Millions of documents stored at the World War II code-breaking centre, Bletchley Park, are set to be digitised and made available online.

BBC News - Bletchley Park WWII archive to go online

A French resistance heroine who saved more than 100 lives and survived a Nazi death squad has died at the age of 105.

Known as Agent Rose, Andree Peel helped dozens of British and US pilots escape from occupied Europe.
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She was being lined up to be shot by firing squad at Buchenwald when the US Army arrived to liberate the prisoners.

BBC News - WWII heroine Andree Peel dies in Long Ashton aged 105

Accountancy has a reputation for dullness but its history is the history of civilisation itself, from the evolution of government and taxation to trade and capitalism. It has also provided a paper trail through some of the darker periods of human history.

At first sight it looks like the income statement for any factory. It starts with the daily wage bill, and deals with the costs of uniform and other running expenses, all properly amortised.

But then comes an odd line: the projected income per worker is adjusted so that it covers not one year, but only nine months.

For this is no ordinary factory, but Buchenwald concentration camp. The workers, leased out by the SS, are expected to be dead from exhaustion in less than a year.

Further down in the accounts is a note: "revenue at death". This refers to the sum to be made from the body itself, from ashes, fat and hair.

BBC News - How men in grey suits changed the world

This treasure paints a new picture of our past and the Dark Ages.

What makes it outstanding is the sheer quantity - we're talking about 1,500 objects, almost entirely precious metal.

Normally you would expect a handful of objects each year of this quality for the period in question, which is the 7th Century.

A metal detectorist finding just one of these objects would consider it the find of their life. To find 1,500 is bizarre and it would blow the average person's mind.

BBC NEWS | UK | Hoard shines light on Dark Ages

Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a "whites only" victory.

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Paris liberation made 'whites only'

This year’s serial bailouts are proof of a colossal regulatory failure. But it is not “the system” that failed, as President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others who are complicit in the calamity would like Americans to believe. People failed.

For decades now, antiregulation disciples of the Reagan Revolution have eliminated vital laws, blocked the enactment of much-needed new regulations, or simply refused to exercise their legal authority.

Editorial - Don’t Blame the New Deal - Editorial - NYTimes.com

Weighing in at over a tonne and comprising 1,500 valves and miles of wiring, it is not what most people would recognise as a computer.

Despite its antiquated appearance, however, this enormous machine - once nickNAMEd The Baby - was once the cutting edge of technology. Some of the pioneering engineers behind it gathered in Manchester yesterday to celebrate the birthday of what was the world s first digital computer.

Sixty years ago today The Baby completed its first calculation, giving birth to technologies which we are still using.

Baby that gave birth to a hi-tech revolution | Technology | The Guardian

Almost 50 years ago, archaeologists searching for the ruined house of Augustus found a tiny clue buried deep in 2,000 years' worth of rubble overlooking the Forum in Rome.

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | House of Augustus opens to public

Events in South Carolina and the introduction of the race issue into America's Democratic presidential primary campaign by the Clintons have brought back some memories of my own about race in South Carolina.

One night in January 1951, I was among a busload of young Georgia recruits and draftees to arrive at Fort Jackson, the big infantry training base near the state capital, Columbia. It was a racially mixed group, uneducated, headed for the infantry because they weren't very promising material.

I was the only one with a college degree, and one of the few who had finished high school. I was with them because I had put my name down for officer candidate school, and for that the full, 16-week-long training cycle was essential.

It had been a long drive and the bus had segregated itself - this was still the Jim Crow South - with blacks in the back and whites in the front. One white guy said in a low voice, "I hear they got [racial expletive] officers in this man's Army. I ain't gonna salute no [expletive] officer!" Other whites muttered agreement.

We arrived late at Jackson and gathered outside the bus. A big, black sergeant strode up to look us over. The guy who wasn't going to salute no black officers was pulling at a cigarette. The sergeant said, "You, there! Eat that cigarette." The recruit managed to get the fire out before he ate the cigarette. It was established who was in charge.
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The army had always been a Southern institution, and in 1948 it still was, despite the Civil War. Then Truman made it into the most important instrument of black liberation and social ascension America had seen since Emancipation.

South Carolina, then and now - International Herald Tribune

An amateur cryptographer has beaten Colossus in a code-cracking challenge set up to mark the end of a project to rebuild the pioneering computer.

The competition saw Colossus return to code-cracking duties for the first time in more than 60 years.

The team using Colossus managed to decipher the message just after lunch on 16 November.

But before that effort began Bonn-based amateur Joachim Schuth revealed he had managed to read the message.

"He has written a suite of software specifically for the challenge," said Andy Clark, one of the founders of the Trust for the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park where Colossus is sited.

News of Mr Schuth's success reached Bletchley Park on Thursday night, said Mr Clark.
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Tony Sale led the 14-year Colossus re-build project and it took so long because all 10 Colossus machines were broken up after the war in a bid to keep their workings secret. When he started the re-build all Mr Sale had to work with were a few photographs of the machine.

In its heyday Colossus could break messages in a matter of hours and, said Mr Sale, proved its worth time and time again by revealing the details of Germany's battle plans.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Colossus loses code-cracking race