Two fossil skeletons of early humans appear to mark a halfway stage between primitive “ape-men” and our direct ancestors. A year of detailed study has revealed that the skeletons are a hodgepodge of anatomical features: some bones look almost human while others are chimpanzee-like. The two fossils, an adult female and a juvenile male, were discovered in the Malapa cave system near Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2008. Both about 1.2 metres tall, they are unusually complete and well-preserved and date from 1,977,000 years ago. Excavated by Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and colleagues, they were given the name Australopithecus sediba. Australopithecines were early hominids that lived between 4…

The Blitz begins. (2011). The History Channel website. Retrieved 7:49, September 7, 2011, from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-blitz-begins. On this day in 1940, 300 German bombers raid London, in the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. This bombing “blitzkrieg” (lightning war) would continue until May 1941. After the successful occupation of France, it was only a matter of time before the Germans turned their sights across the Channel to England. Hitler wanted a submissive, neutralized Britain so that he could concentrate on his plans for the East, namely the land invasion of the Soviet Union, without interference. Since June, English vessels in the Channel had been attacked and aerial battles had been fought over…

A version of this article appeared in print on August 5, 2011, on page C27 of the New York edition with the headline: Saving Scrapbooks From the Scrapheap. August 4, 2011  By EVE M. KAHN Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site Eleanor Roosevelt in 1928 with Frank Landolfa, a craftsman at Val-Kill Industries, the subject of a show in Woodstock, N.Y. Woody Guthrie saved paperwork documenting his peripatetic life, from utility bills for New York apartments to fliers protesting shanty demolitions in Seattle and lyrics for folk songs performed at a Los Angeles radio station. He and his family put some of the artifacts in scrapbooks, but that did not fend…

Today in History Jack the Ripper claims first victim. (2011). The History Channel website. Retrieved 8:43, August 31, 2011, from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jack-the-ripper-claims-first-victim. Prostitute Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim of London serial killer “Jack the Ripper,” is found murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel’s Buck’s Row. The East End of London saw four more victims of the murderer during the next few months, but no suspect was ever found. In Victorian England, London’s East End was a teeming slum occupied by nearly a million of the city’s poorest citizens. Many women were forced to resort to prostitution, and in 1888 there were estimated to be more than 1,000 prostitutes in Whitechapel. That…

August 26, 2011 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/ Looking for something hurricane-ish to watch — but perhaps something that doesn’t suggest actual threat to loved ones? How about some video from the legendary Great Hurricane of 1938, aka the Long Island Express, aka The Yankee Clipper? That storm hit Long Island in September 1938 before making its way into Manhattan and then farther up the coast into Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine and Quebec. YouTube’s archives include two interesting compilations of footage from the time. The video above, uploaded by “moviemagg,” simply presents the facts in all their incredible glory — nail-biting images of houses being pushed off their foundations by waves, fishing boats…

By WALT MOSSBERG The Wall Street Journal Thursday, August 25, 2011 As of 12:00 AM Steve Jobs’s resignation as Chief Executive Officer of Apple is the end of an extraordinary era, not just for Apple, but for the global technology industry in general. Mr. Jobs is a historic business figure whose impact was felt far beyond the company’s Cupertino, California headquarters, and who was widely emulated at other companies. And now, for the first time since 1997, he won’t be CEO. Steve Jobs is “one of the two or three leading historical figures of the tech revolution,” says WSJ personal technology columnist Walt Mossberg. To be very clear, Mr. Jobs, while seriously ill,…

By Miral Sattar Monday, Nov. 29, 2010 Then: In 1983, Motorola’s DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) 8000X was the world’s first commercially-released mobile phone, with a price tag of $3995 equivalent to $8,772.59 in today’s dollars. Motorola spent 15 years and over $100 million developing the technology. The DynaTAC 8000X allowed 30 minutes of talk time, took 10 hours to charge, weighed 1.75 lb., and stood 13 in. high Now: The DynaTAC has long been forgotten, with pocket-size touch phones like the Blackberry Torch, Droid X, and iPhone 4 dominating the market. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials

By Megan Gibson Friday, Aug. 12, 2011 Timing is everything, especially when it comes to a rally. One of the largest protests of the suffrage movement happened the day before Woodrow Wilson was to be inaugurated as President in 1913. Between 5,000 to 8,000 suffragists marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House — and hundreds of thousands of onlookers. Organizers Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had secured a permit to march, however, many protesters were assaulted by those in the crowd who opposed the women’s right-to-vote campaign. Attacks ranged from spitting and throwing of objects to all-out physical assaults. While many women were injured, public outrage at the violence translated to…

US stockmarket crashes and GDP After the crash (part 2) Aug 17th 2011, 12:54 by The Economist online What happened to America’s economic growth after big ten-day falls in the Dow? DRAMATIC one-day declines in stockmarkets don’t often presage broader economic pain (see yesterday’s Daily chart). But what about sustained drops? The gut-wrenching 5.5% fall in the Dow on August 8th might not be cause for concern, but the 14.2% swoon from July 25th to August 8th is a different story. Since 1951, a market decline of 10% or more over 10 days has preceded falling GDP 40% of the time. Three different recessions—1974, 2001 and 2009—are associated with market crashes.…

Gold discovered in the Yukon. (2011). The History Channel website. Retrieved 9:48, August 16, 2011, from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gold-discovered-in-the-yukon. While salmon fishing near the Klondike River in Canada’s Yukon Territory on this day in 1896, George Carmack reportedly spots nuggets of gold in a creek bed. His lucky discovery sparks the last great gold rush in the American West. Hoping to cash in on reported gold strikes in Alaska, Carmack had traveled there fromCalifornia in 1881. After running into a dead end, he headed north into the isolated Yukon Territory, just across the Canadian border. In 1896, another prospector, Robert Henderson, told Carmack of finding gold in a tributary of the Klondike River. Carmack headed…