October 10

October 10 is the 284th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1814 to 2018 — a span of 204 years. The entry that anchors it: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to Ghanaian finance minister Komla Agbeli Gbedemah after he is refused service in a Delaware restaurant, 1957.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1814, War of 1812 — the United States Revenue Marine attempts to defend the cutter Eagle from the Royal Navy. Then, in 1845, in Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later the United States Naval Academy) opens with 50 students.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union, a militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. Ten years on, in 1913, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike, completing major construction on the Panama Canal.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1957, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to Ghanaian finance minister Komla Agbeli Gbedemah after he is refused service in a Delaware restaurant. Then, in 1973, U.S. vice president Spiro Agnew resigned after being charged with tax evasion.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2002, Iraq War — the United States Congress approves the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Then, in 2018, Hurricane Michael makes landfall in the Florida Panhandle as a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane. It kills 57 people in the United States, 45 in Florida, and causes an estimated $25.1 billion in damage.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on October 10: Benjamin West (1738), American painter; William Whiting Boardman (1794), American judge and politician; Samuel J. Randall (1828), American captain, lawyer and politician, 33rd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives; Robert Gould Shaw (1837), American colonel; and Maurice Prendergast (1858), American painter and academic.

October 10 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Gabriel Prosser (1800), American rebel leader; George Washington Parke Custis (1857), American author and playwright; William H. Seward (1872), American lawyer and politician, 24th United States Secretary of State; and Lip Pike (1893), American baseball player and manager.

The date carries formal observance as well — Double Ten Day (The National Day of Republic of China), celebrates outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising in 1911 that led to founding of the Republic of China in 1912. October 10 carries 8 entries spread across 204 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.