When William Shield's comic opera Rosina was first performed at Covent Garden in 1782, Scottish song enthusiasts may have recognized a snippet of melody played by oboe and bassoon, in imitation of bagpipes, toward the end of the overture. It was reminiscent of "The Miller's Wedding," a popular Scottish country dance tune that foreshadowed the melody we now call "Auld Lang Syne." Shield included several such folk references in the opera, and this one led to repeated claims—entirely erroneous—that he had composed the now-famous air. http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/online/AuldLangSyne/default.asp?id=6

Until a few years ago it was assumed that the music to this famous song about time, love and friendship was the work of Scottish poet Robbie Burns. Controversy arose a number of years ago over claims that the tune was in fact written by Swalwell (village in northeast England)-born composer and musician William Shield, and appeared in his opera Rosina. With headlines such as ‘England lays claim to Auld Lang Syne’, appearing in the Independent, some people understandably got a little hot and bothered. The opera is a retelling of the biblical story of Ruth in a rural North of England setting, Rosina was Shield's fourth opera, and was a considerable success at its premiere on the last day of December, 1782. Clearly a popular tune it its day, it seems reasonable to imagine that it was heard by Burns, adapted and put to his words. Unfortunately there appears to be a strong case for arguing that neither Shield, nor Burns were responsible. According to Nigel Gatherer : “It's long been known that Burns did not write all the words to 'Auld Lang Syne', and he was the first man to say so. The first three verses belong to a much older song, to which Burns added two more.” Robert Burns in fact sent a copy of the original song to the British Museum with the comment: "The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air." http://www.swalwell-online.co.uk/auld_lang_syne.htm

Paul Revere's Ride (excerpt) "the famous Revolutionary War poem that's really about slavery"
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend,—“If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
See the whole poem plus stories by Mark Twain, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and others in the 150th anniversary of the Civil War commemorative issue of the Feb. 9, 2012 Atlantic at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/toc/2012/02/

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, testified in a courtroom Feb. 7 for the first time in his life. The web pioneer flew down from Boston, near where he teaches at MIT, to an eastern Texas federal court to speak to a jury of two men and six women about the early days of the web. His trip is part of an effort by a group of internet companies and retailers trying to defeat two patents — patents that a patent-licensing company called Eolas and the University of California are saying entitle them to royalty payments from just about anyone running a website.
The defendants, including Google, Amazon, and Yahoo, are hoping that Berners-Lee’s testimony—combined with that of other web pioneers like Netscape co-founder Eric Bina, Viola browser inventor Pei-Yuan Wei, and Dave Raggett (who invented the HTML “embed” tag) — will convince the jury that the inventions of Eolas and its founder, Michael Doyle, aren’t worth much. The stakes couldn’t be higher — if Berners-Lee and the defendants don’t succeed, Eolas and Doyle could insist on a payout from almost every modern website.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/tim-berners-lee-patent/

A Texas school-prayer case that fueled calls by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich to curtail the power of federal judges was settled Feb. 9. Schultz v. Medina Valley Independent School District Case 5: 11-cv-00422-FB Document 136 Filed 02/09/12 from the document: What This Case Has Not Been About: The right to pray. The Real Issue: Does the United States Constitution allow a government entity elected by the majority to use its power to tax and its agents and employees to support and promote a particular religious viewpoint not held by a minority? Read the order at: http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/tx/Schultz_v_Medina_Valley.pdf
"The Agreement is entered as a final judgment, resolving any and all claims set forth in Plaintiffs' Complaint and First Amended Complaint, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 54 and 58. Motions pending with the Court are DISMISSED as MOOT. The trial set for March 5, 2012, is CANCELLED. This case is ADMINISTRATIVELY CLOSED subject to reinstatement if necessary. It is so ORDERED. SIGNED this 9th day of February, 2012." Fred Biery Chief Judge United States District Court
An unusual personal statement follows the signature on page 3.

For 32 years, a portrait of a serene Mary Todd Lincoln hung in the governor’s mansion in Springfield, Ill., signed by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, a celebrated painter who lived at the White House for six months in 1864. The story behind the picture was compelling: Mrs. Lincoln had Mr. Carpenter secretly paint her portrait as a surprise for the president, but he was assassinated before she had a chance to present it to him. Now it turns out that both the portrait and the touching tale accompanying it are false. The canvas, which was purchased by Abraham Lincoln’s descendants before being donated to the state’s historical library in the 1970s, was discovered to be a hoax when it was sent to a conservator for cleaning, said James M. Cornelius, the curator of the Lincoln library and museum in Springfield. The museum is planning to present its findings at a lecture on April 26. The Lincolns were not the only ones fooled. Ever since The New York Times announced the portrait’s discovery in 1929, on Feb. 12, Lincoln’s birthday, historians and the public have assumed it depicted Mary Todd Lincoln. It was reproduced in The Chicago Tribune and National Geographic, and versions of it still illustrate at least two biographies, including the latest paperback edition of Carl Sandburg’s 1932 “Mary Lincoln: Wife and Widow.” In reality, the painting depicts an unknown woman and was created by an anonymous 19th-century artist, said Barry Bauman, the independent conservator who uncovered the fraud. The con, however, dates to the late 1920s, when the portrait was recast as that of Mrs. Lincoln, he said. Mr. Bauman identifies the culprit behind the scam as Ludwig Pflum, who rechristened himself Lew Bloom and was given to the kind of self-invention that America became famous for during the industrial era. He worked as a jockey, circus clown, boxer and vaudevillian before settling on art collecting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/arts/design/portrait-of-mary-todd-lincoln-is-deemed-a-hoax.html