Venus seen in broad daylight

Stardate: February 26, 2012. Leesburg, Virginia. 5:00 pm local time. Viewed the planet Venus in the broad daylight. I first heard of this possibility back in 1978. I was reading the book Samurai by Saburo Sakai. Sakai was a Japanese fighter pilot in World War II. In his book he describes some of the rigors of the prewar training that pilot cadets had to endure. He described how the pilots trained their eyesight by finding bright stars in the daytime, looking away, and then finding the star again as quickly as they could. Keen eyesight and the ability to identify friend or foe in the air was very important to the young pilots survival. I had looked before, but had never really seen Venus in a blue sky with plenty of time before sunset. Today was different because the crescent moon was nearby serving as a guide post. I stood in the shade on the east side of my house. Found the moon and then spoted the starlike Venus in the blue sky between the Sun and Moon. Venus is currently shining at better than -4 magnitude, and is easily the brightest object in the sky other than the Sun and Moon. This was a good day. The Moon, Venus, and Jupiter were all visible this evening and Mars will be seen later tonight.