July 31

July 31 is the 213th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1777 to 2020 — a span of 243 years. The entry that anchors it: The U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Gilbert du Motier, 1777.

In the founding decades, the date sat close to the business of building a republic. In 1777, the U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette "be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States." Then, in 1790, the first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

In the decades after the Civil War, the date marked a country remaking itself. In 1874, Patrick Francis Healy was inaugurated as president of Georgetown University, becoming the first African-American president of a predominantly white university in the United States.

In the postwar decades the date belonged to a nation of enormous reach and unfinished arguments. In 1948, at Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated. Then, in 1971, Apollo program — the Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

In living memory, the date has kept adding to the record. In 1991, the United States and Soviet Union both sign the START I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first to reduce (with verification) both countries' stockpiles. Eight years on, in 1999, Lunar Prospector — NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the Moon's surface. Then, in 2020, a mid-air collision in Soldotna, Alaska, United States, killed seven people, including state representative Gary Knopp.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on July 31: John Ericsson (1803), Swedish-American engineer, designed the USS Monitor, the first ironclad warship of the US Navy (died 1889).; George Henry Thomas (1816), American general; William S. Clark (1826), American colonel and politician; Paul Du Chaillu (1835), French-American anthropologist and explorer; and William Quantrill (1837), American captain.

July 31 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Andrew Johnson (1875), American general and politician, 17th President of the United States; Robert A. Taft (1953), American soldier and politician; Jim Reeves (1964), American singer-songwriter; and Bud Powell (1966), American pianist.

The date carries formal observance as well — Lā Hae Hawaiʻi Day (Hawaii, United States), and its related observance: — Sovereignty Restoration Day (Hawaiian sovereignty movement). Taken together, the 8 entries on July 31 span 243 years of American life. A date is an arbitrary container, but what fills it is not arbitrary at all.