January 29

January 29 is the 29th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1850 to 2025 — a span of 175 years. The entry that anchors it: Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is removed from office following his conviction of several corruption charges, 2009.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1850, Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress. Then, in 1861, Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state. Two years on, in 1863, The Bear River Massacre — a detachment of California Volunteers led by Colonel Patrick Edward Connor engage the Shoshone at Bear River, Washington Territory, killing hundreds of men, women and children.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1907, Charles Curtis of Kansas, a citizen of the Kaw Nation, became the first Native American U.S. Senator. Then, in 1943, World War II — the Battle of Rennell Island, the last major naval engagement between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Guadalcanal campaign, began.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1967, the Mantra-Rock Dance, called the "ultimate high" of the hippie era, took place in San Francisco, featuring Swami Bhaktivedanta, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2009, Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is removed from office following his conviction of several corruption charges, including solicitation of personal benefit in exchange for an appointment to the United States Senate as a replacement for then-U.S. president-elect Barack Obama. Then, in 2025, American Eagle Flight 5342 collided mid-air with a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk operated by the United States Army and crashed into the Potomac River, killing all 67 people on board both aircraft.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on January 29: Thomas Paine (1737), English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary; Moses Cleaveland (1754), American general, lawyer, and politician, founded Cleveland, Ohio; Henry Lee III (1756), American general and politician, 9th Governor of Virginia; Albert Gallatin (1761), Swiss-American ethnologist, linguist, and politician, 4th United States Secretary of the Treasury; and Lemuel H. Arnold (1792), American politician.

January 29 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Elihu Vedder (1923), American symbolist painter, book illustrator and poet; Charles Fox Parham (1929), American preacher and evangelist; Sara Teasdale (1933), American poet; and Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh (1935), American explorer.

The date carries formal observance as well — Kansas Day (Kansas, United States). 8 entries, 175 years, one square on the calendar. January 29 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.