August 23

August 23 is the 236th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1775 to 2023 — a span of 248 years. The entry that anchors it: American Civil War, 1864.

The colonial record reaches this date first. In 1775, American Revolutionary War — King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St James's stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1784, Western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; it is not accepted into the United States, and only lasts for four years.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1864, American Civil War — the Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico except Galveston, Texas.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1933, the Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane made landfall in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and went on to cause at least 47 deaths in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1970, Organized by Mexican American labor union leader César Chávez, the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history, begins.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 1994, Eugene Bullard, the only African American pilot in World War I, is posthumously commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. Then, in 2011, a 5.8 MW earthquake struck the Piedmont region of Virginia, and was felt by more people than any other quake in U.S. history. Then, in 2023, Chandrayaan-3 mission initiates first Moon landing in Indian history.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on August 23: Abraham Yates Jr. (1724), American lawyer and civil servant; Oliver Hazard Perry (1785), American commander; James Roosevelt Bayley (1814), American archbishop; Alexander Milne Calder (1846), Scottish-American sculptor; and Sarah Frances Whiting (1847), American physicist and astronomer.

August 23 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Increase Mather (1723), American minister and author; Alexander Wilson (1813), Scottish-American poet, ornithologist, and illustrator; Oliver Hazard Perry (1819), American commander; and Thomas R. Gray (1845), American author and diplomat.

The date carries formal observance as well — International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition and National Day for Physicians (Iran). August 23 carries 8 entries spread across 248 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.