January 31

January 31 is the 31st day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1865 to 1988 — a span of 123 years. The entry that anchors it: American Civil War, 1865.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1865, American Civil War — the United States Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery, and submits it to the states for ratification. The same year, American Civil War — Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief of all Confederate armies.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1949, These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera, is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago, United States. Eight years on, in 1957, a DC-7B operated by Douglas Aircraft collided in mid-air with a U.S. Air Force F-89 and crashed into a schoolyard in Pacoima, California. Four years on, in 1961, Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, the chimpanzee Ham became the first hominid to be launched into outer space. Ten years on, in 1971, Apollo 14 — astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon. Seven years on, in 1978, the Crown of St. Stephen (also known as the Holy Crown of Hungary) goes on public display after being returned to Hungary from the United States, where it was held after World War II. Ten years on, in 1988, Doug Williams became the first African-American quarterback to play in the Super Bowl, leading the Washington Redskins to victory in Super Bowl XXII.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on January 31: Gouverneur Morris (1752), American lawyer, politician, and diplomat, United States Ambassador to France; William B. Washburn (1820), American politician, 28th Governor of Massachusetts; Theodore William Richards (1868), American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate; Zane Grey (1872), American author; and Irving Langmuir (1881), American chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.

January 31 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Edwin Howard Armstrong (1954), American engineer, invented FM radio; John Mott (1955), American activist, Nobel Prize laureate; Eddie Tolan (1967), American sprinter and educator; and Ernesto Miranda (1976), American criminal.

What holds these 8 entries together is nothing more than the calendar, and nothing less. 123 years separate the earliest from the latest, and each was once simply the present day.