POLES ON THE WORLD
Date of Issue : 29 August 2011
Here are some new stamps to be released this month by Polish Post commemorating famous personalities of Poland. Earlier on 30th June a colorful stamp with tag was issued on POLISH PRESIDENCY OF THE EU COUNCIL.
Professor Rudolf Stefan Weigl (September 2, 1883 – August 11, 1957, Zakopane) was a famous Polish biologist and inventor of the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus. Weigl founded the Weigl Institute in Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), where he did his vaccine-producing research.The Weigl Institute features prominently in Andrzej Żuławski's 1971 film The Third Part of the Night. In 2003, professor Weigl was posthumously awarded the medal of Righteous Among the Nations of the World by the state of Israel.
Jan Szczepanik (born June 13, 1872 in Rudniki (near Mostyska), Austria-Hungary (Occupied Polish territory by Austria in 1772-1918) - April 18, died 1926 in Tarnów, Poland) was a Polish inventor.Szczepanik held several hundred patents and made over 50 discoveries, many of which are still used today, especially in the motion picture industry, photography, and television.
Michał Sędziwój (Michael Sendivogius, Sędzimir) (1566–1636) was a Polish alchemist, philosopher, and medical doctor. A pioneer of chemistry, he developed ways of purification and creation of various acids, metals and other chemical compounds. He discovered that air is not a single substance and contains a life-giving substance-later called oxygen-170 years before Scheele and Priestley. He correctly identified this 'food of life' with the gas (also oxygen) given off by heating nitre (saltpetre). This substance, the 'central nitre', had a central position in Sędziwój's schema of the universe.
THE YEAR OF SAINT MAKSYMILIAN MARIA KOLBE
Date of Issue : 12 August 2011
Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe (8 January 1894 – 14 August 1941) was a Pole of German ethnic heritage and a Conventual Franciscan friar, who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II.
He was canonized on 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, and declared a martyr of charity. He is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners, and the pro-life movement. Pope John Paul II declared him "The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century".In Italian he is known as "San Massimiliano Maria Kolbe"; his given name in Polish is "Maksymilian", in French, "Maximilien".
Due to his efforts to promote Consecration and entrustment to Mary, he is known as the Apostle of Consecration to Mary.
POLISH PRESIDENCY OF THE EU COUNCIL
Date of Issue : 30 June 2011
The Presidency of the Council of the European Union is the responsibility for the functioning of the Council of the European Union that rotates between the member states of the European Union (EU) every six months. The presidency is not a single president but rather the task is undertaken by a national government. It is also not the "Presidency of the EU" (although it is sometimes called that), as there is no such thing: each EU institution has its own President. Three successive Council presidencies, known as presidency trios, cooperate for an 18-month period to provide additional continuity by sharing common political programmes. The current (2011–2012) trio consists of Poland (which took up the position 1 July 2011), Denmark (which will take over in January 2012) and Cyprus (will take over in July 2012).
