France plans Napoleonland
Friday, January 20, 2012
“Napoleonland”, the brainchild of former French minister and history buff Yves Jégo, is being touted as a rival to Disneyland – assuming, that is, it can gather the £180 million needed to leave the drawing board. The plan is to build the unlikely amusement park on the site of the brilliant but doom.. .. read more..
Swiss \'contract children\' speak out
Friday, January 20, 2012
A dark chapter of Swiss history is getting increased attention, with the release of a feature film about \"Verdingkinder\" or \"contract children\" and an exhibition about them which is touring the country. A common feature of Swiss life until the mid-1950s, Verdingkinder were primarily children from p.. .. read more..
Blues Legend Etta James Dies: Big Pic
Friday, January 20, 2012
The influential and pioneering rhythm-and-blues singer died after a lengthy battle with leukemia. She was 73. .. read more..
Poe Fans Call An End To \'Toaster\' Tradition
Friday, January 20, 2012
BALTIMORE -- Edgar Allan Poe fans waited long past a midnight dreary, but it appears annual visits to the writer\'s grave in Baltimore by a mysterious figure called the \"Poe Toaster\" shall occur nevermore. Poe House and Museum Curator Jeff Jerome said early Thursday that die-hard fans waited hours p.. .. read more..
Germany marks anniversary of Wannsee Conference
Friday, January 20, 2012
Germany somberly marked the 70th anniversary of the infamous Wannsee Conference on Friday, with the country\'s president saying the meeting that laid out plans for the Holocaust still caused \"anger and shame.\" At the same villa on the shore of Berlin\'s Wannsee lake where the original meeting took pl.. .. read more..
The unlikely threat to North Korea: Kim Jong Nam
Friday, January 20, 2012
WASHINGTON — North Korea faces the danger of an unguided missile strike, aimed right at the center of power from a direction both near and far. That would be the newly installed supreme leader’s elder half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, who has made some skeptical comments about the weakness of the bloodli.. .. read more..
Leonardo Da Vinci may be at the heart of a real art mystery
Friday, January 20, 2012
L OS ANGELES - At three o’clock on a cold December morning, a team of researchers huddled together on scaffolding 25 feet high in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, holding a tablet computer up to a huge 16th century fresco. But the researchers weren’t interested in the dramatic battle scene, the work of .. .. read more..
Ancient Popcorn Found—Made 2,000 Years Earlier Than Thought in Peru
Friday, January 20, 2012
Just in time for National Popcorn Day , a new study says that people in what\'s now Peru were eating the snack 2,000 years earlier than thought. Coastal peoples were preparing corn-based foods up to 6,700 years ago, according to analysis of ancient corncobs, husks, tassels, and stalks re.. .. read more..
Voltaire English letters discovered by Oxford academic
Friday, January 20, 2012
An Oxford academic has uncovered letters by Voltaire which reveal how much this icon of French writing profited financially and intellectually from a stay in England. They include a signed acceptance from the 18th Century writer for a £200 grant from the Royal Family. The writer abandoned the Frenc.. .. read more..
Into the mind of a Neanderthal
Friday, January 20, 2012
What would have made them laugh? Or cry? Did they love home more than we do? Meet the real Neanderthals A NEANDERTHAL walks into a bar and says... well, not a lot, probably. Certainly he or she could never have delivered a full-blown joke of the type modern humans would recognise because a joke hin.. .. read more..