November 13

November 13 is the 318th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1775 to 2001 — a span of 226 years. The entry that anchors it: American Revolutionary War, 1775.

Before there was a United States, the date already carried weight in the colonies. In 1775, American Revolutionary War — American forces captured Montreal without significant opposition as part of the Invasion of Quebec. The same year, American Revolutionary War — Patriot revolutionary forces under Gen. Richard Montgomery occupy Montreal.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1864, American Civil War — the three-day Battle of Bull's Gap ends in a Union rout as Confederates under Major General John C. Breckinridge pursue them to Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.

As the country moved into the modern age, the date accumulated new kinds of firsts. In 1922, the United States Supreme Court upholds mandatory vaccinations for public school students in Zucht v. King.

In the postwar decades the date belonged to a nation of enormous reach and unfinished arguments. In 1956, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed a lower court ruling that invalidated Alabama laws requiring segregated buses, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott. Then, in 1969, Vietnam War — Anti-war protesters in Washington, D.C. stage a symbolic March Against Death. Then, in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.

In living memory, the date has kept adding to the record. In 2001, War on terror — in the first such act since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against foreigners suspected of connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on November 13: John Dickinson (1732), American lawyer and politician, 5th Governor of Pennsylvania; Theophilus H. Holmes (1804), American general; John A. Dahlgren (1809), American admiral; Joseph Hooker (1814), American general; and Edwin Booth (1833), American actor and manager.

November 13 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: J. Marion Sims (1883), American physician and gynecologist; Mrs. Leslie Carter (1937), American actress; Daniel J. Callaghan (1942), American admiral; and Margaret Wise Brown (1952), American author.

The date carries formal observance as well — Sadie Hawkins Day (United States). Read end to end, November 13 is less a list than a cross-section: 8 entries that happen to share a square on the calendar, separated by as much as 226 years. The coincidence is arbitrary; the accumulation is not.