January 8

January 8 is the 8th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1790 to 2011 — a span of 221 years. The entry that anchors it: The United States Congress passes the bill to allow African American men the right to vote in Washington, 1867.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1790, George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address in New York City, then the provisional capital of the United States.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1835, US President Andrew Jackson announces a celebratory dinner after having reduced the United States national debt to zero for the only time.

In the postwar nineteenth century the date tracks a nation rebuilding. In 1867, the United States Congress passes the bill to allow African American men the right to vote in Washington, D.C.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1918, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson announced his Fourteen Points for a moral cause and for post–World War I peace in Europe.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States. Nine years on, in 1973, Watergate scandal — the trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2002, President of the United States George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act. Nine years on, in 2011, Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a public meeting held by U.S. representative Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people and injuring twelve others.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on January 8: John Carroll (1735), American archbishop, founder of Georgetown University; Edmond-Charles Genêt (1763), French-American translator and diplomat; Nicholas Biddle (1786), American banker and financier; Lowell Mason (1792), American composer and educator; and John Bigler (1805), American lawyer, politician, and diplomat, 3rd Governor of California.

January 8 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Eli Whitney (1825), American engineer and theorist, invented the cotton gin; Emperor Norton (1880), English-American businessman; William Rainey Marshall (1896), American banker and politician, 5th Governor of Minnesota; and Simon Bolivar Buckner (1914), American general and 30th Governor of Kentucky.

January 8 carries 8 entries spread across 221 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.