October 3

October 3 is the 277th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1789 to 2008 — a span of 219 years. The entry that anchors it: The last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, 1863.

The revolutionary generation left its own mark on the date. In 1789, George Washington proclaims Thursday November 26, 1789 as Thanksgiving Day.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1849, American author Edgar Allan Poe was found semi-conscious and delirious in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances; it was the last time he was seen in public before his death four days later. Then, in 1862, American Civil War — the two-day Second Battle of Corinth begins as Confederate forces under General Earl Van Dorn attack Union defenses led by General William Rosecrans around Corinth, Mississippi. A year later, in 1863, the last Thursday in November is declared as Thanksgiving Day by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1912, U.S. forces defeat Nicaraguan rebels at the Battle of Coyotepe Hill.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1949, WERD, the first black-owned radio station in the United States, opens in Atlanta. Then, in 1962, Mercury-Atlas 8, the fifth United States crewed space mission, was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying astronaut Wally Schirra.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 for the U.S. financial system is signed by President George W. Bush.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on October 3: John Ross (1790), American tribal chief; George Bancroft (1800), American historian and politician, 17th United States Secretary of the Navy; Townsend Harris (1804), American merchant, politician, and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Japan; James Jackson Putnam (1846), American neurologist and academic; and Josephine Sabel (1866), American singer and comedian.

October 3 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Black Hawk (1838), American tribal leader; Rembrandt Peale (1860), American painter and curator; Elias Howe (1867), American engineer, invented the sewing machine; and Kintpuash (1873), American tribal leader.

The date carries formal observance as well — National Day, celebrates the independence of Iraq from the United Kingdom in 1932.. What holds these 8 entries together is nothing more than the calendar, and nothing less. 219 years separate the earliest from the latest, and each was once simply the present day.