Mar 17, 461:   On this day in 461 A.D., Saint Patrick, Christian missionary, bishop and apostle of Ireland, dies at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland. Much of what is known about Patrick’s legendary life comes from the Confessio, a book he wrote during his last years. Born in Great Britain, probably in Scotland, to a well-to-do Christian family of Roman citizenship, Patrick was captured and enslaved at age 16 by Irish marauders. For the next six years, he worked as a herder in Ireland, turning to a deepening religious faith for comfort. Following the counsel of a voice he heard in a dream one night, he escaped and found passage on…

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…

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…

God’s Gulag A remote archipelago is one of Russia’s holiest places—and its most haunted. By Jeffrey Tayler   Image credit: Sergey Maximishin/Panos Pictures From the upper reaches of the whitewashed belfry—between the gunmetal onion domes of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral—a giant bell announced the evening liturgy. Scarved women in loose woolen skirts and shaggy-bearded monks in black frocks hurried across the cobbled courtyard of Solovetsky Monastery, passing me, their eyes averted. I turned to face the sun above the massive stone walls, seeking a warmth that’s fleeting here in Russia’s farthest-flung holy citadel, located on the largest of the Solovetsky Islands amid the gale-lashed White Sea, just outside the Arctic Circle.…

Written by Chip Wood Saturday, 24 December 2011 http://www.thenewamerican.com/opinion/chip-wood/10330-the-man-who-invented-christmas During this season of massive over-commercialization, you may find it hard to believe there was a time when Christmas was no big deal. There were no stores full of toys, no songs playing 24 hours a day, and no Christmas trees with so many presents under them that they fill most of the room. In fact, there were no Christmas trees at all. For most of the 2,000 years since the birth of Christ, Christmas was not a special holiday. If it was commemorated at all, it was with a candlelight service at the local church or cathedral and a special…