August 18

August 18 is the 231st day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1864 to 1965 — a span of 101 years. The entry that anchors it: The Thousand Islands Bridge, 1938.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1864, Battle of Globe Tavern — Union forces try to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. The same year, American Civil War — at the Battle of Globe Tavern, Union forces attempted to sever the Weldon Railroad during the siege of Petersburg.

As the country moved into the modern age, the date accumulated new kinds of firsts. In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in the country. Then, in 1938, the Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York, United States, with Ontario, Canada, over the Saint Lawrence River, is dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Seven years on, in 1945, Sukarno takes office as the first president of Indonesia, following the country's declaration of independence the previous day.

In the postwar decades the date belonged to a nation of enormous reach and unfinished arguments. In 1958, Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States. Five years on, in 1963, Civil rights movement — James Meredith becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi. Two years on, in 1965, Operation Starlite begins — United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle of the war.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on August 18: Meriwether Lewis (1774), American soldier, explorer, and politician; Nathan Clifford (1803), American lawyer, jurist, and politician, 19th United States Attorney General; Isaac P. Rodman (1822), American general and politician; Marshall Field (1834), American businessman, founded Marshall Field's; and William Halford (1841), English-American lieutenant, Medal of Honor recipient.

August 18 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Chauncey Goodrich (1815), American lawyer and politician, 8th Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut; Eli Whitney Blake (1886), American inventor, invented the Mortise lock; Walter Chrysler (1940), American businessman, founded Chrysler; and Paul Mares (1949), American trumpet player and bandleader.

Taken together, the 8 entries on August 18 span 101 years of American life. A date is an arbitrary container, but what fills it is not arbitrary at all.