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Ernest Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) led three British expeditions to the Antarctic during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. He and three companions established a new record Farthest South latitude, 112 miles (180 km) from the South Pole, as part of the Nimrod Expedition of 1907–1909, and Shackleton was knighted on his return home. He planned the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 but his ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and then sank on 21 November 1915. The crew escaped and used the lifeboats to reach Elephant Island and ultimately the island of South Georgia in a stormy ocean voyage of more than 700 nautical miles (800 mi; 1,300 km), Shackleton's most famous exploit. He returned to the Antarctic in 1921 with the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition, but died of a heart attack on South Georgia; at his wife's request, he was buried there. In the latter part of the 20th century, Shackleton became a role model for leadership in extreme circumstances. (Full article...)

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In the news

Simon Adingra

In association football, the Africa Cup of Nations concludes with Ivory Coast defeating Nigeria in the final (player of the match Simon Adingra pictured).
Alexander Stubb is elected President of Finland.
In American football, the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers to win the Super Bowl.
Marathon world record holder Kelvin Kiptum dies in a car crash at the age of 24.
Irakli Kobakhidze succeeds Irakli Garibashvili as Prime Minister of Georgia.

On this day

February 15: National Flag of Canada Day (1965); Statehood Day in Serbia (1804)

Don Dunstan in 1968

438 – The Codex Theodosianus, a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire, was published.
1763 – Prussia, Saxony and the Habsburg monarchy signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg, ending the Third Silesian War.
1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux began excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves in the West Bank, the location of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
1979 – Don Dunstan (pictured) resigned as Premier of South Australia, ending a decade of sweeping social liberalisation.
1999 – Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the militant organization the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was arrested by Turkish security forces in Nairobi, Kenya.

Gisela of Swabia (d. 1043)
Matt Groening (b. 1954)
Mo Tae-bum (b. 1989)
Dawa Dem (d. 2018)

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Today's featured picture

Leland D. Melvin (born February 15, 1964) is an American engineer and retired NASA astronaut. He served on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis as a mission specialist on STS-122, and as mission specialist 1 on STS-129, logging more than 565 cumulative hours in space. He was named NASA's associate administrator for education in 2010 and retired from the agency in 2014. This official NASA portrait of Melvin wearing an orange Advanced Crew Escape Suit was taken in 2009.

Photograph credit: Robert Markowitz

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