Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday 3 December 2014


Today’s “Must Read” Stories
New on the Homepage

After the Election - The Tremendous Toch Brothers #5

by Joshua Brown
Threatening the Toch brand!

HNN News Headlines

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Breaking News
Stay Up to Date!  You can now receive a daily digest of news headlines posted on HNN by email. It's simple:  Go Here!  What follows is a streamlined list of stories.  To see the full list:  Go Here!

Prehistoric conflict hastened human brain’s capacity for collaboration, study says

Warfare not only hastened human technological progress and vast social and political changes, but may have greatly contributed to the evolutionary emergence of humans’ high intelligence and ability to work together toward common goals.

Scramble for Africa 130 years on

130 years ago, Western countries met to discuss the future of Africa in what is known as the Berlin Conference. The result of the meeting saw the countries distributing portions of the continent to come under their control.

Japanese Unearth Remains, and Their Nation’s Past, on Guadalcanal

The young have joined the old in looking for the remains of missing Japanese soldiers at the site of one of World War II’s most ferocious battles.

Stalin, Father of Ukraine?

Yes, he was a murderous tyrant, but he was also a father of today’s Ukraine.

Did Mrs. Bixby get a bad wrap?

With all the rumors circulating about her while she mourned the loss of her sons and tried to take care of her surviving children and a grandchild, Lydia Bixby might have welcomed the anonymity that finally came to her at the end of her life. But does she still deserve it today?

It's the 150th anniversary of one of the most appalling massacres of Indians ever

In terms of sheer horror, few events matched Sand Creek. Pregnant women were murdered and scalped, genitalia were paraded as trophies.

"Great Surprise"—Native Americans Have West Eurasian Origins

Oldest human genome reveals less of an East Asian ancestry than thought.

3,500-Year-Old Dagger Found Being Used As A Doorstop

Only five other daggers like the Rudham Dirk have been found in Europe.

Japan's fast train is 50 years old

In 50 years the shinkansen never had a fatality.

East Germany looted art like Nazis

Until recently, few Germans realized that the covert program, with its echoes of Holocaust-era looting, had ever taken place in the German Democratic Republic.

Study on Cultural Memory Confirms: Chester A. Arthur, We Hardly Knew Ye

Quick: Which American president served before slavery ended, John Tyler or Rutherford B. Hayes?

ISIS destroying sites in Salah-ad-Din Province

Until the past week, there were few reports of the destruction of antiquities and cultural heritage sites, possibly because ISIS forces were hard pressed on multiple fronts.
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Historians in the News
What follows is a streamlined list of stories.  To see the full list:  Go Here!

NYT lauds newest biography of Stalin. It's by Stephen Kotkin.

Kotkin's new study depicts Stalin as an autodidact, an astute thinker, “a people person” with “surpassing organizational abilities; a mammoth appetite for work; a strategic mind and an unscrupulousness that recalled his master teacher, Lenin."

South Korea opens new front in East Asian textbook wars

"The last thing the region needs is officially sanctioned government histories that neighbors will inevitably call propaganda."

1,000 + have signed a petition protesting US government plan to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War

"We write on behalf of many veterans of the American peace movement during the Vietnam era with a deep concern that taxpayer funds and government resources are being expended on a one-sided, three-year, $30 million educational program on the "lessons of Vietnam."

Conference delves into effects of climate change on native people

As the planet warms and oceans rise, indigenous people around the world find themselves directly and disproportionately confronting climate changes that threaten long-held ways of life.

NYT praises James McPherson for finding a way to remain objective about Jeff Davis

McPherson found himself “becoming less inimical toward Davis” than he expected, and clearly more engaged with the challenges that Davis himself had to face.

Historian says the removal of Nazi-era art to Switzerland makes restitution unlikely

"You know, historically, when objects go to Switzerland, to Swiss institutions, to Swiss art dealers, the likelihood of restitution is not very high."--Jonathan Petropoulos

Martin Kramer blasts MESA and Steven Salaita

Kramer calls Salaita a hater.

L.A. schools adopt history curriculum from Stanford University

Stanford University curriculum that is picking up steam nationally as educators grapple with widespread evidence of historical illiteracy among U.S. students.

Raleigh Trevelyan, Chronicler of a Notable Family, Dies at 91

His best-known work, “Sir Walter Raleigh” (2004), argued for the elevation of his ancestor to the upper reaches of the pantheon of British greats, along with contemporaries like William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I, based on his achievements as an explorer, courtier, poet, American colonizer and early purveyor of tobacco to England and potatoes to Ireland.

Former spokesman of B.C. anti-immigration group wants UBC history prof fired

“Do voters really want two pro-multicultural, ethnocentric candidates running our largest cities? I don’t and from my direct experience, neither do most Canadians of European origin.”