Friday, February 29, 2008

Now that's a lie-in

It's leap day today. Back when Great Britain and its colonies finally adopted the Gregorian calendar (it was resisted as a papal plot to steal some of people's lives) in 1752, many people lamented the "loss" of eleven days - George Washington certainly did. But Ben Franklin welcomed it: "What an indulgence is here, for those who love their pillow, to lie down in peace on the second of this month and not awake till the morning of the fourteenth."

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