February 14

February 14 is the 45th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1779 to 1945 — a span of 166 years. The entry that anchors it: President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, 1945.

In the founding decades, the date sat close to the business of building a republic. In 1779, American Revolutionary War — at the Battle of Kettle Creek, a militia of Patriots decisively defeated and scattered a Loyalist militia that was on its way to British-controlled Augusta, Georgia.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1849, in New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken. Six years on, in 1855, Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas. Four years on, in 1859, Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.

In the decades after the Civil War, the date marked a country remaking itself. In 1899, voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

As the country moved into the modern age, the date accumulated new kinds of firsts. In 1912, Arizona is admitted as the 48th and the last contiguous U.S. state. Then, in 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations. The same year, World War II — on the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on February 14: Emory Washburn (1800), American historian, lawyer, and politician, 22nd Governor of Massachusetts; Fernando Wood (1812), American merchant and politician, 73rd Mayor of New York City; Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813), African-American businesswoman; Christopher Latham Sholes (1819), American journalist and politician, invented the typewriter; and Winfield Scott Hancock (1824), American general and politician.

February 14 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: John Dickinson (1808), American lawyer and politician 5th Governor of Delaware; St. John Richardson Liddell (1870), American general; Fernando Wood (1881), American merchant and politician, 73rd Mayor of New York City; and Lydia Hamilton Smith (1884), African-American businesswoman.

The date carries formal observance as well — Statehood Day (Arizona, United States) and Statehood Day (Oregon, United States). Taken together, the 8 entries on February 14 span 166 years of American life. A date is an arbitrary container, but what fills it is not arbitrary at all.