$re = '/((Jan(uary)?|Mar(ch)?|July?|Aug(ust)?|Oct(ober)?|Dec(ember)?) 31|(Jan(uary)?|Mar(ch)?|Apr(il)?|July?|June?|Aug(ust)?|Oct(ober)?|Sep|(Sept|Nov|Dec)(ember)?) (0?[1-9]|([12]\d)|30)|Feb(ruary)? (0?[1-9]|1\d|2[0-8]|29(?=, ((1[6-9]|[2-9]\d)(0[48]|[2468][048]|[13579][26])|(16|[2468][048]|[3579][26])00)))), (1[6-9]|[2-9]\d)\d{2}/m';
$str = 'Dec 31, 1914
August 30, 2963
June 09, 3454
Sept 01, 1900
Sep 01, 1900
Sep 31, 2016 #Sep 31 doesn\'t exist
Feb 29, 2000 #Matches as expected, on x400 year
February 29, 1900 #Doesn\'t match, as expected, on x100 (but not 400) year
February 29, 1904';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php