January 10

January 10 is the 10th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1776 to 2019 — a span of 243 years. The entry that anchors it: Holy See–United States relations, 1984.

The revolutionary generation left its own mark on the date. In 1776, American Revolution — Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1812, the first steamboat on the Ohio River or the Mississippi River arrives in New Orleans, 82 days after departing from Pittsburgh. The same year, New Orleans, the first steamship on the Mississippi River, arrived at New Orleans to complete its maiden voyage. Then, in 1861, American Civil War — Florida becomes the third state to secede from the Union.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1920, the Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I for all combatant nations except the United States.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1946, the United States Army Signal Corps successfully conducts Project Diana, bouncing radio waves off the Moon and receiving the reflected signals. Then, in 1984, Holy See–United States relations — the United States and Holy See (Vatican City) re-establish full diplomatic relations after almost 117 years, overturning the United States Congress's 1867 ban on public funding for such a diplomatic envoy.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 2019, a 13-year-old American girl, Jayme Closs, is found alive in Gordon, Wisconsin, having been kidnapped 88 days earlier from her parents' home whilst they were murdered.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on January 10: Jeremiah S. Black (1810), American jurist and politician, 23rd United States Secretary of State; Frank James (1843), American soldier and criminal; Reinhold Sadler (1848), American merchant and politician, 9th governor of Nevada; John Wellborn Root (1850), American architect, designed the Rookery Building and Monadnock Building; and Jack O'Neill (1873), Irish-American baseball player.

January 10 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Samuel Colt (1862), American engineer and businessman, founded Colt's Manufacturing Company; Lyman Beecher (1863), American minister and activist, co-founded the American Temperance Society; Buffalo Bill (1917), American soldier and hunter; and Sinclair Lewis (1951), American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate.

The record for January 10 runs 243 years deep across 8 entries. Read in sequence, the date stops being a coincidence and starts being a through-line.