What's in your pocket today?

New York City is hosting the 12th annual Poem in Your Pocket day today to celebrate National Poetry Month.

Sex Goddess



Maggie Estep
(1964 - 2014)
 This is the poem I'm carrying in my pocket today.

Make sure to carry a poem (yours or someone else's) in your pocket to share with your friends, family, classmates, and colleagues.


Somehow it's also Pig in a Blanket Day encourages the consumption of ‘pigs in blankets’ – small pork sausages wrapped in bacon or pastry, and cooked until crispy (for those of you porcine adverse, choose your own ground meat filling.)



Please celebrate sensibly.


April 24, 1974 -
David Bowie released his iconic single, Diamond Dogs, on this date.



The crowd noise at the beginning of the album was sampled from studio tapes of Rod Stewart's early '70s band, The Faces. The tapes were of their live album, Coast To Coast/Overture And Beginners and if you listen close enough, you may pick up Stewart shout "Oy-oy!" as the riff starts.


Today in History:
April 24, 1184 BC (this is an approximated date.)
... burnt the topless towers of Ilium...



It is traditionally held that city of Troy fell on this date after a ten year siege by the armies of Greece.


April 24, 1800 -
The Library of Congress, the oldest cultural institution in the nation's capital, was established by an act of Congress on this date.



Initially it was housed in the new Capitol in Washington, D.C., but British troops burned the Capitol building and stole the library materials. Retired president Thomas Jefferson then offered his personal library to the Congress.


April 24, 1913 -
The Cathedral of Commerce built one nickel at a time, the Woolworth building opened on this date.



The Five and Dimes are long gone but the skyscraper remains.


April 24, 1916 -
... All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. - W. B. Yeats



Some 1,600 Irish nationalist, the Irish Volunteers, launched the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin, including the General Post Office. Eemon de Valera was one of the commandants in the uprising. It was provoked by impatience with the lack of home rule and was put down by British forces several days later. Michael Collins, a member of Sinn Fein, led the guerrilla warfare.


April 24, 1953 -
Winston Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World War II, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II on this date.



Later, this same year he also won the Nobel peace prize for literature.


April 24, 1986 -
'Her Royal Highness' The Duchess of Windsor, Bessie Warfield Spencer Simpson Windsor former maitresse en titre (official mistress), plain-faced, twice-divorced American, possible transvestite and Nazi sympathizer died on this date.



And the House of Windsor breathes a sigh of relief -

until Princess Diana.



And so it goes