July 26

July 26 is the 208th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1775 to 2016 — a span of 241 years. The entry that anchors it: Cold War, 1947.

The earliest entries here predate the republic entirely. In 1775, the office that would later become the United States Post Office Department is established by the Second Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania takes office as Postmaster General.

The revolutionary generation left its own mark on the date. In 1788, New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1863, American Civil War — Morgan's Raid ends; At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured by Union forces.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1947, Cold War — U.S. president Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Department of Defense, United States Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council. A year later, in 1948, U.S. president Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981, desegregating the military of the United States. Then, in 1971, Apollo program — Launch of Apollo 15 on the first Apollo "J-Mission", and first use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 2005, STS-114 Mission — Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003. Then, in 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first female nominee for president of the United States by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on July 26: George Clinton (1739), American general and politician, 4th Vice President of the United States; George Catlin (1796), American painter, author, and traveler; Justin Holland (1819), American guitarist and educator; Silas Soule (1838), American soldier and whistleblower of the Sand Creek Massacre; and Serge Koussevitzky (1874), Russian-American bassist, composer, and conductor.

July 26 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Sam Houston (1863), American general and politician, 7th Governor of Texas, and 6th Governor of Tennessee; William Jennings Bryan (1925), American lawyer and politician, 41st United States Secretary of State; Robert Todd Lincoln (1926), American lawyer and politician, 35th United States Secretary of War, son of Abraham Lincoln; and Fred Duesenberg (1932), German-American businessman, co-founded the Duesenberg Company.

The date carries formal observance as well — Independence Day (Liberia), celebrates the independence of Liberia from the American Colonization Society in 1847.. The record for July 26 runs 241 years deep across 8 entries. Read in sequence, the date stops being a coincidence and starts being a through-line.