme Court: Justice Scalia, in defense of his duck hunting vacation with Dick Cheney, cites numerous examples from history where Supreme Court justices socialized with presidents.

World War II: Fifty-nine years after he narrowly survived the Battle of Iwo Jima, Navajo code talker Teddy Draper Sr. finally has been awarded the Purple Heart by the U.S. Marine Corps.

Egyptian Grave: A grave believed to belong to courtiers or servants of King Aha, the first king of ancient Egypt's first dynasty, was uncovered by an American excavation mission in Abydos in Upper Egypt.

Confederate flag: A judge threw out a lawsuit by an outspoken Confederate flag supporter who sued four grocery store chains that stopped carrying his barbecue sauce because of his views.

Samuel Johnson: The Houghton Library at Harvard University has inherited the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection of material relating to Samuel Johnson. It is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive compilations of 18th-century rare books, manuscripts and personal correspondence.

Supreme Court: A Kentucky Republican has introduced a new House bill, HR 3920, to allow Congress to override Supreme Court decisions.

Bill Clinton: Former President Bill Clinton's boyhood home in Hope Arkansas is up for sale on the Internet- based auction house E-Bay. Bids received thus far: over $250,000.

Award: A report by The Blade of Toledo that uncovered Vietnam-era war crimes kept secret for three and a half decades has received the Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers.

Plagiarism A majority of Central Connecticut State University's faculty senate stood solidly behind their embattled president Monday, voting in favor of retaining him despite accusations of plagiarism.

John Kerry: Kerry's no hero in one ex-crewman's eyes. Steven Michael Gardner served side by side with Kerry in Vietnam, was wounded under Kerry's command, and was manning twin .50-caliber machine guns on a night that has forever haunted Kerry - the night his crew killed a young boy in a sampan. But unlike many of Kerry's crewmates, Gardner has not appeared at Kerry's side at campaign rallies, and his view of Kerry at war is far different from the heroic view presented by others.

JFKJFK: Alvin Cluster, a World War II Navy officer and buddy of John F. Kennedy who rallied search parties when JFK's torpedo boat went missing in the South Pacific in 1943, died Monday in the Riverside County town of Rancho Mirage.

John Kerry Writer claims that Kerry attended a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971 at which a resolution to assassinate conservative American politicians was voted down. Kerry denies being there; says he had already resigned from the organization, though three people claim he was present.

Plagiarism: Hartford Courant considering using plagiarism-detecting software in the aftermath of the revelation that a Central Connecticut State University president had plagiarized material for an opinion piece.

Slavery Reparations: A law professor at the University of Alabama has suggested that the institution apologize for owning slaves before the Civil War and possibly grant reparations to their descendants.

Indian Artifacts: Authorities crack a ring that was looting Indian artifacts; called one of the largest such rings ever.

Slavery Reparations: Brown University appoints a panel to investigate the possibility of paying reparations for slavery; several of the leading pioneers of the university were slave traders.

Obituary: Keith Hopkins, a professor at the University of Cambridge who was one of the first historians to use sociological methods to study the ancient Roman world, died last Monday at a hospice in Cambridge, England. He was 69.

Holocaust: Federal judge overseeing the distribution of the Holocaust funds from Swiss banks rules that the bulk of the money should go to those in poor countries, angering some families in the United States.

Week of 3-8-04

TEACHING Professor at Indiana University's department of applied health science ordered to stop teaching the history of terrorism in the Middle East after students complained the subject was outside their course's curriculum.

SEX HARASSMENT Historian Makkhan Lal, facing charges of sexual harassment and other irregularities, has been suspended as director of the Delhi Institute of Heritage Research and Management.

KERRY & VIETNAM Kerry no hero in one ex-crewman's eyes: Steven Michael Gardner served side by side with John Forbes Kerry in Vietnam, was wounded under Kerry's command, and was manning twin .50-caliber machine guns on a night that has forever haunted Kerry - the night his crew killed a young boy in a sampan. But unlike many of Kerry's crewmates, Gardner has not appeared at Kerry's side at campaign rallies, and his view of Kerry at war is far different from the heroic view presented by others.

PUTIN One of the reasons Putin is expected to win re-election is that he has restored peoples' faith in their own history.

SLAVES North African pirates abducted and enslaved more than 1 million Europeans between 1530 and 1780 in a series of raids which depopulated coastal towns from Sicily to Cornwall, according to new research.

CONFEDERATE HISTORY Powhatan County (Virginia) won't be joining 16 state municipalities that set aside April as Confederate History and Heritage Month.

CHICAGO Old chalkboards dating to the 1930s have been discovered at the Chicago Board of Trade during renovation; some will be donated to the Chicago Historical Society. They mark the time when trades were received by Morse code and posted on chalkboards.

BUSH FAMILY New book by Craig Unger, excerpted in Salon, claims the House of Saud paid to the Bush family and friends over the years at least $1.477 billion.

ROMAN COINS A man unearthed a priceless hoard of 20,000 Roman coins as he dug a new fishpond in his back garden. Experts say the money may date from the 4th Century and could be the biggest find of its kind in Britain.

FRANCE Rubens is so omnipresent in museums and collections, so renowned for his portraits and religious, historical and mythological paintings, that any retrospective of his work raises the question: Is there anything new to say? In France there is. Remarkably, a major Rubens exhibition that opened March 6 in this northern city is the first overview of his work to be presented in France.

SLAVE PEN Controversy in St. Louis over a new ball park, which some contend is being built on the grounds of a form slave pen. "Unfortunately, that area was known, somewhere between the old and new stadiums, for Lynch's slave pens," said Missouri Historical Society President Robert Archibald.

CHILE New evidence surfaces in the case of the young American filmmaker killed in Chile in 1973 shortly after Allende was overthrown; high officials in the security forces implicated.

GAYS The Chicago Historical Society makes a 5-year commitment to telling the story of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people; though few city residents may know it, the first gay rights organization in the country was started in Chicago by a postal worker on Dec. 10, 1924.

RELIGION Montana county considering a plan to treat a 10 commandments monument as a part of history to get around court decisions forbidding religious objects on public property. If enough money can be raised, the existing monument could be moved to the north edge of the courthouse property and displayed alongside monuments containing text from, for instance, the U.S. Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta and the 1972 Montana Constitution.

DIEN BIEN PHU Vietnam planning major celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu; in Geneva that same year following the military success, Ho Chi Minh secured peace in exchange for the division of the country into North Vietnam and South Vietnam at the 17th parallel.

OBITUARY Russell F. Weigley, 73, a Temple University history professor emeritus whose acclaimed books about military history ranged from an examination of individual battles and personalities to a comprehensive look at American military strategy, died March 3 at his home in Philadelphia after a heart attack.

WW II Fittings and artefacts from the infamous Changi Prison in Singapore will be sent to Australia as part of plans to preserve sections of the Singapore jail where thousands of Allied troops were held by the Japanese in World War II.

BOER WAR The graves and headstones of Breaker Morant and scores of other Australian Boer War fighters have been ransacked and vandalised in South Africa. Armed thieves have stolen metal plaques, crosses and marble tombstones from cemeteries marking the death or disappearance of more than 600 young Australians from 1899-1902.

GALLIC CULTURE France has opened a new front in its battle to defend Gallic culture from the encroachment of the English language by offering crash courses in French to senior diplomats from the 10 countries about to join the European Union.

PLAGIARISM Richard L. Judd, the president of Central Connecticut State University guilty of plagiarism; copied portions of an op ed he wrote for the Hartford Courant; compard with Goodwin and Ambrose.

MUSEUM British Museum hailed for its makeover as a world-class institution.

MICHELANGELO Restoration work on Michelangelo's David has removed around two-thirds of the dirt and sulphate on the statue; work to be finished by May.

ANTONY British Museum expert believes the figures adorning the ancient Portland Vase are Antony and Cleopatra.

MEXICO President Miguel de la Madrid, who governed Mexico for most of the 1980's, confirms in his new memoir that his party stole the election of 1988.

GODZILLA After 50 years of smashing Tokyo and wrestling with Mothra, it's time for Japan's most beloved monster to take a breather: film company to stop producing new Godzilla movies.

RETIREMENT Alistair Cook, age 95, retires his BBC radio column, which began in 1946.

LUCY Archaeologists studying human origins in eastern Ethiopia say a wealth of new finds meant they could hope to discover even older and more complete specimens than the famous fossil "Lucy."

STATUES Experts work to save Easter Island statues; may use a chemical to stabilise the stone monoliths, which have become severely eroded.

CHICAGO COW Perhaps it was not Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern that sparked the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed the downtown area and claimed 300 lives. New research lends credence to an alternative explanation: The fire, along with less-publicized and even more deadly blazes the same night in upstate Wisconsin and Michigan, was the result of a comet fragment crashing into Earth's atmosphere.

ANCIENT WONDERS Iraq, torn apart by years of war and sanctions, remains so rich in hidden ancient wonders that a leading expert believes the world's archaeology books will have to be rewritten over the next decade.

HUMAN FOSSILS Experts analyzing remains of a man, woman and teenage boy unearthed in Romania last year are convinced that the 35,000 year-old fossils are the most complete ever of modern humans of that era.

PERU Dozens of mummies dating back more than 500 years have been discovered on the path of a proposed highway on the outskirts of the Peruvian capital, near an Inca graveyard.

TERRORISM Knight-Ridder finds little evidence to substantiate a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda.

JUAN COLE Historian Juan Cole is organizing scholars to oppose the creation of an advisory board to monitor Middle East studies.

Week of 3-1-04

Ohio legislature considers bill requiring every classroom, auditorium and cafeteria in the state to display the mottos "With God, All Things are Possible" and "In God we Trust" hanging in separate frames measuring at least 11-by-14 inches; follows action by Mississippi and South Carolina.

US Mint replaces Monticello on the nickel with a design featuring a handshake below the inscription: Louisiana Purchase 1803"; Jefferson remains on the obverse.

Another species has been added to the family tree of early human ancestors; Long before Homo erectus, Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy, more than three million years ago) and several other distant kin, scientists are reporting today, there lived a primitive hominid species in what is now Ethiopia about 5.5 million to 5.8 million years ago.

New social studies requirements for all Minnesota students passed their first legislative test Thursday.

More from the Harry Blackmun papers: How his years on the court strained his old friendship with Warren Burger.

Author of a new well-received biography of political fixer Tommy Corcoran can't reveal where he works, says Senate Ethics Committee. (He serves as chief of staff for Senator John Kerry.)

The historic area around Rome�s centre is to be redesigned to give tourists an accurate impression of how the city once stood.

An online poll to decide the greatest Welsh person narrowly won by the former Labour politician Aneurin Bevan.

Honoring New France soldier d'Iberville stirs Newfoundland controversy; famed adventurer is recalled for attacks that killed more than 200.

NYT: His newly released papers indicate that in the 1970s he tilted right against a court that was leftwing, and in the 1980s tilted left against a conservative court.

Georgia voters overwhelmingly approve a new state flag that was backed by African-American groups, ending years of controversy over the Confederate-style flags of the past.

Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO) plans to introduce a resolution in the House of Representatives later this month calling for schools to make Western civilization the centerpiece of their curricula.

Kerry and Bush now shown as cousins: 9th cousins twice removed, according to a private genealogical service.

A family in Sweden removed a tree from their garden and found a treasure: 280 silver coins from the early 11th century.

Scottish government to purchase treasures from an old English publishing house: a royalty check endorsed by Jane Austen, letters from Charles Darwin; stacks of correspondence with Lord Byron.

A graveyard of up to 70 gladiators has revealed the ancient Roman pugilists lived on a vegetarian diet.

2 of Kerry's Jewish relatives died in the Holocaust.

U.S. Treasury has warned publishers they may face grave legal consequences for editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored nations, on the ground that such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy.

For several weeks, members of the Iraqi Governing Council have been trying to decide whether they should allow tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews who fled the country in the 1950's and in later years to return.

Houghton Mifflin buys Philip Roth's next novel about what life would have been like for the Jews of the United States had the aviation hero and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt for the presidency in 1940.

More controversy involving the German novelist who tells the story of the production of pornographic films screened at parties for the Nazi elite; Der Spiegel accuses the author of glamorizing the Third Reich

Sixty years later, France's Normandy region is again priming for an American D-Day invasion, hopefully by thousands of tourists.

New study confirms old suspicion that George Washington was sterile.

The papers of Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the Roe v. Wade decision, to be opened this week; NYT and NPR given special access 2 months ago, raising questions that the news is being managed.

Journal of American History publishes a roundtable on "History's Ethical Crisis."

Barnard College�s �Reacting to the Past� has won the 2004 Theodore Hesburgh Award ($30,000) for pedagogical innovation. The award was announced at the American Council on Education convention in Miami on March 1. Reacting to the Past consists of elaborate games, set in the past, in which students are assigned roles informed by important texts.