Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 January 31

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The Roman temple of Bziza is a well-preserved first-century AD Roman temple in the Lebanese town of Bziza. It is dedicated to Azizos, a personification of the morning star in the Canaanite mythology. The temple's name is a corruption of Beth Azizo, meaning the house or temple of Azizos. The building has two doors that connect the portico to a square chamber. To the back of the temple lie the remains of the adyton where images of the deity once stood. The ancient temple was meant to function as the dwelling place of the deity. It was converted into a church and underwent architectural modification during two phases of Christianization: in the Early Byzantine period and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The church, colloquially known until modern times as the Lady of the Pillars, fell into disrepair. Despite the church's condition, Christian devotion was still maintained in the nineteenth century in one of the temple's niches. (Full article...)

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George W. Christians

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... that in the 1883 political cartoon "An appalling attempt to muzzle the watch-dog of science", Friedrich Graetz portrayed Herbert Spencer as a monumental dog?
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In the news

Computer render of novel coronavirus

The World Health Organization declares the outbreak of respiratory disease from a novel coronavirus (pictured) to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
Floods and landslides in southeastern Brazil, kill at least 60 people and leave thousands homeless.
At the Grammy Awards, Billie Eilish wins the major categories of Best New Artist, and Song, Record, and Album of the Year.

On this day

January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968)

Sirius A (center) and
Sirius B (bottom left)

1862 – American astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint white dwarf companion of Sirius (both stars pictured), the brightest star in the night sky.
1945 – Second World War: The British 3rd Commando Brigade defeated the Japanese 54th Division at the Battle of Hill 170, causing Japanese forces to withdraw from Burma's Arakan peninsula.
2000 – Alaska Airlines Flight 261, experiencing problems with its horizontal stabilizer system, crashed in the Pacific Ocean off Anacapa Island, California, killing all 88 people on board.
2010 – James Cameron's Avatar became the first film to earn over $2 billion worldwide.

John Francis Regis (b. 1597) · Manuel Alberti (d. 1811) · Preity Zinta (b. 1975)

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American contemporary Christian singer-songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman has released sixteen studio albums and eighty-two singles, in addition to three holiday albums, three compilation albums, and three video releases. He has sold over eleven million albums, and ten of his albums have been certified gold or platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Chapman's first album, First Hand (1987), was released on Sparrow Records; although the album did not chart, three of its singles reached the top ten on the CCM Update Christian radio charts. Real Life Conversations (1988) became his first album to appear on the Billboard Christian Albums chart, and More to This Life (1989) was his first top-ten album on the Christian Albums chart, also yielding four number-one singles on the CCM Update Adult Contemporary chart. Chapman would release five more studio albums in the 1990s, all of which reached the number-one position on the Christian Albums chart. Chapman’s next two albums, Declaration (2001) and All About Love (2003), were his highest-charting albums on the Billboard 200, peaking at numbers 14 and 12, respectively. (Full list...)

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Ophiuchus is a constellation commonly represented in the form of a man grasping a large snake, and was formerly referred to as Serpentarius. It is a large constellation straddling the celestial equator and near the centre of the Milky Way as viewed from Earth, being surrounded by Aquila, Serpens, Scorpius, Sagittarius and Hercules. To the north of the serpent's tail is the now-obsolete constellation Taurus Poniatovii, while to its south Scutum. Ophiuchus's brightest star, Alpha Ophiuchi, represented here by the right eye of the snake charmer, was traditionally known as Rasalhague, from the Arabic meaning 'head of the serpent charmer'.

This illustration is plate 12 of Urania's Mirror, a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards illustrated by Sidney Hall and first published in 1824, featuring artistic depictions of Ophiuchus, as well as Taurus Poniatovii, Scutum (here referred to as "Scutum Sobiesky") and Serpens.

Illustration credit: Sidney Hall; restored by Adam Cuerden

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