A Florida woman has been charged with child neglect and abuse because the children she was watching were mooning passing cars.

That is stone bullshit.

Mooning has a long and venerable history—the woman in question valiantly “admitted telling the children that she once mooned passing cars as a youth”—and, in her defense, I would like to present a few highlights from the long and illustrious history of the moon:

The first recorded instance usage of “moon” as “exposing the buttocks” comes in 1968, defined in Current Slang (Univ. S. Dakota) thusly: “Moon, to display one’s bare buttocks as a taunt.” I particularly like this usage, from a 1971 issue of National Lampoon: “Have a few `brews’, gross out some chicks, `moon’ a townie.”

During the Battle of Crécy in 1346, hundreds of Normandy soldiers mooned the English archers and allegedly got arrows in the ass for their trouble.

According to a legend from Nice, during a 1534 siege of the city by French and Turkish forces, a washerwoman named Catherine Ségurane led the townspeople to victory, driving away the Turks by mooning them.

These people moon Amtrak trains every year on July 8. Some people buy tickets just to see the flesh parade.

Mooning is also a patriotic gesture of the higest order. From an article in the Guardian, 29 July 1994: “The crew of a hovering American helicopter removed their trousers and mooned at the Russians.”

Indict the woman for letting the kids play unattended by the roadside. Don’t touch the moon!