May 31

May 31 is the 152nd day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1775 to 2019 — a span of 244 years. The entry that anchors it: The U.S. Supreme Court expands on its Brown v. Board of Education decision by ordering district courts and school districts to enforce educational desegregation "at all deliberate speed.", 1955.

The colonial record reaches this date first. In 1775, American Revolution — the Committee of Safety of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, adopted the Mecklenburg Resolves, which annulled and vacated all laws originating from the authority of the king or the Parliament of Great Britain.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1862, American Civil War — Confederate troops under Joseph E. Johnston and G. W. Smith engaged Union forces under George B. McClellan at the Battle of Seven Pines outside Richmond, Virginia.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1955, the U.S. Supreme Court expands on its Brown v. Board of Education decision by ordering district courts and school districts to enforce educational desegregation "at all deliberate speed." Then, in 1971, in accordance with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1968, observation of Memorial Day occurs on the last Monday in May for the first time, rather than on the traditional Memorial Day of May 30. Two years on, in 1973, the United States Senate votes to cut off funding for the bombing of Khmer Rouge targets within Cambodia, hastening the end of the Cambodian Civil War. Then, in 1985, United States–Canada tornado outbreak — Forty-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, leaving 76 dead.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2013, a record breaking 2.6 mile wide tornado strikes near El Reno, Oklahoma, United States, causing eight fatalities (including three storm chasers) and over 150 injuries. Six years on, in 2019, a shooting at a municipal building in Virginia Beach, United States, left 13 people dead, including the gunman, and injured four others.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on May 31: John Albion Andrew (1818), American lawyer and politician, 25th Governor of Massachusetts; Walt Whitman (1819), American poet, essayist, and journalist; John Ringling (1866), American entrepreneur; one of the founders of the Ringling Brothers Circus; Fred Allen (1894), American comedian, radio host, game show panelist, and author; and Norman Vincent Peale (1898), American minister and author.

May 31 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Elizabeth Blackwell (1910), English-American physician and educator; Henry F. Ashurst (1962), American lawyer and politician; Billy Strayhorn (1967), American pianist and composer; and Terry Sawchuk (1970), Canadian-American ice hockey player.

May 31 carries 8 entries spread across 244 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.