December 4

Boy this month is already beginning to fly. I swear just yesterday it was the first.

Here is a little info about today-

On this date in ancient Rome, the goddess Minerva was honored with an annual festival. Minerva (the Roman counterpart of the Greek Athena) is a goddess of battle and also a patroness of the arts and wisdom.
In West Africa, this day is sacred to the Yoruban god Chango. He is a god of lightning bolts, and the son of the deities Yemaya and Orungan.

Today in the year 1110 during the First Crusade, crusader defeated Sidon. *Wow that was along time ago.* Sidon was a great Mediterranean commercial empire. Homer praised the skill of its craftsmen in producing glass and purple dyes. Glass manufacturing, Sidon's most important enterprise in the Phoenician era, was conducted on a vast scale, and the production of purple dye was almost as important. The small shell of the Murex trunculus was broken in order to extract the pigment that was so rare it became the mark of royalty.

In 1259 King Louis IX of France and King Henry III of England agreed to the treaty of Paris which King Henry renounced his claim to French controlled land in exchange for King Louis no longer supporting English rebels. *Ahh politics. Ain't life grand? Nice to see how things never change.*

Now I know that so much more happened on this date through history. However, I didn't want anyone to too much history in one sitting. lol.

So here is a break from the learning. You deserve it. This is Nir. Isn't he intensely delicious?