August 24

August 24 is the 237th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1781 to 1992 — a span of 211 years. The entry that anchors it: War of 1812, 1814.

In the founding decades, the date sat close to the business of building a republic. In 1781, American Revolutionary War — a small force of Pennsylvania militia is ambushed and overwhelmed by an American Indian group, which forces George Rogers Clark to abandon his attempt to attack Detroit. The same year, American Revolutionary War — near present-day Aurora, Indiana, American Indians led by Joseph Brant killed or captured all members of a Pennsylvania militia.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1814, War of 1812 — British forces invaded Washington, D.C., setting fire to various U.S. government buildings, including the White House.

As the country moved into the modern age, the date accumulated new kinds of firsts. In 1932, Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey)

In the postwar decades the date belonged to a nation of enormous reach and unfinished arguments. In 1954, Vice president João Café Filho takes office as president of Brazil, following the suicide of Getúlio Vargas. Nine years on, in 1963, Buddhist crisis — as a result of the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, the US State Department cables the United States Embassy, Saigon to encourage Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm if he did not remove his brother Ngô Đình Nhu. The same year, Buddhist crisis — the U.S. State Department ordered Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to encourage South Vietnamese Army officers to oust Ngo Dinh Diem if he did not willingly remove Ngo Dinh Nhu from his unofficial position of power.

In living memory, the date has kept adding to the record. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew, the third-most intense Category 5 cyclone to impact the United States in the 20th century, made landfall in southern Florida.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on August 24: James Calhoun (1845), American lieutenant; Zonia Baber (1862), American geographer and geologist; Earl Derr Biggers (1884), American author and playwright; Harry Hooper (1887), American baseball player; and Duke Kahanamoku (1890), American swimmer, actor, and surfer.

August 24 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Peggy Shippen (1804), American wife of Benedict Arnold and American Revolutionary War spy; James Carr (1818), American lawyer and politician; John Ordronaux (1841), French-American soldier; and Kate Douglas Wiggin (1923), American author and educator.

The date carries formal observance as well — National Waffle Day (United States). Taken together, the 8 entries on August 24 span 211 years of American life. A date is an arbitrary container, but what fills it is not arbitrary at all.