August 26

August 26 is the 239th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1748 to 2015 — a span of 267 years. The entry that anchors it: After John Birges plants a bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, 1980.

The colonial record reaches this date first. In 1748, the first Lutheran denomination in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, was founded in Philadelphia.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1791, John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steamboat.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1920, the 19th amendment to United States Constitution, giving women the right to vote, is certified. Then, in 1940, the 1940 New England hurricane formed over the Atlantic Ocean; it would go on to cause widespread damage despite never making landfall in the United States.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1968, the U.S. Democratic Party's National Convention opened in Chicago, sparking four days of clashes between anti-Vietnam War protesters and police. Then, in 1980, after John Birges plants a bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, in the United States, the FBI inadvertently detonates the bomb during its disarming. The same year, a bomb was planted at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, which the FBI later described as the most complex improvised explosive device ever created.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2015, two U.S. journalists are shot and killed by a disgruntled former coworker while conducting a live report in Moneta, Virginia.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on August 26: Lee de Forest (1873), American engineer and academic, invented the Audion tube; Zona Gale (1874), American novelist, short story writer, and playwright; Sparky Adams (1894), American baseball player and farmer; Peggy Guggenheim (1898), American-Italian art collector and philanthropist; and Margaret Utinsky (1900), American nurse, recipient of the Medal of Freedom.

August 26 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: William James (1910), American psychologist and philosopher; Lon Chaney (1930), American actor, director, and screenwriter; Jeanie MacPherson (1946), American actress and screenwriter; and Alfred Wagenknecht (1956), German-American activist.

The date carries formal observance as well — Women's Equality Day (United States). 8 entries, 267 years, one square on the calendar. August 26 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.