June 10

June 10 is the 162nd day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1861 to 2024 — a span of 163 years. The entry that anchors it: World War II, 1940.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1861, American Civil War — the Confederate Army only suffered eight casualties in its victory at the Battle of Big Bethel in York County, Virginia. The same year, Battle of Big Bethel — Confederate troops under John B. Magruder defeat a much larger Union force led by General Ebenezer W. Pierce in Virginia. Three years on, in 1864, Battle of Brice's Crossroads — Confederate troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest defeat a much larger Union force led by General Samuel D. Sturgis in Mississippi.

In the decades after the Civil War, the date marked a country remaking itself. In 1898, Spanish–American War — in the Battle of Guantánamo Bay, U.S. Marines begin the American invasion of Spanish-held Cuba.

As the country moved into the modern age, the date accumulated new kinds of firsts. In 1935, Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson. Five years on, in 1940, World War II — U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounces Italy's actions in his "Stab in the Back" speech at the graduation ceremonies of the University of Virginia.

In the postwar decades the date belonged to a nation of enormous reach and unfinished arguments. In 1964, United States Senate breaks a 75-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill's passage.

In living memory, the date has kept adding to the record. In 2024, a plane crash in Malawi, kills nine people, including Vice President Saulos Chilima.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on June 10: William Eustis (1753), American physician and politician, 12th Governor of Massachusetts; Sondre Norheim (1825), Norwegian-American skier; Stephen Mosher Wood (1832), American lieutenant and politician; Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835), American educator and politician; and Cora Agnes Benneson (1851), American attorney.

June 10 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Edward Everett Hale (1909), American minister, historian, and author; Jack Johnson (1946), American boxer; Margaret Abbott (1955), Indian-American golfer; and Angelina Weld Grimké (1958), American journalist, poet, and playwright.

Read end to end, June 10 is less a list than a cross-section: 8 entries that happen to share a square on the calendar, separated by as much as 163 years. The coincidence is arbitrary; the accumulation is not.