June 21

June 21 is the 173rd day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1788 to 1989 — a span of 201 years. The entry that anchors it: The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, 1915.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1788, New Hampshire ratified the U.S. Constitution and was admitted as the ninth U.S. state.

In the postwar nineteenth century the date tracks a nation rebuilding. In 1898, the United States captures Guam from Spain. The few warning shots fired by the U.S. naval vessels are misinterpreted as salutes by the Spanish garrison, which was unaware that the two nations were at war.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down Oklahoma grandfather clause legislation which had the effect of denying the right to vote to African-Americans. Then, in 1942, World War II — a Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1964, three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Nine years on, in 1973, in its decision in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller test for determining whether something is obscene and not protected speech under the U.S. constitution. Nine years on, in 1982, John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Seven years on, in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, that American flag-burning is a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on June 21: (O.S.) Increase Mather (1639), American minister and author; (O.S.) Enoch Poor (1736), American general; Alexander J. Dallas (1759), American lawyer and politician, 6th United States Secretary of the Treasury; Daniel D. Tompkins (1774), American lawyer and politician, 6th Vice President of the United States; and Charles Thomas Jackson (1805), American physician and geologist.

June 21 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Richard Gridley (1796), American soldier and engineer; Frances Adeline Seward (1865), American wife of William H. Seward; Theophilus H. Holmes (1880), American general; and Leland Stanford (1893), American businessman and politician, 8th Governor of California.

The date carries formal observance as well — Solstice-related observances (see also June 20): — National Day (Greenland). 8 entries, 201 years, one square on the calendar. June 21 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.