May 31– Walt Whitman
Singer of the Body Electric. America’s finest poet.

MAY 31, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Ancient Rome: Ambarvalia, no work; plows and tools wreathed in flowers. Silent processions, incense, chanting of priests, animal sacrifices to Ceres, Bacchus and others. Urns of the dead decked in flowers, followed by wine and noisy feasting.

ALSO ON MAY 31 IN HISTORY…
1790 — First U.S. copyright law introduced.
1819 — American poet Walt Whitman born, Huntington, Long Island, New York.
1910 — Car carrying Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman struck by train, Spokane.
2005 — W. Mark Felt admits that he is Watergate source “Deep Throat.”

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective