BobRingReflections

I recently discovered that there is some mystery about the origin of Valentine’s Day.  And since the annual holiday is rapidly approaching, I thought the history of Valentine’s Day would make for good blog. On February. 14 th , lovers of all ages will exchange cards, flowers, candy, and more lavish gifts in the name of Saint Valentine, a Roman Catholic priest who lived in third century AD.  Valentine’s Day originated as a church feast to honor the decapitation of Saint Valentine as a Christian martyr.   This will be the story of how we got from celebrating a beheading to celebrating romantic love on Valentine’s Day.  I’ll caution you upfront that much of the first part of this story is based on legend and folklore.  I’ll start with a summary of the legends of Saint Valentine.   Next, I’ll discuss the original Saint Valentine’s Day, proclaimed in AD 496, that honored Saint Valentine’s death.   Then, I’ll skip (as history does) to 14 th century E...

  I’ve written about the history and science of the universe and its countless galaxies of stars, the Earth, and the Moon.   It’s time I wrote about the Sun.   After a short introduction, I’m going to review the Sun’s history and science in terms of how and when our solar system was formed; the Sun’s star classification; early human observations of the Sun; our exploration efforts to date; the Sun’s physical characteristics - including its composition, structure, how it work, and solar activity; the Sun’s location and motion within the Milky Way galaxy, and finally, the life cycle of the Sun. My principal sources for this article include “Our Sun,” solarsystem.nasa.gov; “Earth’s sun:   Facts about the sun’s age, size and history,” space.com; “Sun - astronomy,” britannica.com; “The Sun,” universetoday.com; “Life Cycles of Stars,” imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov; “Sun,” Wikipedia; and numerous other online sources. The Sun has been called by many names.   The Latin ...