February 13

February 13 is the 44th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1914 to 2021 — a span of 107 years. The entry that anchors it: African-American college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, 1960.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1914, Copyright — in New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1960, African-American college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee, as part of a nonviolent direct-action campaign to end racial segregation in the U.S. Then, in 1975, fire at One World Trade Center (North Tower) of the World Trade Center in New York. Six years on, in 1981, explosions caused by the ignition of hexane vapors destroyed more than 13 miles (21 km) of sewer lines in Louisville, Kentucky, United States.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 1991, Gulf War — the United States Air Force dropped two laser-guided "smart bombs" on an air-raid shelter in Baghdad, Iraq, which was believed to be a military command site, killing at least 408 civilians. Then, in 2004, the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" Seven years on, in 2011, for the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855. Ten years on, in 2021, Former U.S. President Donald Trump is acquitted in his second impeachment trial.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on February 13: Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1815), American anthologist, editor, poet and critic; John Aaron Rawlins (1831), American general and politician, 29th United States Secretary of War; Leopold Godowsky (1870), Polish-American pianist and composer; Fritz Buelow (1876), German-American baseball player and umpire; and Hal Chase (1883), American baseball player and manager.

February 13 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Cotton Mather (1728), American minister and author; Samuel Ashe (1813), American lawyer and politician, 9th Governor of North Carolina; George Rogers Clark (1818), American general; and Jean-Baptiste Lamy (1888), French-American archbishop.

The date carries formal observance as well — Black Love Day (United States). February 13 carries 8 entries spread across 107 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.