July 29

July 29 is the 211th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1775 to 1996 — a span of 221 years. The entry that anchors it: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, 1958.

The earliest entries here predate the republic entirely. In 1775, Founding of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps: General George Washington appoints William Tudor as Judge Advocate of the Continental Army.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1862, American Civil War — Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.

Reconstruction and the years that followed added their own entries. In 1871, the Connecticut Valley Railroad opens between Old Saybrook, Connecticut and Hartford, Connecticut in the United States.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1914, the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, opened on a limited basis.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1950, Korean War — over fears that North Korean soldiers were infiltrating refugee columns, U.S. forces concluded a four-day massacre of hundreds of civilians through shootings and air attacks near the village of Nogeun-ri. Eight years on, in 1958, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Nine years on, in 1967, Vietnam War — Off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal catches on fire in the worst U.S. naval disaster since World War II, killing 134.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 1996, the child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act is struck down by a U.S. federal court as too broad.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on July 29: Daniel Drew (1797), American businessman and financier; Horace Abbott (1806), American businessman and banker; Booth Tarkington (1869), American novelist and dramatist; Eric Alfred Knudsen (1872), American author, lawyer, and politician; and Maria Ouspenskaya (1876), Russian-American actress and acting teacher.

July 29 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Ernest William Christmas (1918), Australian-American painter; Leonardo De Lorenzo (1962), Italian-American flute player and educator; Vean Gregg (1964), American baseball player; and Cass Elliot (1974), American singer.

What holds these 8 entries together is nothing more than the calendar, and nothing less. 221 years separate the earliest from the latest, and each was once simply the present day.