May 19

May 19 is the 140th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1776 to 1986 — a span of 210 years. The entry that anchors it: Mexican–American War, 1848.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1776, American Revolutionary War — a Continental Army garrison west of Montreal surrendered to British troops at the Battle of the Cedars.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1828, the United States Congress passed the largest tariff in the nation's history, which resulted in severe economic hardship in the American South. Then, in 1848, Mexican–American War — Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thus ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States for US$15 million.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1921, the United States Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act establishing national quotas on immigration. Then, in 1942, World War II — in the aftermath of the Battle of the Coral Sea, Task Force 16 heads to Pearl Harbor for repairs. A year later, in 1943, Winston Churchill's second wartime address to the U.S. Congress.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1962, a birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday" Then, in 1986, the Firearm Owners Protection Act is signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on May 19: Johns Hopkins (1795), American businessman and philanthropist; John Jacob Abel (1857), American biochemist and pharmacologist; Walter Russell (1871), American painter, sculptor, and author; David Munson (1884), American runner; and Francis Biddle (1886), American lawyer and judge, 58th United States Attorney General.

May 19 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Josiah Bartlett (1795), American physician and politician, 4th Governor of New Hampshire; Nathaniel Hawthorne (1864), American novelist and short story writer; Gervais Raoul Lufbery (1918), French-American soldier and pilot; and Booth Tarkington (1946), American novelist and dramatist.

The date carries formal observance as well — Malcolm X Day (United States of America); National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (United States); and Hepatitis Testing Day (United States). May 19 carries 8 entries spread across 210 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.