December 31

December 31 is the 366th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1775 to 2010 — a span of 235 years. The entry that anchors it: American Civil War, 1862.

Before there was a United States, the date already carried weight in the colonies. In 1775, American Revolutionary War — at the Battle of Quebec, British forces repulsed an attempt by the Continental Army to capture Quebec City and enlist French Canadian support.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1862, American Civil War — the three-day Battle of Stones River begins near Murfreesboro, Tennessee between the Confederate Army of Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg and the Union Army of the Cumberland under General William S. Rosecrans. The same year, American Civil War — Abraham Lincoln signs an enabling act that would admit West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two. The same year, the Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, began with an engagement in which both sides would suffer their highest casualty rates in the American Civil War.

In the postwar decades the date belonged to a nation of enormous reach and unfinished arguments. In 1946, President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.

In living memory, the date has kept adding to the record. In 1993, Brandon Teena, an American trans man, was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska; his death led to increased lobbying for hate crime laws in the United States. Then, in 2006, War in Somalia — Transitional Federal Government forces attacked the last stronghold of the Islamic Courts Union in the town of Jilib. Four years on, in 2010, tornadoes touch down in midwestern and southern United States, including Washington County, Arkansas; Greater St. Louis, Sunset Hills, Missouri, Illinois, and Oklahoma, with a few tornadoes in the early hours. A total of 36 tornadoes touched down, resulting in the deaths of nine people and $113 million in damages.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on December 31: James Bunbury White (1774), American politician; Johann Spurzheim (1776), German-American physician and phrenologist; George Meade (1815), American general and engineer; Henry Carter Adams (1851), American economist and academic; and King Kelly (1857), American baseball player and manager.

December 31 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Richard Montgomery (1775), American general; Spencer Trask (1909), American financier and philanthropist; Archibald Hoxsey (1910), American pilot; and John Moisant (1910), American pilot and engineer.

The date carries formal observance as well — New Year's Eve (International observance), and its related observances: — First Night (United States) and The sixth and penultimate day of Kwanzaa (United States). Read end to end, December 31 is less a list than a cross-section: 8 entries that happen to share a square on the calendar, separated by as much as 235 years. The coincidence is arbitrary; the accumulation is not.