November 5

November 5 is the 310th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1862 to 2024 — a span of 162 years. The entry that anchors it: Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th President of the United States, 1912.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1862, American Civil War — Abraham Lincoln removes George B. McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

Reconstruction and the years that followed added their own entries. In 1872, Women's suffrage in the United States — in defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1912, Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th President of the United States, defeating incumbent William Howard Taft. Then, in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first and only President of the United States to be elected to a third term.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1968, Richard Nixon is elected as 37th President of the United States.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 1996, Bill Clinton is reelected President of the United States. Then, in 2009, U.S. Army major Nidal Hasan went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, the worst shooting ever to take place on an American military base, killing 13. Then, in 2024, Donald Trump becomes the first president of the United States to be elected to a non-consecutive second term in 132 years, since Grover Cleveland won the 1892 election.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on November 5: Charles Chauncy (1592), English-American pastor, theologian, and academic; Benjamin Butler (1818), American general, lawyer, and politician, 33rd Governor of Massachusetts; Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850), American author and poet; Eugene V. Debs (1855), American union leader and politician; and Ida Tarbell (1857), American journalist, author, reformer, and educator.

November 5 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Thomas Sully (1872), English-American painter; Texas Guinan (1933), American actress and businesswoman; Thomas Dewing (1938), American painter and educator; and Mary W. Bacheler (1939), American physician and Baptist medical missionary.

The date carries formal observance as well — Bank Transfer Day (United States). The record for November 5 runs 162 years deep across 8 entries. Read in sequence, the date stops being a coincidence and starts being a through-line.