Question: What is obsidian?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean to maintain a certain animus towards another?
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HISTORY FOR 12/3/2023
Birthdays: French King Charles VI the Well-Served 1380, Gilbert Stuart, Sven Nykvist, Joseph Conrad- real name Josef Korzeniowski, Jean Luc Godard, Nino Rota, Jim Backus, Maria Callas, Larry Parks, Charles Pillsbury, Mitsuo Fuchida the Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, Darryl Hannah is 63, Katerina Witt, Brendan Fraser is 55, Marisa Tomei, Julianne Moore is 63, Andrew Stanton, Amanda Seyfried is 38

749AD- This is the Feast of Saint John Damascene. He’s the saint who was called the Father of Christian Art, because he theologically argued a way for artists to avoid the No Graven Images hitch in the Ten Commandments, so we could make paintings and sculptures.

1557- The Scottish Covenant- In Edinburgh Scotland a group of anticlerical noblemen Argyll, Glencairn, Morton, Lorne and Erskine signed the First Scottish Covenant- pledging to reform the religion of the land.

1591- The first fire insurance contract was written in Hamburg.

1775- The first official U.S. flag hoisted aboard the USS Alfred. It was thirteen stripes with a cross of Saint George and Saint Andrew in the corner.

1800-Battle of Hohenlinden- French whip the Austrians, but it wasn’t done by Napoleon but by a different general, so Nappy asks us to overlook his competition.

1818- Illinois became a state with its first capitol at Kaskaskia.

1838- The Battle of Windsor. Another attempt by the U.S. to conquer Canada. On this day a force of 500 disaffected Canadians, Yankee opportunists and Polish revolutionists crossed over from Detroit and captured Windsor Ontario. (why do we always invade Canada in the winter? )
They were led by the uncle of writer Ambrose Bierce, Lucius Verus Bierce. They called themselves the Secret Guild of the Sacred Hunters of the East, and their intention was no less than liberating Canada from the hated British yoke!
Well, nobody else rose up with them. And while they were standing around trying to think of what to do next, the British army quickly rounded them up. Those that weren’t hanged, were shipped to New Zealand.
Lucius Bierce escaped back across the Detroit River in a canoe where he was promptly arrested for violating U.S. neutrality laws. He later devoted his time and money to abolitionist causes, and financed John Browns’ anti-slavery campaign in Kansas.
1845- Britain wages the First Sikh War.

1868- Preliminary hearings open into the treason trial of Jefferson Davis, former President of the Confederate States. Radical republicans wanted someone punished for the Civil War, but many were worried that a master lawyer like Davis would use the opportunity to prove there was indeed a Constitutional basis for states legally seceding from the union. Davis himself hoped for a trial to prove just that. But presiding judge Chief Justice Salmon B. Chase had by prior arrangement with President Andrew Johnson a plan to stall the trial until Johnson's amnesty for all former Confederates went into effect on Feb 15th.

1881- In Africa, explorer Henry M. Stanley founded the town of Kinshasa, which they called then Leopoldville after the King of the Belgians.

1890- A small British army marches into Uganda and camping on a hilltop called Kampala informed the local chief Mwanga that he was now part of the British Empire, whether he liked it or not! The British officer even made Mwanga sign the treaty twice, because he felt his first ink splotch was done insincerely. Uganda remained a British colony until 1956.

1894- In Samoa, writer Robert Louis Stevenson was opening a bottle of wine, when he paused and cried “What’s that?”, then he looked at his wife and said “Does my face look strange?” Then he collapsed and died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 44.

1919- Impressionist painter Pierre August Renoir died at age 79. Suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, when he could no longer paint with his hands, Renoir used a bit that held the brush in his teeth.

1925- GEORGE GERSHWIN PLAYED CARNEGIE HALL. Gershwin always wanted to be taken seriously as a composer, and not just a Tin Pan Alley songwriter. While in Paris he met Maurice Ravel, but instead of giving him advice, Ravel said: "You make HOW much from your songs? Maybe I should learn from you!" When he asked to be Arnold Schoenberg's pupil, Schoenburg told him :" Why do you want to be a bad Schoenburg, when you're already such a good Gershwin?"

1931- Happy Birthday Alka Seltzer! The fizzy tablet was invented by chemist Maurice Treener for the Dr. Miles Medicine Company of Indiana.

1934- Lee Blair, Disney artist and brother of Preston Blair, Disney artist, married Mary Browne Robinson, Disney artist. She became the most famous of them as Mary Blair.

1941- After clandestine diplomatic initiatives to raise the U.S. oil and steel embargoes failed, The Japanese High Command radioed it's carrier fleet out in the Pacific: "Climb Mount Niitaka". This code meant go forward with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Nagumo orders resumption of radio silence and turned his fleet South-SouthWest towards Hawaii.

1944- A Nazi newspaper published on this day features a photo of a young Austrian S.S. officer with his commander in Greece. After the war his commander was hanged as a war criminal. The young man became Secretary General of the United Nations, President of Austria, and winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, Kurt Waldheim.

1948- Happy Ozzy Day! Ozzie Ozbourne is 75. ”I never set out to be a businessman. I just wanted to have fun, f—k chicks, and do drugs.”

1948- Walt Disney’s Mickey and the Seal, debuted. Directed by Charles Nichols.

1956- British and French forces finally leave Egypt, where they had been since 1799.

1965- The Beatles release the album Rubber Soul.

1967- Dr. Christiaan Barnard of Capetown performed the first heart transplant.

1968- Elvis Presley opened in Las Vegas to rave reviews and packed houses. It marks the beginning of his comeback and his transition from thin, black leather-jacketed youth to fat, rhinestone jumpsuit, half tinted sunglasses middle age.

1976- During a photo shoot for a Pink Floyd album cover at London’s Battersea Power Station, a 40 foot long inflated pig broke away from its’ tether and floated away to become a hazard to civil aviation. The AeroPork was lost to radar at 8,000 feet.

1984- An accident at a Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India filled the air with poison methyl-isocynate gasses that killed 10,000 people and blinds or otherwise injured a further 200,000. No one from Union Carbide was ever tried or convicted for the tragedy. Saint Mother Theresa showed her controversial side when she publicly encouraged people to accept the disaster as God’s Will. Even today, the ground around the closed facility is considered too deadly for inhabitation.

1991- Hulk Hogan defeated Undertaker to become WWF champ for the 4th time.

1997 – 56 year old Darlene Gillespie, an original member of the Mickey Mouse Club, was busted in LA for a securities fraud scheme.

1997- Young basketball star Latrell Sprewell lost his $32 million contract with the Golden State Warriors for trying to strangle his coach, P.J. Carlesino. Chill out, dude.

2004-The Ukranian Supreme Court ruled the recent presidential election invalid. Moscow and hardline Kiev Gov’t supported Victor Januscowicz followers committed widespread acts of voter fraud, then suppressed any news reports.
The story was revealed to the world by a heroic sign language translator for the deaf. While the state approved news anchor reported the elections on the evening news the translator, Nataliya Dmytruk, deaf signed “EYERYTHING YOU HAVE JUST HEARD IS A LIE! YUSCHENKO IS OUR TRUE PRESIDENT! THIS IS PROBABLY THE LAST TIME YOU WILL EVER SEE ME..” The word spread, and spawned weeklong mass demonstrations and international pressure that compelled the government to redo the election. Ms. Dmytruk survived and is today considered a national hero.

2008- Conservative Episcopalian churches in the U.S. and Canada announced they were leaving the main Episcopal communion to found a new church- the New Anglican Church of North America. These theologians objected to the Church nominating gay priests and bishops.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to maintain a certain animus towards another?

Answer: Having animus toward another, means to hold a grudge, sustained resentment or ill-will toward an individual or a group.