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Some of the 50 miles of bookshelves in the Vatican secret archive Rome, Italy, Feb 29, 2012 / 03:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- For the first time in history, the Vatican is making public over 100 historical documents from its Secret Archives. “They are revealed as a cultural context, as a fascinating appeal to the memory of our past, the past of the Church, of empires, kingdoms, duchies and republics,” said Cardinal Raffaele Farina, Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church. The “Lux in Arcana” exhibit at Rome’s Capitoline Museum was created to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Vatican's Secret Archives and includes notable...

Every now and then, a treasure is unearthed not by archaeologists digging in the ground, but by historians and others seeking information among the stacks of books in a library. Writer and analyst Lenny Ben David was doing exactly that when he came across a massive Library of Congress photo archive of life in Palestine, circa early 1900s. Prior to its rebirth as a commonwealth, the lands of the State of Israel were all referred to as Palestine by the British. Ben David, a former diplomat and lobbyist, writes on his blog, “As I skimmed through the pictures, one theme...

President Barack Obama flew in to – and out of – a sprawling Soviet-era airbase near Kabul to thank U.S. troops and remind them that winning the war in Afghanistan means it will never be “a safe haven for terrorists who would attack the United States of America again.” But what the President, clad in a bomber jacket, didn’t say and where he didn’t go and whom he didn’t meet spoke volumes about the short but symbolic visit to the war he has made his own and which may define his presidency. Tellingly, Mr. Obama – who sent a surge...

Civil War History Meets Twitter @Discovercivwar Follow the National Archives’ Upcoming Civil War Exhibit on Twitter Washington, DC…You can now follow the National Archives’ exhibition marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, Discovering the Civil War on Twitter [http://twitter.com/discovercivwar]. Followers can discover the Civil War for themselves through tweets highlighting the people and stories of the Civil War linking to images of items that will be featured in the exhibition such as letters, diaries, photos, maps, petitions, receipts, patents, amendments, and proclamations. @discovercivwar will also alert the public to exciting, free programs related to the exhibition that will be held...

"Those tapes include Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign speeches...."

Why was a founding member of the FreeRepublic LLC 501(c) board banned by a modmin/admin who is no more than a volunteer sitting at home on a ego trip? How many thousands of archive pages were just fractured due to this foolishness? Not only should a full explanation be given to the public, the admin who approved this measure needs to be publicly named, and publicly defend the position. THis is the most abject failure of the modmin system that John Robinson devised in the history of FR since the rebuild in 1999. If the admin powered individual was anyone...

The Holy See’s archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than 1,000 years. High-quality reproductions of 105 documents, 19 of which have never been seen before in public, have now been published in a book. The Vatican Secret Archives features a papal letter to Hitler, an entreaty to Rome written on birch bark by a tribe of North American Indians, and a plea from Mary Queen of Scots. The book documents the Roman Catholic Church’s often hostile dealings with the world of science and the arts, including documents from the heresy trial against Galileo and...

President Barack Obama has apparently issued a long-awaited executive order on classification that fulfills one of his campaign promises by setting up a National Declassification Center to oversee the release of historical documents. But the announcement, ironically, is shrouded in secrecy and confusion. "While the Government must be able to prevent the public disclosure of information that would compromise the national security, a democratic government accountable to the people must be as transparent as possible and must not withhold information for self-serving reasons or simply to avoid embarrassment," National Security Council official William Leary wrote in a blog post announcing...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- With millions of documents filling almost 53 miles of shelf space, the Vatican Secret Archives obviously still hold some secrets. Despite the aura of mystery surrounding the archives, the Vatican actually encourages academics to research its holdings and has worked with a Belgian publishing house to bring 105 of the most important, or curious, documents to the public. The coffee-table book, "The Vatican Secret Archives," was published by VdH Books in Dutch, English, French and Italian. Cardinal Raffaele Farina, the Vatican archivist, wrote in the introduction that he knows popular books and movies love to imply...

Once upon a time (at the zenith of 20th century analog media), maintaining an on-site, in-house library crammed full of archived periodicals and rows and rows of hefty, solemn reference books, was all the rage at large media organizations. In 2009, not so much. Today, yet another bricks-and-mortar media bibliothèque fell victim to the digital age. This afternoon, in an email to his staff, David Westin, the president of ABC News, announced that ABC News will be converting its existing research library on the second floor of its 47th street building into a smaller, more cyber-focused "Digital Research Facility." "Our...

A massive amount of sensitive, national security-related information from the Clinton administration has gone missing from the national archives. The Inspector General of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told congressional committee staffers Tuesday that a hard drive containing over a terabyte of information -- the equivalent of millions of books--went missing from the NARA facility in College Park, Md., sometime between October 2008 and March 2009. The Department of Justice and the Secret Service are conducting an investigation, but it's so far unclear whether the drive was lost as the result of a crime or an accident. That...

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of fraudulent Hawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by the Barack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same blog entry where the supposedly authentic document appears. The evidence of forgery and manipulation of images of official documents, triggered by Israel Insider's revelation of the collection of Hawaii birth certificate images on the Photobucket site and the detective work of independent investigative journalists and imaging professionals in the three weeks since the publication of the images, implicate the Daily Kos,...

Washington, DC…The Office of the Federal Register has created an Electronic Public Inspection Desk to provide free worldwide electronic access to public documents. For the first time in the 72-year existence of the daily Federal Register, the documents on file are available for viewing anytime, anywhere. Every Federal business day, anyone with access to a computer now can read critical documents governing Federal regulations relating to business, health, and safety as soon as the documents are placed on file.

Footnote.com partnered with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to link the service records and casualty reports to each name on the Wall. “The records of the Vietnam War in the National Archives are essential resources for veterans to revisit their history and establish their rights,” explains Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein. “These extensive files are mined by scholars every day as they continue to interpret and understand this pivotal period in American history.” Footnote.com will also be digitizing National Archives photos from the Vietnam War. Footnote.com and the National Archives Launch an Interactive Vietnam War MemorialAbout...

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Hillary Rodham Clinton's daily schedules as first lady will be forwarded to former President Clinton by Friday for review, the first of two steps without a fixed time limit before any are released to the public, the National Archives said Wednesday. Former President Clinton will have 30 days — possibly longer, if he requests an extension — to review the 10,000 pages of his wife's daily schedules before they will be sent to the White House for its review, said Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the National Archives. The Bush administration does not have a time limit to review the...

After more than 60 years, Nazi documents stored in a vast warehouse in Germany were unsealed Wednesday, opening a rich resource for Holocaust historians and for survivors to delve into their own tormented past. The archive's index refers to 17.5 million people in its 16 linear miles of files. The treasure of documents could open new avenues of study into the inner workings of Nazi persecution from the exploitation of slave labor to the conduct of medical experiments. The archive's managers planned a conference of scholars next year to map out its unexplored contents. The files entrusted to the International...

Amazing: Bill Clinton complains media is not reporting Hillary's record - the same record that both he and Hillary are keeping hidden in the archives!Read it all here!

WASHINGTON - A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against. U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law. The White House is seeking dismissal of the lawsuits brought by two private groups — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government and the National Security Archive. The organizations allege the disappearance of 5 million White...

Let’s face it: the Clintons will say anything in their quests for the presidency. Just as Bill Clinton railed against Republican corruption in 1992, promising his would be “the most ethical administration in history,” Hillary Clinton now is presenting herself as the antidote of the Republican “culture of corruption,” and the antithesis of the Bush administration’s penchant for secrecy. What makes this argument all the more laughable is that secrecy has always been their modus operandi, and their key method of their scandal damage control. It’s on display again. In the October 30 Democratic debate on MSNBC, Tim Russert asked...