July 12

July 12 is the 194th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1812 to 2007 — a span of 195 years. The entry that anchors it: The Medal of Honor is authorized by the United States Congress, 1862.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1812, the American Army of the Northwest briefly occupies the Upper Canadian settlement at what is now at Windsor, Ontario. Then, in 1862, the Medal of Honor is authorized by the United States Congress.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1917, the Bisbee Deportation occurs as vigilantes kidnap and deport nearly 1,300 striking miners and others from Bisbee, Arizona.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1967, riots begin in Newark, New Jersey. Six years on, in 1973, a fire destroys the entire sixth floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States. Six years on, in 1979, Rowdy fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago stormed the field during a Major League Baseball promotional event at which a crate of disco records was blown up.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2001, Space Shuttle program — Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-104, carrying the Quest Joint Airlock to the International Space Station. Six years on, in 2007, two U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopters conducted a series of air-to-ground attacks in Baghdad.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on July 12: Henry David Thoreau (1817), American essayist, poet, and philosopher; D. H. Hill (1821), American general and academic; George Eastman (1854), American businessman, founded Eastman Kodak; George E. Ohr (1857), American potter; and Tod Browning (1880), American actor, director, and screenwriter.

July 12 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Alexander Hamilton (1804), American general, economist, and politician, 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury; John A. Dahlgren (1870), American admiral; Alexander Cartwright (1892), American firefighter, invented baseball; and Robert Henri (1929), American painter and educator.

July 12 carries 8 entries spread across 195 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.