It’s been 200 years since Napoleon ravaged Europe in the name of French nationalism, so maybe it’s time to put aside the differences over all that warmongering and failed empire-building and all go to an amusement park together. France thinks so, at least. By 2014, construction is set to begin on Napoleonland, a new theme park designed to pay homage to the French leader some believe to be a hero and others think of as one of history’s most loathsome dictators. Park-goers can expect a water show recreating the Battle of Trafalgar, tributes to Napoleon’s crushing defeat of the Russo-Austrian Army at the Battle of Austerlitz, a ski run littered…

Whitney Houston remembered in song and speeches (CBS/AP) Updated 3:30 p.m. ET   CBS News The Funeral of Whitney Elizabeth Houston NEWARK, N.J. – Actor Kevin Costner joined friends and family gathered Saturday to pay their respects to Whitney Houston in her hometown of Newark, N.J. and brought smiles to the faces of mourners as he remembered his co-star in “The Bodyguard.”  Costner remembered a movie star who was uncertain of her own fame, who “still wondered, ‘am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Will they like me?’ ”  “It was the burden that made her great and the part that caused her to stumble in the end,” Costner said.…

A Monument to Exodusters July 1, 2011, 22:18BY ROBIN VAN AUKEN JUNE 27 Another Delay for Museum of African Art June 16, 2011, 19:12http://blogs.wsj.com/met Artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. March 9, 2011, 18:58Digitized Collections Document Etta James Dies at 73  January 20, 2012, 23:00January 20, 2012 http://www.n Gil Scott-Heron, Poet, Dies at 62 May 29, 2011, 13:04MAY 27, 2011 Journey and Legacy of Obama’s Mother May 5, 2011, 14:17May 2, 2011 By Catherine Lutz Martin Luther King Jr.  January 16, 2012, 20:38http://www.history.com/top May 17, 1954: Brown v. Board of Ed is decided  May 16, 2011, 18:31In a major civil right Michael Jackson Biography in full Michael Joseph Jackson ( 1958…

6-century history of French franc ending on last day to change former money to euros http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/71659–6-century-history-of-french-franc-ending-on-last-day-to-change-former-money-to-euros PARIS – Six centuries after the first one was minted and a decade after they went out of circulation, the last French francs are being exchanged for euros, severing France’s final link to its former national currency. However, the franc’s end also comes as its replacement, the euro, suffers its worst crisis since its creation. The Banque de France set a deadline of the close of business Friday for French savers to exchange whatever leftover franc notes they’ve kept socked away in drawers or under mattresses, whether held onto intentionally as souvenirs or simply…

Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008 Jesus ‘Tomb’ Controversy Reopened By Tim McGirk/Jerusalem When the Discovery Channel aired a TV documentary last year raising the possibility that archeologists had found the family tomb of Jesus Christ in the hills behind Jerusalem, it caused a huge backlash among Christians. The claim, after all, challenged one of the cornerstones of Christian faith — that Jesus, after his crucifixion, rose bodily to heaven in his physical form. The Lost Tomb of Jesus, made by Hollywood director James Cameron and Canadian investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici, was shown only once on Discovery. Britain’s Channel 4 canceled its own plans to air the documentary, which reexamines an archeological…

John S. Dykes The ‘beachcomber express’ may have carried our African ancestors to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Did Early Humans Ride the Waves to Australia? By MATT RIDLEY http://online.wsj.com/article Everybody is African in origin. Barring a smattering of genes from Neanderthals and other archaic Asian forms, all our ancestors lived in the continent of Africa until 150,000 years ago. Some time after that, say the genes, one group of Africans somehow became so good at exploiting their environment that they (we!) expanded across all of Africa and began to spill out of the continent into Asia and Europe, invading new ecological niches and driving their competitors extinct. There is…

In this Feb. 19, 2010 photo released by the British Ministry of Defense, MOD, shows Florence Green, left, on her 109th birthday being presented with a birthday cake by LAC Hannah Shaw on behalf of the RAF at her home in King’s Lynn, east England. Florence Green, the world’s last known veteran of World War I, has died at the age of 110, the care home where she lived said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Sac Chris Hill/MoD, HO) NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse…