August 25

August 25 is the 238th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1814 to 2017 — a span of 203 years. The entry that anchors it: War of 1812, 1814.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1814, War of 1812 — on the second day of the Burning of Washington, British troops torch the Library of Congress, United States Treasury, Department of War, and other public buildings. Nine years on, in 1823, American fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a grizzly bear while on an expedition in South Dakota.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1916, the United States National Park Service is created. Then, in 1945, ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Chinese Communist Party kill U.S. intelligence officer John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1989, the NASA spacecraft Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Neptune and provided definitive proof of the existence of the planet's rings.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 2003, NASA successfully launches the Spitzer Space Telescope into space. Nine years on, in 2012, the NASA space probe Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space. Five years on, in 2017, Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2004.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on August 25: John Leverett the Younger (1662), American lawyer, academic, and politician; John Neal (1793), American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist; James Lick (1796), American carpenter and piano builder; Bret Harte (1836), American short story writer and poet; and George C. Magoun (1840), American businessman.

August 25 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Stephen Badlam (1815), American artisan and military officer; Mary Tappan Wright (1916), American novelist and short story writer; Velma Caldwell Melville (1924), American editor, and writer of prose and poetry; and Frankie Campbell (1930), American boxer.

The record for August 25 runs 203 years deep across 8 entries. Read in sequence, the date stops being a coincidence and starts being a through-line.