May 10

May 10 is the 131st day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1773 to 2013 — a span of 240 years. The entry that anchors it: American Revolutionary War, 1775.

The colonial record reaches this date first. In 1773, the Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by reducing taxes on its tea and granting it the right to sell tea directly to North America. The legislation leads to the Boston Tea Party. Two years on, in 1775, American Revolutionary War — delegates from the Thirteen Colonies met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to convene the Second Continental Congress, which would serve as the de facto national government of the future United States. The same year, American Revolutionary War — a small force of Patriots led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga in New York, without significant injury or incident.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1801, First Barbary War — the Barbary corsairs of Tripoli declared war on the United States by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. consulate. Then, in 1865, American Civil War — in Kentucky, Union soldiers ambush and mortally wound Confederate raider William Quantrill, who lingers until his death on June 6.

In the postwar nineteenth century the date tracks a nation rebuilding. In 1869, the First transcontinental railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory with the golden spike.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2005, a hand grenade thrown by Vladimir Arutyunian lands about 20 m from U.S. President George W. Bush while he is giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it malfunctions and does not detonate. Eight years on, in 2013, one World Trade Center in New York City, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, was topped out at a height of 1,776 feet (541 m)

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on May 10: Robert Gray (1755), American captain and explorer; R. E. B. Baylor (1793), American politician and jurist; Montgomery Blair (1813), American lieutenant and politician, 20th United States Postmaster General; John Wilkes Booth (1838), American actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln; and James Gordon Bennett Jr. (1841), American publisher and broadcaster.

May 10 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: John Hathorne (1717), American merchant and politician; Paul Revere (1818), American engraver and soldier; Stonewall Jackson (1863), American general; and William Armstrong (1865), American lawyer, civil servant, politician, and businessperson.

8 entries, 240 years, one square on the calendar. May 10 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.