Meet the ancestors in medieval who's who of Scotland - Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture
The project focuses on the 12th and 13th centuries as this is the period when 'Scotland' and 'Scots' first began to mean what it does today. By the end of this period it seems to have been taken for granted by the king's subjects that the kingdom consisted of a single country whose inhabitants were a single people. But this contrasts with the be-ginning of this period when the king was thought of as ruling a number of regions and peoples.
Talking Bob Dylan: With the great man turning 70, Celtic Connections pays tribute - Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture
As Bob Dylan turns 70 later this year, Celtic Connections pays tribute next week with a special concert. Ahead of the show, Fiona Shepherd asks three musicians who will take part what the living legend means to them
The Manson Family Murders Pictures - CBS News
Charles Manson was the leader of the "Manson Family" cult, responsible for a series of brutal murders in California in 1969. Manson was convicted of orchestrating the murders of seven people.
Cr
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504083_162-10006372-15.html#ixzz1Bm4m2100
Al Capone - Top 10 Real-Life Mob Bosses - TIME
You can't have a list of mobsters without mentioning the man who sticks in the minds of most people: Al Capone. It seemed for years as if law enforcement couldn't touch him. As head of the Chicago-based Italian-American empire known as the Outfit, Capone was guilty of any number of sins, from gambling and prostitution to bootlegging and narcotics trafficking to robbery, bribery and murder. Though his record is long, Capone gained the most notoriety for the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which seven high-ranking members of a rival gang were shot dead. Though Capone himself had arranged to conveniently be vacationing at the time, there was little doubt the job didn't have the boss's approval. But what finally brought the mobster down was one of his most minor offenses: tax evasion. The lesser crime — and lighter sentence it carried — meant one of the most notorious crooks of all time served just seven years, six months and 15 days behind bars.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2043575_2043788_20... #ixzz1BhxD2BWh
Ambassador Morgenthau telegram.
This is an official telegram sent by Henry Morgenthau Sr. on July 16, 1915 to what he describes a process of "race extermination" in regards to what was happening to the Armenians at that time. Morgenthau served as the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913-1916 and so this work comes from the United States State Dept.
How Disney brought demise of early Florida theme park
Opening with great fanfare on Feb. 2, 1963, the Western-themed attraction would draw thousands of visitors to Ocala during its 20-year lifespan. Six Gun and nearby Silver Springs attraction were among the premier stops in pre-Disney Florida.
Yet, even as this frontier town in the East reveled in its newness, the seeds of its demise were being sown some 100 miles to the south.
A cartoonist from California was looking to re-create some Western magic of his own in the eastern half of the country. And Florida was ripe.
In fact, had Florida's Turnpike and Interstate 4 not intersected where they do just south of Orlando, that city's fate might have been Ocala's. For a time, Ocala was in the hunt for the new playground dubbed Walt Disney World.
To compound Six Gun's eventual woes, while Orlando was urbanizing, so were the television networks; Westerns, a staple much of the 1950s into the '70s, were disappearing from the airwaves.
The romantic image of the Wild West was passe, and Six Gun Territory eventually became a ghost town. It closed for good just shy of 21 years after opening.
In 1986, the deserted buildings were bulldozed and burned, making way for the Six Gun Plaza and the Oak Hill Plantation home on State Road 40 East.
"We used to have a good time out there," recalled 77-year-old Herbert "Boots" Hooker, a barber whose shop in Six Gun Plaza is a few steps from where the aerial Sky Ride transported guests from the Silver Springs Boulevard entrance to the Old West town.
"When Disney came," he said, "it kind of knocked us out."
Eisenhower's Military-Industry Complex Warning, 50 Years Later : NPR
On Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower gave the nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government. He called it the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defense contractors and the armed forces.
Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general, the man who led the allies on D-Day, made the remarks in his farewell speech from the White House.
As NPR's Tom Bowman tells Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne, Eisenhower used the speech to warn about "the immense military establishment" that had joined with "a large arms industry."
Monastery Works to Preserve Ancient Christian Texts | PBS NewsHour | Dec. 31, 2010 | PBS
RAY SUAREZ: Next, a project that protects early religious texts from age, insects and war.
Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.
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REV. COLUMBA STEWART, director, Hill Museum, St. John's Abbey: Who would have thought that in a monastery in Central Minnesota is the world's largest collection of photographs and manuscripts?
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: For 50 years, this underground library at St. John's Abbey has collected and catalogued historic Christian manuscripts. Father Columba Stewart says it's part of a monastic tradition that dates back to the 6th century.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: I'm a Benedictine monk. There's an impulse in Benedictines to exercise this role of cultural guardianship. And that's an impulse that continues even in the modern age.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Many of the texts were handwritten long before printing presses. Some, like this Koran, were created soon after, this one commissioned for study by some of the first Protestant scholars.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: It's the first printed copy of the Koran. It was published in 1543, with a preface by Martin Luther.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Father Columba says these ancient texts echo with relevance to our time.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: Christians were -- were dealing with Islam and there was a real desire to understand it better. So the result was they wanted a translation of the Koran into Latin, so that Christians could read it. And, of course, it wasn't for the sake of religious understanding, it was for the sake of refutation.
And this whole question of how Western, predominantly Christian countries, dialog with or relate to majority of Muslim countries is something we've been talking about since 9/11. But what we forget is there are centuries -- centuries of experience of Christians and Muslims
And in many of these areas, significant Jewish communities as well --living together. And it wasn't always easy. And these manuscripts tell the story of that. They tell the story of legal prescriptions, which were made either to protect or to oppress a particular community.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Preserving that history is a matter of utmost importance to religion scholars like Father Columba.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: If you believe that we can learn from the past -- the past of our lives, the past of our families and our own nation or culture, the only way the past has come down to us is in the form of these writings.
Ethiopian manuscript, Latin manuscript.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Impressive as the physical manuscripts are, this library's much larger collection consists of digital copies of sacred texts. Most of the originals remain in churches a world away from here.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: Over 100,000 manuscripts from Europe, the Middle East, from Ethiopia, from India; well over 30 or 40 million pages. We've lost count long ago.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The texts are recorded digitally, catalogued
and stored in underground vaults.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: And our pledge is that those will be safe forever.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The library's effort began in the 1960s in Europe, a time when microfilm first became available; also a time when there was fear of a nuclear war.
Next, the librarians went to Ethiopia, anticipating, correctly, that many of that country's orthodox manuscripts could be destroyed in the political turmoil of the '70s and '80s.
In recent years, the focus has been on the Middle East.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: Our goal since 2003 was to do as many Eastern Christian manuscripts in the Middle East as possible, because we all know that these manuscripts are endangered from a variety of causes.
The one people think of most is violence, because they associate this region, whether it's Lebanon or a place like Jerusalem, certainly a place like Iraq, with immediate physical danger to manuscripts.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: We followed Father Columba to Jerusalem, a city fought over for centuries among Muslims, Jews and Christians; also among Christians.
These pilgrims were on their way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where they believe Christ was buried.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: I'm going to show you a diagram of the Holy Sepulcher Church. All that's left now is really this area.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The building was destroyed by Muslim rulers and rebuilt in the 13th century by the Crusaders. It is one of Christianity's holiest sites; also a symbol of its divided family, something that complicates the task of tracking down and digitizing their sacred books.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: So the Greeks have the central piece, the Armenians have quite a bit of the chapel surrounding the center, the Latins have the far side, the Syrians have a small chapel in the back, the Copts have a small chapel inside. So it's a little microcosm of all the different religious traditions here in the Middle East.
And, unfortunately, relations are not always easy, because when you have all of these different groups living in a -- what is a fairly small building, they're fiercely protective of their rights.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Many regions where these traditions evolved, modern day Turkey and Iraq, Armenia and Russia to the north, as far south as India, have seen war and upheaval through the ages. And just
last October, a Syriac Orthodox Church was bombed in Iraq. All this increases the urgency to record the texts that have survived, says
Father Columba. He is particularly interested in digitizing the Syriac church's collection in Jerusalem.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Father Columba.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fine. Thank you very much.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: Good to see you.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It will take dogged diplomacy.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: These Eastern Christian communities, many of which have been persecuted -- massacres are within living memory --this stuff is really in their gut.
And so you -- you have to build a relationship where they understand that the motives that we bring to these projects is one of deep reverence.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The Minnesota library also brings the money need for such projects, several hundred thousand dollars each year, raised from various private donors. Local church staff are trained in the tasks. And while copies go to Minnesota, the local church retains copyright.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: So if you have a monk or a layperson who you think would be a good person to do this work or two people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And our monks, always, they will be with them. Yes.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: This is a very -- a very old manuscript, perhaps 7th, 8th century?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn't say.
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: It doesn't say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn't...
FATHER COLUMBA STEWART: But it's very old...
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: In years ahead, Father Columba expects to return repeatedly to the Middle East, until, as it were, the word is made safe.
RAY SUAREZ: Fred's reporting is a partnership with the Project for Under-Told Stories. Starting in January, the project will be based at St. Mary's University in Minnesota.
