APRIL 21
On this date, the Sun enters the Sign of Taurus. It was also on this date that the Romans honored a pair of deities known as the Pales, Guardians of Cattle and Sheep. Ritual cleaning of stalls, offerings to the Gods and purification of the animals were all part of the day's activities, which culminated in a feast after the herdsmen had leapt three times over a bonfire. In time, the festival became one of the most important of the Roman Calendar, eventually being designated as the day on which Romulus had founded the City of Rome.

APRIL 22
The grief which followed the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 had no precedent in American history. Seven million people...a quarter of the country's population...paid their respects as the body of the deceased President was slowly transported home to Illinois by way of a funeral train. Some say the train repeats its mournful journey every April, making a special transit along a stretch of track in New York State. A military band is supposedly on board, playing music which is beyond the range of mortal ears.

APRIL 23
Both brave and pious in nature, the legendary Christian warrior named Saint George lived in Asia Minor during the Third Century A.D. He reputedly slew a dragon and performed other knightly deeds before dying a martyr's death on this date in the Year 303. After the Crusades, Saint George became England's Patron Saint and as late as World War I, British troops reported seeing him ride into battle.

APRIL 24
In rural areas of England, it was once a practice for those who sought a glimpse of the future to spend this night...the Eve of Saint Mark...on the porch of a local church. At some time during the evening, the spirits of all those destined to die during the coming year would supposedly glide by. Such a preview came with a price, however, since those who stood watch were obliged to remain awake, or never wake again. Moreover, they had to repeat the vigil each year thereafter for the remainder of their lives.

APRIL 25
In order to protect their life-giving crops, the Ancient Romans visited a grove outside the city each year on this day to sacrifice a dog and a sheep in honor of Robigus, the God of Mildew.

APRIL 26
In the African Republic of Sierra Leone, this day heralds the beginning of the New Year. It is devoted to a seed-sowing ceremony which is designed to appease the Goddess of Fertility.

APRIL 27
Farmers of the Bambara Tribe in Mali attribute their food-growing abilities to a mythical teacher named Tyi Wara...a being which is half-man and half-animal. On this day, his memory is honored with songs and dancing.

APRIL 28
In Imperial Rome, six days of government-sanctioned debauchery began on April 28. The Festival of Floralia (honoring Flora, the Goddess of Flowering Plants) started with a play which featured unclothed actresses, obscene gestures and provocative dancing. Ribald games followed, including the snaring of such animals as hares and goats. In later years, young men took to expressing their ardor by erecting trees or poles in front of the houses of favored women...a precursor to the maypole which would become an integral part of the May Day celebrations in Europe.

APRIL 29
According to Islamic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad experienced a vision on this date in which he flew from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night astride a mythical beast called the Buraq. From the Holy City, he then ascended to the heavenly throne of God, where he was told to recite a prayer known as the salat fifty times a day. That number was later reduced to five and today, all Muslims pray the salat five times daily. Muhammad's vision is recalled by the faithful on this date with readings of the account of the Prophet's journey.

APRIL 30
In German tradition, the hours of darkness after Sunset on April 30 and before Sunrise on May 1 are known as Walpurgis Night, named for Saint Walpurga, an abbess who died in 779 A.D. Despite the saintly provenance, Walpurgisnacht belongs to witches. Legend tells that on this, the blackest of nights, they fly in from every corner, clutching broomsticks and spewing evil, to gather atop the Brocken...the highest peak in the Harz Mountains. There, they share a night of feasting and licentious reverlry with the Devil. In times past, people sought to frighten the witches away by making as much noise as they could during the night...ringing church bells, slamming doors, cracking whips and banging pots and pans. They lit bonfires, erected crosses and brandished torches topped with such supposed witch-dispersants as rosemary and juniper. Houses were witch-proofed by the decking of doors and windows with birch boughs. It was not until dawn dispelled the darkness that people could, at last, let down their guard. These customs have now faded but Walpurgis Night retains great importance for modern day witches, followers of the Wiccan faith. This date ranks among their most sacred sabbats or festivals and is a hallowed prelude to the annual celebration of Beltane on the first day of May.

MAY 1
To those of the Wiccan faith, Beltane (May Day) stands in bright contrast the dark Walpurgis Night of April 30. In Celtic tradition, the beginning of May marked the start of Summer. Huge bonfires were lit on hilltops, sometimes near a sacred tree representing the Gods of Vegetation. Once the bonfires were blazing, the people danced around them, singing and moving in a clockwise direction. Sometimes bonfires were kindled in pairs and the merrymakers danced and drove their cattle between the two fires as a rite of purification. Beltane was suppressed by the Catholic Church but pagan practices continued to be celebrated to greet the month of May. In England and other areas of Europe, young men and maidens would "go a-Maying" on the eve of May Day, spending the night in the greenwood and returning at dawn to dress the village with boughs of greenery and garlands of flowers...a custom which came to be known as "bringing in the May." On their way home, the young women might pause to wash their faces in the morning dew, which was said to have the power to preserve or even restore one's looks. The returning Maying party might also carry home a birch or pine tree, stripped of all its branches. Placed upright on the village green and decorated with vines, flowers and ribbons, it become the Maypole...an obvious phallic symbol linked to the fertility of crops, livestock and people. Today, the old Beltane customs are mainly observed only by those of the Wiccan faith.

MAY 2
A European reminder of the origins of May Day as a fertility festival is the hobbyhorse...a man dressed in equine costume, often wearing a pointed hat and a fiendish mask. One such apparition romps through the English town of Minehead from the Eve of May Day through May 2. Until recent times, the hobbyhorse was accompanied by two club-wielding assistants whose job was to prompt donations from the crowd.

MAY 3
On this date in 1944, British agents were concerned when the secret code word "Utah" (which designated a landing beach for the coming invasion of France) appeared in the London Daily Telegraph crossword puzzle solution. Mere concern soon turned into alarm when numerous codewords appeared in subsequent puzzles including, only days prior to the invasion, the word "Overlord," which was the operation's code name. Suspecting espionage, agents swarmed into the office of the newpaper to confront the puzzle-setter. Questioning revealed that he was no spy, but he could not account for the amazing coincidences. Many speculated that he picked up unintended psychic messages or perhaps foresaw the future.

MAY 4
It was on this day the Irish once believed that fairies emerged from hiding to make trouble for humans. People limited their travel to avoid running afoul of the sprites and some wore their coats inside-out to confuse the fairies. A spot of tea and morsel of bread left upon the doorstep were believed to deter trickery, but babies were always guarded lest the wee folk should kidnap them and leave some ugly changelings in their stead.

MAY 5
It is on this date that believers predict the fabled lost Pacific Continent known as Mu will reappear. Members of the Lemurian Fellowship thought it would be in the Year 2000. Legend states that Mu once stretched from North America to Asia and was home to the utopian Mukulian Empire before being engulfed by the sea.

MAY 6
According to James Ussher, a 17th Century Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, it was on this date in 2349 B.C. that Noah's Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Ussher's precise date was determined by consulting a "sacred and exotic history, astronomical calculation" and an old "Hebrew calendar." Furthermore, Ussher stated, the day was a Wednesday.

MAY 7
On the third Monday and Tuesday after Easter, English villagers traditionally used ropes to "hock" (or catch) a member of the opposite sex. The captive gained release by donating to the local church.

MAY 8
In the Spring of 1902, John William Dunne, a British soldier who was destined to become an aviation pioneer, dreamed about an island doomed by a volcanic eruption. In the dream, Dunne said he tried in vain to persuade "incredulous French authorities" to evacuate the island. Not long after, he read in a newspaper that on May 8, Mount Pelee on the French West Indian island of Martinique had erupted with horrific violence, killing some 30,000 people. More predictive dreams in later years prompted Dunne to develop a new theory of time to account for his premonitions.

MAY 9
Ancient Romans believed that on May 9, May 11 and May 13, the gate between this world and the next opened, allowing restless spirits or lemures to pour through. Pacifying the ghosts required the male head of every household to rise at midnight on each of the three nights, wash his hands three times and then stride through the house spitting or tossing black beans behind him for the ghosts to gather. This sequence was repeated nine times. Finally, he would was his hands once more, strike a brass vessel and call out nine times: "Shades of my fathers, depart!" Despite these measures, the lemures cast a pall over the month, giving rise to the belief that May marriages are unwise.

MAY 10
On this date, Madurai in India celebrates the marriage of the God Shiva to the Goddess Meenakshi.

MAY 11
In some parts of England, no Spring Festival is considered complete without an appearance by the local band of Morris dancers. Although the origin of their name is obscure (some believe it was once another term for "pagan"), a medieval inheritance is quite clear. Dressed in white and wearing brightly-colored sashes, their straw hats strung with ribbons and adorned with flowers, the dancers step and stomp to the measure of fiddles and accordians. Morris dancers make their first appearance of the year on May Day, performing again on the Whit Holiday Weekend (Whitsunday being the seventh Sunday after Easter) and reappearing occasionally throughout the Summer. By tradition, the dancers are always male, generally organized into troupes consisting of six steppers, a musician and a fool, who may poke at women with a horse effigy affixed to the front of his waist. The fool also used a bladder strung to a stick to keep the crowds at bay.

MAY 12
In order to prove that cats were not magical, a Tenth Century Flemish count tossed some of the felines from a high tower. His deed is recalled annually on this date in Ypres by the Cat Parade where (not surprisingly) people march through the streets dressed in cat costumes.

MAY 13
On this date in 1917, at Fatima in Portugal, the Virgin Mary allegedly made the first of six appearances to three peasant children. This event would rivet the attention of the entire world.

MAY 14
In the far north of Norway on this date, the rising sun begins a "day" which will last for ten weeks. Changes in both social and psychological activity occasioned by the midnight sun (people easily getting by with little sleep, working and playing around the clock, for example) demonstrate how strongly human behavior is linked to the Earth's natural rhythms, even in the most sophisticated of civilizations. With the arrival of November, when sunset plunges the region into two months of darkness, life slows and the inhabitants spending much more time sleeping.

MAY 15
During the course of the year, Rome's vestal virgins (the six priestesses of the Goddess Vesta) not only tended a sacred fire in their temple, but also played a role in numerous religious festivals. One such celebration was the annual Argei rites held of May 15. The Argei (more properly known as the argeorum sacracia) consisted of twenty-seven shrines scattered around the city which was believed to have been consecrated by the early Roman King, Numa. The shrines numbered twenty-seven because it was three times nine and, therefore, a magic number. On this day, the shrines became way-stations for a solemn procession led by the vestal virgins, the Pontifex Maximum (chief priest) and a handful of magistrates. At each of the Argei, the parade would pause to collect a straw puppet made to resemble an old man. Once all twenty-seven puppets had been collected, they were carried to the Pons Sublicius, Rome's oldest bridge, and thrown into the Tiber River by the virgins. Precisely why the Romans created such an elaborate ceremony around the tossing of straw dolls into a river remains uncertain, although it was probably some type of purification ritual...possibly in preparation to a larger agricultural festival. One theory states that the ceremony may have been intended to appease a River God. Another is that the ritual may have recalled an earlier time when old men were thrown into the River as human sacrifices to the God Saturn.

MAY 16
This day in 1918 marked the death of famed Italian medium, Eusapia Palladino. Her alleged ability to levitate objects earned her the nickname of "Queen of the Cabinet," so named because of the curtain-enclosed space in which mediums supposedly concentrate their psychic energy. Though Palladino was caught faking her amazing feats on a number of occasions, she performed many acts that left even the most ardent skeptics thoroughly perplexed.

MAY 17
On this day in the town of Obando in the Philippine Islands, childless couples seek to improve their luck in starting a family by dancing at a special fertility festival. The objective of the dance is to win the intercession of the Catholic saints.

MAY 18
Among the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria, twin children (known as ibeji) are believed to possess powers beyond normal human measure. Therefore, at this time of the year, mothers of twins hold special suppers with the children as guests of honor. If one of the twins should die, an effigy called an ere ibeji is created to represent the deceased child at the supper...and to keep the spirit of the living twin from yearning to follow its soulmate into death.

MAY 19
A sense of doom swept over New England around noon on May 19, 1780, as much of the region was plunged into darkness. Chickens settled down to roost, frogs began their nighttime croaking and many people believed that the Day of Judgment was upon them. There was no eclipse to account for the darkness and no explanation has ever been proven for the phenomena, although it is possible that the cause may have been a high-altitude pall of wind-borne soot from huge forest fires which were burning in the West.

MAY 20
After taking off from New York on May 20, 1927, American aviator, Charles Lindburgh, flew his single-engine plane named the "Spirit of St. Louis" for more than thirty-three hours to reach Paris. This was the first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic. Later, Lindburgh told of a strange moment during the trip...an out-of-body experience during which he felt his spirit leave his body and hover above it, connected only by "a strand so tenuous that it could have been severed by a breath."

MAY 21
Purported sea monsters include Chesapeake Bay's "Chessie," which was allegedly videotaped by a Maryland couple on this date in 1982. Scientists who viewed the image found it too blurry to identify, but did agree that it seemed to be some large animal.

MAY 22
On this day in 415 B.C., during a war between Athens and Sparta, Athenians awoke to find the city's many busts of the God Hermes mutilated. This affront to the divine power caused panic and a fear of dire consequences that proved to be warranted. While the identify of the true vandals is still a mystery, Athens' most able general, Alcibades, was condemned to death after rivals accused him of the sacrilege. He fled to Sparta, where his advice ultimately helped defeat the Athenians. Also on this date, the Sun begins to take its leave from the Sign of Taurus and continues its journey by entering the Sign of Gemini.