Early Americans helped colonise Easter Island

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7 June 2011
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South Americans helped colonise Easter Island centuries before Europeans reached it. Clear genetic evidence has, for the first time, given support to elements of this controversial theory showing that while the remote island was mostly colonised from the west, there was also some influx of people from the Americas.

Easter Island is the easternmost island of Polynesia, the scattering of islands that stretches across the Pacific. It is also one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Parachute Wedding Dress / Ruth Hensinger

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7 June 2011
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In Design, History
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From the Smithsonian‘s collection of remarkable artefacts, a wedding dress made from a B-29 pilot’s life-saving parachute:

In August 1944, Hensinger, a B-29 pilot, and his crew were returning from a bombing raid over Yowata, Japan, when their engine caught fire. The crew was forced to bail out. Suffering from only minor injuries, Hensinger used the parachute as a pillow and blanket as he waited to be rescued. He kept the parachute that had saved his life. He later proposed to his girlfriend Ruth in 1947, offering her the material for a gown.

Ruth wanted to create a dress similar to one in the movie Gone with the Wind. She hired a local seamstress, Hilda Buck, to make the bodice and veil. Ruth made the skirt herself; she pulled up the strings on the parachute so that the dress would be shorter in the front and have a train in the back. The couple married July 19, 1947. The dress was also worn by the their daughter and by their son’s bride before being gifted to the Smithsonian.

— via Boing Boing

Archaeologists unearth Britain’s ‘first building boom’

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6 June 2011
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Researchers have developed a new dating technique that has given the first detailed picture of the emergence of an agricultural way of life in Britain more than 5,000 yearsago.

A new analysis of artefacts recovered from the first monuments built in Britain shows that the Neolithic period had a slow start followed by a rapid growth in trade and technology.

Scientists say the new approach can be used to unravel the detailed sequence of events of many more important moments in human pre-history — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The Monster Study

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6 June 2011
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In 1939, University of Iowa graduate student Mary Tudor began an experiment with local orphans, warning them that they were showing signs of stuttering and lecturing them whenever they repeated a word. The children became acutely self-conscious, and many began to stutter, fulfilling the theory that the affliction is caused by the diagnosis — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Salvadoran officers indicted over 1989 Jesuit killings

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31 May 2011
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A judge in Spain has ordered the arrest of 20 military officers from El Salvador for the 1989 killing of six Jesuit priests and two women.

The priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were shot dead by soldiers during El Salvador’s civil war.

The case was filed using Spain’s universal jurisdiction law, which holds that some crimes are so grave that they can be tried anywhere.

Among those indicted are two former defence ministers — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Red Cross and Vatican helped thousands of Nazi war criminals escape

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26 May 2011
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The Red Cross and the Vatican both helped thousands of Nazi war criminals and collaborators to escape after the second world war, according to a new book that pulls together evidence from previously unpublished documents.

The Red Cross has previously acknowledged that its efforts to help refugees were used by Nazi war criminals to escape because administrators were overwhelmed, but the new research suggests that the numbers escaping were much higher than previously thought — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Face rings a bell on notorious Camberwell travel agency robbery

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26 May 2011
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Hi-tech face recognition technology and a gun identification parade have led to the arrest of two men over a brazen heist on a Camberwell travel agency eight years ago that netted the alleged robbers $250,000.

Three staff and an American Express employee were confronted by a masked man with a silver handgun and silencer who had earlier hid in the business’ roof on February 25, 2003 — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Egyptian pyramids found by infra-red satellite images

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26 May 2011
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Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt.

More than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements were also revealed by looking at infra-red images which show up underground buildings.

Initial excavations have already confirmed some of the findings including of two suspected pyramids.

To excavate a pyramid is the dream of every archaeologist, says Dr Sarah Parcak — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Early Bronze Age battle site found on German river bank

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22 May 2011
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Fractured human remains found on a German river bank could provide the first compelling evidence of a major Bronze Age battle.

Archaeological excavations of the Tollense Valley in northern Germany unearthed fractured skulls, wooden clubs and horse remains dating from around 1200 BC.

The injuries to the skulls suggest face-to-face combat in a battle perhaps fought between warring tribes, say the researchers.

The paper, published in the journal Antiquity, is based primarily on an investigation begun in 2008 of the Tollense Valley site, which involved both ground excavations and surveys of the riverbed by divers — via redwolf.newsvine.com

HMS Ark Royal sale viewings take place in Portsmouth

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4 May 2011
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Potential buyers of HMS Ark Royal have had the first chance to look at the Royal Navy’s former flagship.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) tours of the aircraft carrier are taking place at the Portsmouth Naval Base.

The vessel, decommissioned in March after 25 years service as part of the government’s defence budget review, is up for sale on the MoD auction website — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A Trove of Historic Jazz Recordings has Found a Home in Harlem, But You Can’t Hear Them

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30 April 2011
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In Entertainment, History, Rights
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It turns out that one man — a jazz musician and technical genius — figured out a way. But during his lifetime, William Savory kept these recordings largely to himself. He refused to reveal how many recordings he had and what performances they contained. He let only a very few of his recordings be heard by a small number of acquaintances. Over time, the Savory collection became a tantalizing enigma to jazz connoisseurs who yearned for access to its treasures.

The mystery ended last summer. Six years after Savory passed away, his collection was acquired by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. And jazz experts were stunned. The extent and quality of the Savory collection was beyond anything they had imagined.

I figured there was maybe 50 to 100 unreleased recordings, says Loren Schoenberg, the museum’s executive director. I expected to see one box. Instead, I saw dozens of boxes. The Savory collection comprised about a thousand discs of the greatest performers of all time. And all of this was unknown music. It was immediately clear this was a treasure trove — via redwolf.newsvine.com

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