David Smith, technology correspondent
Guardian
30 Nov 2008

The name was never meant to stick. When Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute in California designed a computer controller encased in a carved-out wooden block, with wheels mounted on the underbelly, one researcher nicknamed it a 'mouse'. 'We thought that when it had escaped out to the world it would have a more dignified name,' Engelbart recalled later. 'But it didn't.'


Apple bought the mouse patent for its Macintosh in 1984, securing the success of the invention. (Photograph: Bernard Gotfryd/Getty Images)

Engelbart's invention became the mouse that soared, an essential piece of computer hardware. Its 40th birthday will be celebrated next week when Engelbart returns to Stanford (now known as SRI International). The mouse was first shown to the world when he gave a presentation of a working network computer system in San Francisco on 9 December, 1968, which is still revered as 'the dawn of interactive computing'. ( >>Continued )

Don't let it be forgot, That once there was a spot For one brief shining moment that was known As Camelot.


John Fitzgerald Kennedy, assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963

National Security Agency headquarters, Fort George Meade, Maryland, 2007 (photo from collection of Matthew Aid)

'In response to a declassification request by the National Security Archive, the secretive National Security Agency has declassified large portions of a four-part “top-secret Umbra” study, American Cryptology during the Cold War. Despite major redactions, this history discloses much new information about the agency’s history and the role of SIGINT and communications intelligence (COMINT) during the Cold War. Researched and written by NSA historian Thomas Johnson, the three parts released so far provide a frank assessment of the history of the Agency and its forerunners, warts-and-all.'


>>Read the documents


There is some more background information plus on the page plus the .pdf links to the documents down at the bottom. [Original link from cryptome.org]

Breaking News.ie
13/10/2008

The New York grave of an Irish woman who was the first emigrant to pass through Ellis Island has been marked with a Celtic cross.

Clergy members joined Annie Moore’s descendants and admirers on Saturday in a Queens Cemetery.

She died 80 years ago, but her unmarked grave was discovered only two years ago.

She was 17 when she arrived in New York from Co Cork in 1892. The Irish consul general in New York says she is a symbol for the hundreds of thousands of Irish who settled in New York.

Ellis Island was the gateway to America for more than 12 million immigrants.

As many as 5,000 people a day passed through the processing centre at its peak in the early 1900s.

A campaign has been launched to repatriate the body of Mary Queen of Scots from Westminster Abbey.

By Auslan Cramb
Telegraph.co.uk
12 Oct 2008

The Nationalist MSP Christine Grahame has lodged a motion in parliament calling for the monarch's remains to be buried in Scotland.

The move to repatriate the Catholic monarch has the backing of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, historians and the composer James MacMillan.

Mary, who was born at Linlithgow Palace, fled to England after she was forced to abdicate in 1567. She was held prisoner by her cousin Elizabeth I, found guilty of treason and executed at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire 20 years later.

Although initially buried at Peterborough Cathedral, her body was exhumed in 1612 when her son, King James I of England and VI of Scotland, ordered that she be re-interred at Westminster Abbey. ( >>Read on )

'The "war hero" candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam

By Sydney H. Schanberg
September 18, 2008

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books...'

Part 1

Part 2

Just googling the 1929 stock market crash, the Dust Bowl tragedy and the Depression. This site has some absolutely wonderful art from that era. Take a look. I have also thrown in a couple photos from sites about the Great Depression and the cause of the Dust Bowl on the Great Plains of America that turned farmland into worthless and killing dirt and forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes forever in the great migration to the West.


Raphael Soyer, 'Waterfront' (1934) Depression Art Gallery



Migrant family from The Great Depression



The real dust bowl which reduced America's breadbasket to a bleak nightmare scene for the better part of a decade in the 1930s

By Claire Smith
Scotsman
13 September 2008

HAVING defended their own country and fled through occupied France, the Polish airmen of the Second World War cemented their reputation for fearlessness and daring by becoming pilots in the RAF.

However, when the conflict ended, they were denied an official place in the victory celebrations for fear of upsetting Britain's Soviet allies.

But today, the forgotten Polish heroes will be remembered as a Spitfire, a Hurricane and a Lancaster bomber fly over Grangemouth, where hundreds of Polish pilots were trained.

It will be the first time a Spitfire has flown over the disused air base since the end of the war, and will be one of the few occasions when the contribution of Polish fighter pilots has been recognised.

The flypast will commemorate a time in Scottish history when Polish pilots trained alongside Scots, Czechs, Belgians and Austrians in a desperate effort to beat the Luftwaffe.

( Continued )

Breaking News.ie
7 September 2008


St. Patrick’s Cathedral pierces the fog of the ages. For one thing, Jonathan Swift—author of Gulliver’s Travels—was dean here in the 1700s; his grave sits near the entrance - Photo from Best of Dublin.


Dublin’s oldest public clock – on St Patrick’s Cathedral – is getting a face-lift to restore it to tick-tock order.

The timepiece, which has four faces, is almost 450 years old.

UK-based experts have been hired to recondition the clock’s delicate inner workings and re-gild the face and Roman numerals.

The project is part of a €1.2m revamp of the Church of Ireland building’s tower which is due to be completed by the end of next month.

St Patrick’s, which is Ireland’s largest church, draws up to 300,000 visitors a year.

It can seat more than 1,000 people and has been used in the past for the state funerals of former presidents Douglas Hyde and Erskine Childers.

“The clock is the oldest public clock in Dublin, would have originally dated back to 1560,” said assistant administrator Mark Bowyer.

He added: “It has a lot of character and is fondly regarded by the congregation and the public in general.

“But it had become difficult to read the time in recent months.”

Mr Bowyer said the clock has undergone restoration work before and was completely rebuilt around the 1860s.

“Ongoing restoration work continues on the clock as and when required.

“How much of the original clock which remains is not clear,” he added.

The restoration of the tower, currently obscured by builders’ scaffolding, received a €200,000 grant from the Heritage Council.

Experts will also clean the tower’s surface exterior and octagonal spire as well as re-pointing the stone work.

The bell tower, where the ceiling had become unstable, will also be overhauled.

Most of the funding for the project will come from St Patrick’s Cathedral’s own coffers, which are boosted by admission charges revenue and its gift shop.

Work on the clock is being carried out by UK-based expert Julian Cosby while cathedral architect John Beauchamp is supervising the overall project.