November 8

November 8 is the 313th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1932 to 2016 — a span of 84 years. The entry that anchors it: John F. Kennedy is elected as the 35th President of the United States, 1960.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected as the 32nd President of the United States, defeating incumbent president Herbert Hoover. A year later, in 1933, New Deal — US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than four million unemployed.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1960, John F. Kennedy is elected as the 35th President of the United States, defeating incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, who would later be elected president in 1968 and 1972. Six years on, in 1966, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League. The same year, Former Massachusetts attorney general Edward Brooke became the first African American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction. Then, in 1988, U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush is elected as the 41st president.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 1994, Republican Revolution — on the night of the 1994 United States midterm elections, Republicans make historic electoral gains by securing massive majorities in both houses of Congress (54 seats in the House and eight seats in the Senate, additionally), thus bringing to a close four decades of Democratic domination. Then, in 2016, Donald Trump is elected the 45th President of the United States, defeating Hillary Clinton, the first woman ever to receive a major party's nomination.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on November 8: William Wirt (1772), American lawyer and politician, 9th United States Attorney General; Milton Bradley (1836), American businessman, founded the Milton Bradley Company; Charles Demuth (1883), American painter; Bucky Harris (1896), American baseball player and manager; and Marie Prevost (1896), Canadian-American actress and singer.

November 8 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Doc Holliday (1887), American dentist and poker player; Robert Battey (1895), American surgeon and academic; Frank S. Land (1959), American activist, founded the DeMolay International; and Dorothy Kilgallen (1965), American journalist, television personality, and game show panelist.

The date carries formal observance as well — International Day of Radiology (European Society of Radiology). What holds these 8 entries together is nothing more than the calendar, and nothing less. 84 years separate the earliest from the latest, and each was once simply the present day.