May 15

May 15 is the 136th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1864 to 2008 — a span of 144 years. The entry that anchors it: American Civil War, 1864.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1864, American Civil War — a small Confederate force, which included cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, forced the Union army out of the Shenandoah Valley.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1911, in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declares Standard Oil to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act and orders the company to be broken up. Five years on, in 1916, Jesse Washington, a teenage African-American farmhand, was lynched in Waco, Texas.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1970, President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington as the first female United States Army generals. Two years on, in 1972, the Ryukyu Islands were returned to Japan by the United States, and the U.S. occupation government was abolished. The same year, the Ryukyu Islands, under U.S. military governance since their conquest in 1945, revert to Japanese control.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 1997, the United States government acknowledges the existence of the "Secret War" in Laos and dedicates the Laos Memorial in honor of Hmong and other "Secret War" veterans. Then, in 2008, California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on May 15: René Goupil (1608), French-American missionary and saint; Levi Lincoln Sr. (1749), American lawyer and politician, 4th United States Attorney General; Clarence Dutton (1841), American commander and geologist; L. Frank Baum (1856), American novelist; and Williamina Fleming (1857), Scottish-American astronomer and academic.

May 15 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: John Hale (1700), American minister; Emily Dickinson (1886), American poet and author; Edward J. Flanagan (1948), Irish-American priest, founded Boys Town; and William March (1954), American soldier and author.

The date carries formal observance as well — International Day of Families (International) and Peace Officers Memorial Day (United States). The record for May 15 runs 144 years deep across 8 entries. Read in sequence, the date stops being a coincidence and starts being a through-line.