April 4

April 4 is the 95th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1818 to 1975 — a span of 157 years. The entry that anchors it: American Civil War, 1865.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1818, the United States Congress, affirming the Second Continental Congress, adopts the flag of the United States with 13 red and white stripes and one star for each state (20 at that time) Then, in 1841, William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office, and setting the record for the briefest administration. Vice President John Tyler succeeds Harrison as President. The same year, William Henry Harrison became the first U.S. president to die in office, sparking a brief constitutional crisis regarding questions of presidential succession that were unanswered by the U.S. Constitution. Then, in 1865, American Civil War — a day after Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln visits the Confederate capital.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1968, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The same year, Apollo program — NASA launches Apollo 6. Five years on, in 1973, a year after the completion of the second of the complex's twin towers, the World Trade Center in New York City was officially dedicated. Two years on, in 1975, Vietnam War — on a mission to evacuate children from South Vietnam, a U.S. Air Force plane crash-landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, killing 78 children and 60 others.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on April 4: Edward Hicks (1780), American minister and painter; Thaddeus Stevens (1792), American lawyer and politician; Dorothea Dix (1802), American nurse and activist; Thomas Mayne Reid (1818), Irish-American author and poet; and Linus Yale Jr. (1821), American engineer and businessman.

April 4 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: James Sykes (1792), American lawyer and politician; William Henry Harrison (1841), American general and politician, 9th President of the United States; Solomon Sibley (1846), American lawyer and politician, 1st Mayor of Detroit; and John McLean (1861), American jurist and politician, 6th United States Postmaster General.

8 entries, 157 years, one square on the calendar. April 4 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.