Poem Therapy 2:02 February 29, 2012: Leap Year Poem - Mother Goose

Leap Year Poem
Mother Goose

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
And that has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

I missed being born on Leap Year by one hour and fifteen minutes. Happy unbirthday to me!

Interesting Leap Year News (culled from This Day In History, Info Please):

46 BCE - The first Caesar, Julius Caesar, Dicator for Life, felt the need to even dictate time, and thus, the first Leap Day is proclaimed.

1504 - Christopher Columbus, stranded in Jamaica during his fourth voyage to the West, used a correctly predicted lunar eclipse to frighten hostile natives into providing food for his crew. And we know how the rest of that story went for the indigenous people of the New World.

1692 - Three women, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, were the first to be accused of witchcraft in Salem, Mass. Some blame the devil. Some rotten rye or coveting thy neighbors property. Others uptight Puritans theocracy. Nineteen alleged witches were executed to keep Salem witch free.

1784 - The Marquis de Sade is transferred from Vincennes fortress to the Bastille. The original kinkmeister immediately got to work on Justine.

1860 - Herman Hollerith, the inventor of a tabulation mechanism that was a forerunner to the computer, is born. Thank you from the entire world!

1940 - Gone with the Wind is honored with eight Oscars by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.I read Gone With the Wind in the 7th grade. Saying it rocked my world is putting it mildly.

1944 - Dorothy Vredenburgh accepts an appointment by the Democratic National Committee becoming the first woman secretary of a national political party in the U.S. Girl power gets a boost!

1960 - Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club in Chicago. Much teeth gnashing and ogling ensued

1968 The discovery of the first pulsar, a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Cambridge, England. Girls discover a new role model.

1972 - John Lennon's U.S. immigration visa expired. It was the beginning of a 3 1/2 year fight for Lennon to stay in the U.S. Lennon won.


1983 -The final episode of M*A*S*H aired. It was the most watched television program in history. I watched it with my college roommates. All I can remember of it is the scene with the "chicken" on the bus, or Hawkeye's meltdown remembering the "chicken" on the bus.

2004 - Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won 11 Academy Awards, including best picture and best director for Peter Jackson, to tie the record held by 1959's Ben-Hur and 1997's Titanic. Hobbits the world over, rejoiced.