January 11

January 11 is the 11th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1759 to 2003 — a span of 244 years. The entry that anchors it: American Civil War, 1863.

The colonial record reaches this date first. In 1759, the first American life insurance company, the Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers and of the Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of the Presbyterian Ministers (now part of Unum Group), is incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1861, American Civil War — Alabama secedes from the United States. Two years on, in 1863, American Civil War — the Battle of Arkansas Post concluded with the Union Army capturing a fort from Confederate forces near the mouth of the Arkansas River. The same year, American Civil War — CSS Alabama encounters and sinks the USS Hatteras off Galveston Lighthouse in Texas. The same year, American Civil War — the three-day Battle of Arkansas Post concludes as General John McClernand and Admiral David Dixon Porter capture Fort Hindman and secure control over the Arkansas River for the Union.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1961, students at the University of Georgia rioted in an attempt to prevent the attendance of two African-American students. Three years on, in 1964, in a landmark report, U.S. surgeon general Luther Terry issued a warning that tobacco smoking may be hazardous to health, concluding that it has a causative role in lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, and other illnesses.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2003, after Chicago police detective Jon Burge was discovered to have extracted forced confessions from more than 200 suspects, the governor of Illinois commuted the death sentences of 167 prisoners and pardoned four others.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on January 11: John Rogers (1630), English-American minister, physician, and academic; Alexander Hamilton (1755), Nevisian-American general, economist and politician, 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury; Oliver Wolcott Jr. (1760), American lawyer and politician, 2nd United States Secretary of the Treasury, 24th Governor of Connecticut; Ezra Cornell (1807), American businessman and philanthropist, founded Western Union and Cornell University; and Socrates Nelson (1814), American businessman and politician.

January 11 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Francis Scott Key (1843), American lawyer, author, and songwriter; James Milton Carroll (1931), American pastor, historian, and author; Roberta Fulbright (1953), American businesswoman; and Arthur Nock (1963), English-American scholar, theologian, and academic.

The date carries formal observance as well — National Human Trafficking Awareness Day (United States). 8 entries, 244 years, one square on the calendar. January 11 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.