July 4

July 4 is the 186th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1776 to 1966 — a span of 190 years. The entry that anchors it: American Revolution, 1776.

In the founding decades, the date sat close to the business of building a republic. In 1776, American Revolution — the United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress, formally announcing and explaining separation from the Kingdom of Great Britain and the creation of the United States. Two years on, in 1778, American Revolutionary War — U.S. forces under George Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign.

Through the nineteenth century the date gathered the tensions that would define the era. In 1863, Retreat from Gettysburg — the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee withdraws from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg, signaling an end to his last invasion of the North. The same year, American Civil War — Confederate forces failed in an attempt to recapture the Union-occupied Helena, Arkansas. The same year, Siege of Vicksburg — the Confederate army in Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege, contributing to the Union capture of the Mississippi River.

As the country moved into the modern age, the date accumulated new kinds of firsts. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson addresses American Civil War veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913.

In the postwar decades the date belonged to a nation of enormous reach and unfinished arguments. In 1960, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia following the admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state over ten months prior (August 21, 1959), in accordance with the Flag Acts. Six years on, in 1966, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into United States law. The act went into effect the next year.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on July 4: George Leonard (1729), American lawyer, jurist and politician; Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804), American novelist and short story writer; Hiram Walker (1816), American businessman, founded Canadian Club whisky; Stephen Foster (1826), American songwriter and composer; and James Anthony Bailey (1847), American circus ringmaster, co-founded Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

July 4 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: John Adams (1826), American lawyer and politician, 2nd President of the United States; Thomas Jefferson (1826), American architect, lawyer, and politician, 3rd President of the United States; James Monroe (1831), American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 5th President of the United States; and William L. Marcy (1857), American lawyer, judge, and politician, 21st United States Secretary of State.

The date carries formal observance as well — Independence Day (United States). Read end to end, July 4 is less a list than a cross-section: 8 entries that happen to share a square on the calendar, separated by as much as 190 years. The coincidence is arbitrary; the accumulation is not.