September 16

September 16 is the 260th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1776 to 2013 — a span of 237 years. The entry that anchors it: American Revolutionary War, 1776.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1776, American Revolutionary War — American colonists defeated British troops at the Battle of Harlem Heights on the island of Manhattan. Three years on, in 1779, American Revolutionary War — the Franco-American Siege of Savannah begins.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1863, Robert College, in Istanbul, the first American educational institution outside the United States, is founded by Christopher Robert, an American philanthropist.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1920, The Wall Street bombing — a bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J. P. Morgan building in New York City killing 38 and injuring 400.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1953, American Airlines Flight 723 crashes in Colonie, New York, killing 28 people. Eight years on, in 1961, the U.S. National Hurricane Research Project sought to weaken Hurricane Esther by seeding it with silver iodide, leading to the establishment of Project Stormfury.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 1992, the trial of the deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega ends in the United States with a 40-year sentence for drug trafficking and money laundering. Then, in 2013, a gunman kills twelve people at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on September 16: Charles Crocker (1822), American businessman; Francis Parkman (1823), American historian and author; James J. Hill (1838), Canadian-American railroad executive; Miriam Benjamin (1861), African-American educator and inventor; and James Cash Penney (1875), American businessman and philanthropist, founded J. C. Penney.

September 16 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: John Jeffries (1819), American physician and surgeon; C. X. Larrabee (1914), American businessman; George Gore (1933), American baseball player and manager; and Pedro de Cordoba (1950), American actor.

The date carries formal observance as well — International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. September 16 carries 8 entries spread across 237 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.