February 17

February 17 is the 48th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1801 to 1974 — a span of 173 years. The entry that anchors it: United States presidential election, 1801.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1801, United States presidential election — a tie in the Electoral College between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives. Then, in 1819, the United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise for the first time. Then, in 1865, American Civil War — Columbia, South Carolina, is burned as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.

As the country moved into the modern age, the date accumulated new kinds of firsts. In 1913, the Armory Show, the first large modern-art exhibition in the United States, opened at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City.

In the postwar decades the date belonged to a nation of enormous reach and unfinished arguments. In 1965, Project Ranger — the Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the crewed Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing. Five years on, in 1970, the family of Jeffrey R. MacDonald, United States Army captain, is found murdered in their home in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, US. Eventually, MacDonald was charged with and convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife and two daughters. Four years on, in 1974, a U.S. Army soldier stole a Bell UH-1 helicopter and landed it on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. The same year, Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House in a stolen helicopter.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on February 17: Lola Montez (1821), Irish-American actress and dancer; Richard Henry Park (1832), American sculptor; Aaron Montgomery Ward (1843), American businessman, founded Montgomery Ward; Thomas J. Watson (1874), American businessman; and Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879), American educational reformer, social activist and author.

February 17 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Christopher Latham Sholes (1890), American publisher and politician; William Bickerton (1905), English-American religious leader, leader in the Latter Day Saint movement; Geronimo (1909), American tribal leader; and Dorothy Gibson (1946), American actress and singer.

Read end to end, February 17 is less a list than a cross-section: 8 entries that happen to share a square on the calendar, separated by as much as 173 years. The coincidence is arbitrary; the accumulation is not.