February 19

February 19 is the 50th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1807 to 2002 — a span of 195 years. The entry that anchors it: World War II, 1942.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1807, Former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr is arrested for treason in Wakefield, Alabama, and confined to Fort Stoddert. Then, in 1846, in Austin, Texas, the newly formed Texas state government is officially installed. The Republic of Texas government officially transfers power to the State of Texas government following the annexation of Texas by the United States.

In the postwar nineteenth century the date tracks a nation rebuilding. In 1884, more than sixty tornadoes strike the Southern United States, one of the largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1942, World War II — U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forcible relocation of over 112,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps. Three years on, in 1945, Battle of Iwo Jima — about 30,000 United States Marines land on the island of Iwo Jima.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1963, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, a non-fiction book credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States, was first published. The same year, the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique reawakens the feminist movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness raising groups spread.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2002, NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on February 19: Louis Calhern (1895), American actor; Alma Rubens (1897), American actress; Kay Boyle (1902), American novelist, short story writer, and educator; Merle Oberon (1911), Indian-American actress; and Saul Chaplin (1912), American composer.

February 19 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Charles Chauncy (1672), English-American minister, theologian, and academic; Nicholas Van Dyke (1789), American lawyer and politician, 7th Governor of Delaware; George Howard Earle Jr. (1928), American lawyer and businessman; and Billy Mitchell (1936), American general and pilot.

February 19 carries 8 entries spread across 195 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.