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Jesus’s Tomb
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…
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History of Valentine’s Day
The Seedy, Scandalous History of Valentine’s Day http://news.discovery.com/history/history-valentines-day-121302.html By Rossella Lorenzi | Mon Feb 13, 2012 04:26 PM ET Forget roses, chocolates and candlelight dinners. On Valentine’s Day, that’s rather boring stuff — at least according to ancient Roman standards. Imagine half-naked men running through the streets, whipping young women with bloodied thongs made from freshly cut goat skins. Although it might sound like some sort of perverted sado-masochistic ritual, this is what the Romans did until 496 A.D. Indeed, mid-February was Lupercalia (Wolf Festival) time. Celebrated on Feb. 15 at the foot of the Palatine Hill beside the cave where, according to tradition, the she-wolf had suckled Romulus and…
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Galileo Roman Inquisition
Feb 13, 1633: Galileo in Rome for Inquisition On this day in 1633, Italian philosopher, astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome to face charges of heresy for advocating Copernican theory, which holds that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Galileo officially faced the Roman Inquisition in April of that same year and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. Put under house arrest indefinitely by Pope Urban VIII, Galileo spent the rest of his days at his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, before dying on January 8, 1642. Galileo, the son of a musician, was born February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy. He entered the University…
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Early Humans in Australia
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…
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Last Known World War I Veteran Dies
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…