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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, BeThere2Day, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.
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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.
This month, the prompts are being provided by Lissa.
This week's prompts are:
leap
original
unusual
29
time
Charlotte/Mother Owl has chosen Graphite Black as the color of the month.
"Got any plans for LEAP day this year?"
"Nothing UNUSUAL. I mean, I've got work that day and I'm not planning to propose to anyone or anything like that."
"Propose as in a marriage proposal?"
"Yes. I mean, no, I'm not planning on doing that."
"Why would you? What does that have to do with leap day?"
"There's lots of stories about it, on February 29, a woman may propose to a man and if the man refuses, he has to give her some kind of recompense. The ORIGINAL reasons are attributed to Queen Margaret or even St. Bridget of Ireland, but it's all just legends."
"Speaking of legends, the boss is wearing his Black outfit of doom today, we'd best keep an eye on the TIME and not be late getting back from lunch."
"Thanks for the warning."
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Today is:
Anniversary of His Majesty the King -- Bhutan
Anthesteria -- Ancient Greek Calendar (three day Festival of Flowers, feast of the dead, and drinking festival; date approximate)
Card Reading Day -- because greeting cards can be fun to just stop and read, can't they?
Day in Honor of Dr. W. H. Lini, Father of Independence -- Vanuatu
Feast of the Feralia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (final day of the Parentalia, with picnics in the graveyard that included libations to the departed)
International Mother Language Day -- UNESCO
National Sticky Bun Day
Remember the Funniest Thing Your Kid Ever Did Day -- in honor of Erma Bombeck's birth anniversary
Sandino Day -- Nicaragua (assassination anniversary of Augusto César Sandino)
Shaheed Dibosh -- Bangladesh (International Mother Language Day/Language Martyr's Day, for those who died in the Bengali Language Movement in 1952)
St. Peter Damian's Day (Doctor of the Church)
Anniversaries Today:
Dudley Moore marries Brogan Lane, 1988
Liz Taylor marries Michael Wilding, 1952
The Washington Monument is dedicated, 1885
Birthdays Today:
Corbin Bleu, 1989
Ashley Greene, 1987
Ellen Page, 1987
Charlotte Church, 1986
Jennifer Love Hewitt, 1979
William Baldwin, 1963
Christopher Atkins, 1961
Alan Trammell, 1958
Jack Coleman, 1958
Mary Chapin Carpenter, 1958
Kelsey Grammer, 1955
Christine Ebersole, 1953
William Petersen, 1953
Olympia J. Snowe, 1947
Tyne Daly, 1946
Alan Rickman, 1946
David Geffen, 1943
John Lewis, 1940
Gary Lockwood, 1937
Barbara Jordan, 1936
Rue McClanahan, 1935
Nina Simone, 1933
Roberto Gomez Bolanos, 1929
Erma Bombeck, 1927
Hubert de Givenchy, 1927
Sam Peckinpah, 1925
Ann Sheridan, 1915
W.H. Auden, 1907
Anais Nin, 1903
Andres Segovia, 1893
Alice Freeman Palmer, 1855
Charles Scribner, 1821
John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1801
Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, 1794
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Die Physiker"(Play), 1962
"A Woman to Remember"(TV; first soap opera), 1949
"War as it Happens"(TV), 1944
"Green Pastures"(Play), 1930
"The New Yorker"(Magazine), 1925
"The Communist Manifesto"(Publication date), 1848
"Cherokee Phoenix"(Newspaper, first US Native American paper), 1828
Today in History:
England begins the trial against Joan of Arc, 1431
John Wilkes is thrown out of the English House of Commons for his pornographic poem "An Essay on Woman," a satire of Pope's "An Essay on Man," 1764
Freedom of worship is established in France under its Constitution, 1795
The first locomotive, Richard Trevithick's, runs for the first time, in Wales, 1804
The first Native American Indian newspaper, the "Cherokee Phoenix", begins publication, 1828
The first known sewing machine in the US is patented by John Greenough of Washington, D.C., 1842
Sarah G Bagley of Lowell, Massachusetts becomes the first US woman telegrapher, 1846
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish the Communist Manifesto, 1848
The US Congress outlaws foreign currency as legal tender in the US, 1857
Edwin T. Holmes installs the first electric burglar alarm, in Boston, Massachusetts, 1858
The first Roman Catholic parish church for blacks in the US is dedicated, in Baltimore, Maryland, 1864
Lucy B. Hobbs becomes the first US woman to earn a DDS degree, 1866
Benjamin Disraeli replaces William Gladstone as English premier, 1874
The first telephone book is issued, to 50 subscribers in New Harbor, Connecticut, 1878
Oregon becomes the first US state to declare Labor Day a holiday, 1887
The North Carolina legislature adjourns for the day to mark the death of Frederick Douglass, 1895
Dr. Harvey Cushing, the first US neurosurgeon, performs his first operation, 1902
Gustav Mahler conducts his last concerto, 1911
The Battle of Verdun (WWI) begins, will last until Dec. 18; over a quarter of a million casualties, half a million injuries, 1916
The last Carolina parakeet, Incas, dies in the Cincinati Zoo, in the same cage that had held Martha, the last passenger pigeon, 4 years earlier, 1918
The Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country's first constitution, 1921
Great Britain grants Egypt independence, 1922
The first issue of "New Yorker" magazine is published, 1925
The first instant developing camera is demonstrated in NYC, by E H Land, 1947
The British government, under Winston Churchill, abolishes identity cards in the UK to "set the people free", 1952
Watson and Crick discover the structure of the DNA molecule; according to legend, they walk into the Eagle Pub in Cambridge and Crick announces, "We have found the secret of Life," 1953
The Peace symbol is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 1958
Malcolm X is assassinated, 1965
The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna, 1971
The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon, 1972
Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison, 1975
Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon, 1995
Euro zone finance ministers agree on a second bailout for Greece, 2012
Scientists discover that bumblebees have the ability to sense electric fields around flowers, enabling them to identify specific flowers for pollination, 2013
Turkey sends troops to Syria to rescue 40 guards and relocate remains from the tomb of Sulayman Shah, which is now surrounded by ISIS militants; the site is internationally recognized as Turkish territory, 2015
The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 touches down on asteroid Ryugu on a mission to collect rock samples, 2019
Israel launches the Beresheet Lunar Lander with a Lunar Library, a 30 million page digital library, with the aim of storing a back-up of much of humanity's learning (a "civilization backup") on the Moon, 2019
Englishwoman Jasmine Harrison, age 21, becomes the youngest woman to row across an ocean arriving in Antigua as part of the Atlantic Challenge after 70 days, 3 hours, 48 minutes, 2021
Australia's border reopens to vaccinated tourists after almost two years, 2022
I have a couple of girl friends who proposed in leap year and were accepted. I am sure that not all are though.
ReplyDeleteIt's such a long time since I saw a fence.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I saw that it was the anniversary for Joan of arcs trial to begin. What a story and a lesson to be learned there.
ReplyDeleteWe could use that sign for emails. No special plans here for leap day, just enjoying an extra day in the month I guess.
ReplyDeleteI remember having a student in my class one year who was born on Leap Day. He took great pride in telling people he was three!
ReplyDeleteI remember my school days when leap year happened we'd say it's the girls year to ask the guy but I always thought it was like to be my boyfriend not marriage. lol
ReplyDeleteI could have had that desk plate when I was working. I was very overworked.
ReplyDeleteLove your take on the prompt. Well done.
Thank you for joining the Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop.
Have a fabulous Wordless Wednesday. Hugs. ♥
Chaplin: "We cats are usually right on top of things, too! The higher up, the better!"
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many offers of marriage I'll receive this year!
ReplyDeleteGreat sign and story with those prompts.
ReplyDeleteLOL hope you are :-)
ReplyDeleteHave a wwtastic week 👍
I'm so not right on top of that. I had a co-worker who was born on leap day. He would say I'm 19,this was in 1989.
ReplyDeleteI have heard about the tradition about women proposing to men on leap year day - it seems like a good idea. Good use of the wfw prompts.
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely day.
That's a cool story and a cool sign too!
ReplyDeleteGreat writings from the prompts ~ hugs,
ReplyDeleteWishing you good health, laughter and love in your days,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)
Love your story, and I could use that sign at work, for sure!
ReplyDeleteI'd forgotten leap year was women's proposal day. Good story.
ReplyDelete"his Black outfit of doom" - now that sure sounds bad, I hope they stay on the rigth side of him. Thanks for the story, and for using my colour.
ReplyDelete