Free Republic

A faded fragment of papyrus known as the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” which caused an uproar when unveiled by a Harvard Divinity School historian in 2012, has been tested by scientists who conclude in a journal published on Thursday that the ink and papyrus are very likely ancient, and not a modern forgery. Skepticism about the tiny scrap of papyrus has been fierce because it contained a phrase never before seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife...’ ” Too convenient for some, it also contained the words “she will be able to be my disciple,”...

"Mike Rowe’s new series Somebody’s Gotta Do It brings viewers face to face with men and women who march to the beat of a different drum. In each episode, Rowe visits unique individuals and joins them in their respective undertakings, paying tribute to innovators, do-gooders, entrepreneurs, collectors, fanatics – people who simply have to do it. This show is about passion, purpose, and occasionally, hobbies that get a little out of hand."

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Heathrow Airport has been forced to defend its security after a pair of students smuggled two large World War I artillery shells on to a plane and flew to the US. Baggage screeners made the discovery when the teenagers landed in Chicago, sparking a major incident. It is believed they picked up the 75mm munitions as souvenirs while on a school trip to a former artillery range in France. The find prompted the evacuation of O’Hare International Airport by the FBI before officials concluded there was no risk of the shells exploding. It is not clear how the students, aged...

1778 - Jeremiah Wadsworth was named commissary general of purchases for the Continental Army at the recommendation of General George Washington. Revolutionary War Quotes"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." John Adams

A message in a bottle that was thrown into the ocean in 1913 and recently found by a fisherman off the coast of Germany was returned to the sender's granddaughter. "It was very surprising," said Angela Erdmann, 62, to The Guardian. "A man stood in front of my door and told me he had post from my grandfather. He then told me that a message in a bottle was found and that the name that was on the card was that of my grandfather."

An animal rights group is taking a stab at buying the childhood home of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in an effort to transform the Ohio house into a vegan eatery. In a letter last week, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk asked a real estate agent about the Bath Township home and proposed making it a restaurant “to respond to the past with something positive,” the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Newkirk compared the way animals were slaughtered to the way Dahmer treated the 17 victims he was convicted of killing. […] Richard Lubinski of Stouffer Realty, who is handling the sale of...

The New York City Department of Records and Information Services (aw, DORIS) has announced the addition of 30,000 photographs to its online gallery. The latest photo dump includes images from the NYPD's "Alien Squad," car accidents, airplane crashes in Park Slope, the Hindenburg crashing, the demolition of the 2nd Avenue El train, explosions... you know, fun stuff. Here's a sampling for now, and we'll be revisiting more specified areas of their archives in the future.

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1778 - John Adams arrived in Paris to replace Silas Deane as a member of the American commission representing United States interests. Revolutionary War Quotes "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." Thomas Jefferson

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The single most important aspect of education is reading.   If children are not reading, their entire education comes to a halt. That’s what has happened in millions of lives.  All the statistics for many decades reveal a curious surprise: our public schools don’t actually know how to teach reading or, more likely, they pretend not to know.  This is a bizarre scandal, especially given that children have been learning to read for thousands of years, and 100 years ago this country was thought to be moving toward universal literacy.   An odd thing happened circa 1931. The Education Establishment pushed look-say (or...

1776 - Captain John Barry, commander of the American warship Lexington, took command of the British warship HMS Edward off the coast of Virginia. Revolutionary War Quotes "It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." -- Patrick Henry

<p>Darren Aronofsky’s Noah dominated the U.S. box office on its opening weekend and won critical acclaim, but not without controversy. The film, based on the biblical story in Genesis of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood, arrived amid a deluge of outrage from religious groups. Some Christians fumed at the film’s straying from biblical Scripture. Meanwhile, a host of Muslim-majority countries banned Noah from screening in theaters because representations of Noah, a prophet of God in the Koran, are considered blasphemous. Such images “provoke the feelings of believers and are forbidden in Islam and a clear violation of Islamic law,” read a fatwa issued by Cairo’s al-Azhar University, one of the foremost institutions of Sunni Islam. Egypt has not banned the film, but Indonesia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have. “It is important to respect these religions and not show the film,” lectured the main censors of the UAE.</p>

He is sitting at his desk, at the headquarters of his company — of one of his companies — SpaceX. He is eating. He is eating a plate of food that his personal assistant gave him. It is late, and he is eating to stay on schedule. He is a man of scrupulously developed politesse, and he worries that eating his scheduled dinner while completing his scheduled interview might give offense. It does not, because although he eats hungrily, he never succeeds in making his food look appetizing. On his white plate is a turkey leg, a sad bouquet of...

One of the last remaining stars of Hollywood's golden era, Mickey Rooney was born to vaudeville parents, and appeared with them onstage by the age of 1. He became a star when he was signed to play the part of comic book hero Mickey McGuire in a series of successful shorts that began in 1927 with "Mickey's Circus" and ended with "Mickey's Derby Day" in 1936. But it was at MGM in the 1930s that the diminutive dynamo hit real fame, particularly with the "Andy Hardy" movie series that launched in 1937. While at MGM he earned Oscar nominations for...

A secret package arrived at CIA headquarters in January 1958. Inside were two rolls of film from British intelligence — pictures of the pages of a Russian-language novel titled “Doctor Zhivago.” The book, by poet Boris Pasternak, had been banned from publication in the Soviet Union. The British were suggesting that the CIA get copies of the novel behind the Iron Curtain. The idea immediately gained traction in Washington.

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For thousands of years, different groups of people have lived in the Negev desert, building stone walls and cities that survive to this day. But how did they make their living? The current thinking is that these desert denizens didn't practice agriculture before approximately the first century, surviving instead by raising animals, said Hendrik Bruins, a landscape archaeologist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. But new research suggests people in this area, the Negev highlands, practiced agriculture as long ago as 5000 B.C., Bruins told LiveScience. If true, the finding could change historians' views of the area's inhabitants, who lived...

It was a warmer than usual summer day in Clark, South Dakota when a rather large and ungainly young man, a recent high school graduate, set about finding his way in the world. The salivating Navy recruiter asked the youngster what it would take to have him sign up: “why, I’d like to go to Australia.” It was as good as done. After all, in 1966, if you were lucky enough to ship out on the USS Canberra, more likely than not, during the course of your hitch, there will be a port call to the ship’s namesake— Canberra, Australia.