The classic Greek epic poem The Illiad attributed to Homer regales the listener with tales of the siege of ancient Troy. "The World According to Sound" podcast reads the poem how it was intended — aloud and in ancient Greek.

A mysterious Stone Age building has been unearthed at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, Scotland. Researchers discovered it while excavating a Neolithic midden (rubbish dump.) It is located near one of Scotland's most famous rings of standing stones - the Ring of Brodgar.

According to The Herald Scotland , the site contains a Stone Age temple, and the discovery of the structure helped to re-date the location.

While digging at the Ring of Brodgar on Orkney, the researchers found the layout of a series of slabs which are unlike anything previously found on the island. The structure is 4 meters (13 ft.) long and it was unearthed amongst the remains of Neolithic rubbish.

Although only a small portion of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's purloined National Security Agency data files have seen the light of day, thanks mostly to the redaction deal journalist/lawyer Glenn Greenwald worked out with high-tech billionaire Pierre Omidyar, the recent trickle of documents has yielded some important information about the NSA's pre-9/11 surveillance operations.

After the media disclosures of ECHELON in the late 1990s, NSA's initial intercept-sharing operation with its UK-USA signals intelligence alliance partners—the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—was modernized. What was known as ECHELON was renamed TICKETWINDOW. According to an article in an NSA internal newsletter called SID Today, cumbersome security access restrictions imposed by TICKETWINDOW's predecessor were eliminated. Instead, NSA permitted the "sharing of sensitive-source collection with partners." The "partners" were renamed the "Five Eyes," which included the above-mentioned UK-USA alliance nations plus the United States. TICKETWINDOW also permitted "the exchange of sensitive source data that had not been shared with Partners under normal circumstances."

Forty-five years ago this week, a single memo written by Lewis Powell kicked off the corporate takeover of the US government and inspired a generation of think tanks, lobbyists, and dirty money.

The conservative corporate lawyer, who would later be appointed to the US Supreme Court by Republican President Richard Nixon, wrote a memo to the US Chamber of Commerce's Eugene Sydnor, putting forth a plan to tackle the environmental and civil rights movements which were pushing for more health and safety regulations.

Powell was addressing concerns held by conservatives surrounding the New Deal and the Great Society, which included Social Security, the Labor Relations Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and anti-discrimination laws.

In his memo, he said it was time to fight back against the "Attack of the American Free Enterprise System" from "perfectly respectable elements of society" like the "college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences and from politicians."

Britain's supposedly close ally, Israel, armed Argentina as the South American nation was bombing Royal Navy ships and killing UK troops in the vicious 1982 war to reclaim the Falkland Islands, secret files indicate. The supply of arms and military equipment may have been fueled by an old hatred of the British harbored by then Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin - himself a former Irgun terrorist who fought against British troops in Palestine.

Israeli exports included Skyhawk jets that were responsible for bombing and sinking the RFA Sir Galahad, a troop ship, leaving 48 dead and numerous horrific injuries. The sale of Israeli arms to the right-wing Galtieri regime of the day was first exposed in a 2001 book on the authoritarian junta. Further evidence has now come to light in the documents, which show that arms deals were being made throughout the war until 1984.

Israel's logic was apparently simple: even though Britain was an ally, it also armed regimes hostile to Israel. The exports were also seen as key to Israel's economy.

If you think the recent weather has been strange lately, listen to this tale of a year without a summer. In 1815 a volcanic eruption caused the following year's weather patterns to be drastically different. People across the world experienced unusual weather and increased hardships, but they did not associate the volcano with the conditions at the time. This strange phenomenon deeply affected the Eastern U.S. and the Appalachian Mountains, but hit the whole world, causing odd rain events and weather that could not be explained, and altering the course of human history.

Tambora

The eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia (then known as the Dutch East Indies) in April of 1815 was the result of a highly pressurized volcanic environment. The initial stages of eruption were reported to have sounded like an army attack with guns and cannons. As flames shot up from the top, hot pumice and volcanic rock were forced into the air. The geological event caused tons of ash and sulphur-dioxide into the air over the course of five days, enough to cover a 100 mile radius with a foot of ash! This event and the resulting cloud, some scientists proffer, is the cause of the the weather extremes and global cooling the following year. Many experts do believe that this is the only reasonable explanation for the year without a summer, though there is not total agreement on the matter. This volcano is still active today, though volcanic activity is closely monitored to ensure minimal losses if the pressure does build up again.

'Sensational' discovery in Denisova Cave is at least 50,000 years old BUT it wasn't made by Homo sapiens.
The 7 centimetre (2 3/4 inch) needle was made and used by our long extinct Denisovan ancestors, a recently-discovered hominin species or subspecies.

Scientists found the sewing implement - complete with a hole for thread - during the annual summer archeological dig at an Altai Mountains cave widely believed to hold the secrets of man's origins. It appears to be still useable after 50,000 years.

Professor Mikhail Shunkov, head of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk, said: 'It is the most unique find of this season, which can even be called sensational.
'It is a needle made of bone. As of today it is the most ancient needle in the word. It is about 50,000 years old.'

Archaeological works in Alacahöyük, one of the most important centers of the Hittite Empire and considered Turkey's first "national excavation field," have unearthed a 2,300-year-old secret tunnel known as a potern.

"This tunnel is a big discovery in terms of Hittite architecture. This is my 55th year in professional life. I never thought I would find a potern but I did," said Ankara University Professor Aykut Çınaroğlu, the head of the excavations.

Çınaroğlu said they opened the season one month ago with a team of 24 people, including eight archaeologists, and were set to continue until the end of September.

While focusing on a sanctuary that was unearthed in 2014, they discovered a secret tunnel, he said.

Stating that more than one secret tunnel existed in the capital of the Hittites, Hattuşa, Çınaroğlu said:

"This new potern proves the existence of other poterns in Alacahöyük. We are carrying out excavations right now; we have not finished yet. We started from the gate opening to the sanctuary, trying to open it. This is a potern from nearly 2,300 years ago. We have dug 23 meters so far but think that it is longer. Cleaning work is continuing, too. We will see what we will find in the end. Poterns were placed under the castle, extending into the city. We have previously found a cuneiform tablet here, featuring a king who explains to priests what to do during ceremonies. This secret tunnel might have had a sacred function."

British historian, F. W. Maitland wrote:

We study the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today, and that today may not paralyze tomorrow.

Which is a fancy way of saying, what really happened does matter.[1] In a similar vein, John Dominic Crossan said something like, if we get yesterday right, we have a chance of getting today better. So, let's look at yesterday.

Back in 1956, David Ben-Gurion, possibly struggling with his conscience, confessed:

If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural, we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We came from Israel, it's true, but that was two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? [2]

"God promised it to us"?

Not so fast. More and more scholars, Jewish and humanist, are questioning the exodus story and that "promise". Rabbi David Wolpe raised just that provocative question before his congregation of 2,200 at Sinai Temple in Westwood, California back in 2001, saying:

After a century of excavations trying to prove the ancient accounts true, archeologists say there is no conclusive evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt, were ever enslaved, ever wandered in the Sinai wilderness for 40 years or ever conquered the land of Canaan under Joshua's leadership.[3]

Teresa Watanbe continues:

The modern archeological consensus over the Exodus is just beginning to reach the public. In 1999, an Israeli archeologist, Ze'ev Herzog of Tel Aviv University set off a furor in Israel by writing in a popular magazine that stories of the patriarchs were myths and that neither the Exodus nor Joshua's conquest ever occurred.[4]

An ancient Mayan text captured the moment when a royal astronomer made a scientific discovery about the movement of Venus across the night sky.

The text, called the Dresden Codex, contains laborious measurements of the rising and setting of Venus. Based on these recordings, historians can now place this astronomer within a 25-year span within the first half of the 10th century.

"We can see the moment when this person puts it all together," said Gerardo Aldana, a science historian in the Department of Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a co-author of a new study describing the findings.