A commemorative coin of the Bank of Russia dedicated to the first Russian Antarctic expedition
Fabian Gottlieb Thaddeus von Bellingshausen was a Baltic German naval officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, cartographer and explorer, who ultimately rose to the rank of admiral. He participated in the First Russian circumnavigation of the globe and subsequently became a leader of another circumnavigation expedition that discovered the continent of Antarctica. – Wikipedia
Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev was a Russian fleet commander and an explorer; as a commander of the ship Mirny and von Bellingshausen’s deputy on his 1819–1821 world cruise in Lazarev took part in the discovery of Antarctica and numerous islands. On 28 January 1820 the expedition discovered the Antarctic mainland, approaching the Antarctic coast at the coordinates 69°21′28″S 2°14′50″W and seeing ice-fields there. – Wikipedia
Articles about St. Thomas Aquinas on the VOF Faith and Science Archive website.
Antarctica. Credit: Wikipedia
Edward Bransfield, (born c. 1785—died 1852), English naval officer believed to have been the first to sight the Antarctic mainland and to chart a portion of it.
Master aboard HMS Andromache at Valparaíso, Chile, he was appointed to sail the two-masted brig Williams in order to chart the recently sighted South Shetland Islands, which lie near the Antarctic Peninsula. Under Bransfield’s command, the Williams arrived at the South Shetlands in January 1820, landed on King George Island to take formal possession, and coasted past Deception Island. Turning southward into what is now called the Bransfield Strait, he sighted and charted “high mountains, covered with snow,” now Mounts Bransfield and Jacquinot on the Antarctic mainland (January 30, 1820). The charts survive in the hydrographic department of the British Admiralty at Taunton, Somerset, England. – Encyclopedia Britannica
Alfréd Rényi (20 March 1921 – 1 February 1970) was a Hungarian 
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM FRS (/ˈrʌsəl/; 18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, essayist, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialistand a pacifist, although he also confessed that his sceptical nature had led him to feel that he had “never been any of these things, in any profound sense.” Russell was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom.
In the early 20th century, Russell led the British “revolt against idealism“. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century’s premier logicians. With A. N. Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, an attempt to create a logical basis for mathematics, the quintessential work of classical logic. His philosophical essay “On Denoting” has been considered a “paradigm of philosophy”. His work has had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science (see type theory and type system) and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. – Wikipedia
A tapestry from Strasbourg depicting the Purification of the Virgin Mary and the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.
Candlemas (also spelled Candlemass), also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ and the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Christian Holy Day commemorating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. It is based upon the account of the presentation of Jesus in Luke 2:22–40. In accordance with Leviticus 12: a woman was to be purified by presenting lamb as a burnt offering, and either a young pigeon or dove as sin offering, 33 days after a boy’s circumcision. It falls on February 2, which is traditionally the 40th day of the Christmas–Epiphany season. – Wikipedia
A parade surrounded by portraits and vignettes of Black life, illustrating rights granted by the 15th amendment. Kelly, Thomas, active 1871-1874.
The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Although ratified on February 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century.
15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American History
Vettius Valens (February 8, 120 – c. 175) was a 2nd-century Hellenistic astrologer, a somewhat younger contemporary of Claudius Ptolemy.
Valens’ major work is the Anthology (Latin: Anthologia), ten volumes in Greek written roughly within the period 150 to 175. The Anthology is the longest and most detailed treatise on astrology which has survived from that period. A working professional astrologer, Valens includes over a hundred sample charts from his case files in the Anthology.
Full Moon. Rises at sunset, high in the sky around midnight. Visible all night.