August 29

August 29 is the 242nd day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1778 to 2007 — a span of 229 years. The entry that anchors it: Angered by high tax burdens and disfranchisement, 1786.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1778, American Revolutionary War — British and American forces battle indecisively at the Battle of Rhode Island. A year later, in 1779, American Revolutionary War — American forces battle and defeat the British and Iroquois forces at the Battle of Newtown. Seven years on, in 1786, Angered by high tax burdens and disfranchisement, farmers in western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays began an armed uprising against the U.S. federal government.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1916, Congress passed the Philippine Autonomy Act, the first formal and official declaration of the U.S.'s commitment to grant independence to the Philippines.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1958, United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Then, in 1984, Followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh began deliberately infecting people in The Dalles, Oregon, with Salmonella in the first and largest bioterrorist attack in United States history.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing up to 1,392 people and causing $125 billion in damage. Two years on, in 2007, six nuclear warheads were mistakenly loaded onto a United States Air Force heavy bomber that flew from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on August 29: Charles Grandison Finney (1792), American minister and author; Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809), American physician and author; Henry Bergh (1813), American activist, founded the ASPCA; David B. Hill (1843), American lawyer and politician, 29th Governor of New York; and William C. White (1854), American Seventh-day Adventist Church minister.

August 29 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Brigham Young (1877), American religious leader, 2nd President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; George Huntington Hartford (1917), American businessman; David T. Abercrombie (1931), American businessman, co-founded Abercrombie & Fitch; and Adolphus Busch III (1946), American businessman.

The date carries formal observance as well — International Day against Nuclear Tests. August 29 carries 8 entries spread across 229 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.