August 31

August 31 is the 244th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1814 to 2016 — a span of 202 years. The entry that anchors it: American Civil War, 1864.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1814, War of 1812 — American militia forces repelled a British force at the Battle of Caulk's Field, killing 41 people including Captain Peter Parker of the Royal Navy. Then, in 1864, American Civil War — the Battle of Jonesborough, the culmination of the Atlanta campaign, begins as Union forces under General William T. Sherman clash with Confederate troops under General William J. Hardee south of Atlanta.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1935, in an attempt to stay out of the growing tensions concerning Germany and Japan, the United States passes the first of its Neutrality Acts. Five years on, in 1940, Pennsylvania Central Airlines Trip 19 crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia. The CAB investigation of the accident is the first investigation to be conducted under the Bureau of Air Commerce act of 1938. Three years on, in 1943, USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1959, a parcel bomb sent by Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm, failed to kill Norodom Sihanouk, Prime Minister of Cambodia. Nine years on, in 1968, Start of the Congress of Carrara, one of the major 20th century anarchist congresses.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 2016, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is impeached and removed from office.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on August 31: Galusha A. Grow (1823), American lawyer and politician, 28th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives; Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842), American journalist, publisher, and activist; James E. Ferguson (1871), American banker and politician, 26th governor of Texas; Frank Jarvis (1878), American sprinter and lawyer; and Alma Mahler (1879), Austrian-American composer and author.

August 31 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: DeLancey W. Gill (1940), American painter; Elsa Barker (1954), American author and poet; E. E. Smith (1965), American engineer and author; and Rocky Marciano (1969), American boxer.

The date carries formal observance as well — Departure Day, celebrates the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. The record for August 31 runs 202 years deep across 8 entries. Read in sequence, the date stops being a coincidence and starts being a through-line.