December 16

December 16 is the 351st day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1689 to 2024 — a span of 335 years. The entry that anchors it: American Civil War, 1864.

Before there was a United States, the date already carried weight in the colonies. In 1689, the Parliament of England enacted the Bill of Rights, setting out basic civil rights and later influencing other documents such as the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then, in 1773, Boston Tea Party — members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act. The same year, American Revolution — a group of colonists threw chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation without representation.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1811, the first two in a series of four severe earthquakes struck the Midwestern United States and made the Mississippi River appear to run backward. Then, in 1863, American Civil War — Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints General Joseph E. Johnston to replace General Braxton Bragg as commander of the Army of Tennessee. A year later, in 1864, American Civil War — the Battle of Nashville ends as the Union Army of the Cumberland under General George H. Thomas routs and destroys the Confederate Army of Tennessee under General John Bell Hood, ending its effectiveness as a combat unit.

As the country moved into the modern age, the date accumulated new kinds of firsts. In 1930, German-American gangster Herman Lamm killed himself during a botched robbery attempt in Clinton, Indiana, to avoid being captured by police.

In living memory, the date has kept adding to the record. In 2024, the Abundant Life Christian School shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, United States, takes place, resulting in the death of three people.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on December 16: John Ordronaux (1778), French-American soldier; Mary Hartwell Catherwood (1849), American author and poet; Bertha Lamme Feicht (1869), American electrical engineer; Marie Hall Ets (1895), American author and illustrator; and Lucille Lortel (1900), American actress and producer.

December 16 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Henry Yesler (1892), American businessman and politician, 7th Mayor of Seattle; American Horse (1908), American tribal leader and educator; Frank Gotch (1917), American wrestler; and Elinor Wylie (1928), American poet and author.

The date carries formal observance as well — National Day, celebrates the withdrawal of United Kingdom from Bahrain, making Bahrain an independent emirate in 1971.. Taken together, the 8 entries on December 16 span 335 years of American life. A date is an arbitrary container, but what fills it is not arbitrary at all.