June 15

June 15 is the 167th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1607 to 1992 — a span of 385 years. The entry that anchors it: The Oregon Treaty extends the border between the United States and British North America, 1846.

The colonial record reaches this date first. In 1607, Virginia colonists finish building James's Fort, to defend against Spanish and Native American attacks.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1804, New Hampshire approves the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratifying the document. Then, in 1846, the Oregon Treaty extends the border between the United States and British North America, established by the Treaty of 1818, westward to the Pacific Ocean. Then, in 1859, the shooting of a pig in the San Juan Islands led to the so-called Pig War over the border between the United States and British North America.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1920, three African-American circus workers were lynched by a mob in Duluth, Minnesota, a crime that shocked the country for having taken place in the Northern United States. Then, in 1944, World War II — the United States Army Air Forces began the first air raid of its strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese archipelago, although little damage was caused. The same year, World War II — the United States invades Saipan, capital of Japan's South Seas Mandate.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 1992, the United States Supreme Court rules in United States v. Álvarez-Machaín that it is permissible for the United States to forcibly extradite suspects in foreign countries and bring them to the United States for trial, without approval from those other countries.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on June 15: Rachel Jackson (1767), American wife of Andrew Jackson; Josiah Henson (1789), American minister, author, and activist; Benjamin Wright Raymond (1801), American merchant and politician, 3rd Mayor of Chicago; William B. Ogden (1805), American businessman and politician, 1st Mayor of Chicago; and Adah Isaacs Menken (1835), American actress, painter, and poet.

June 15 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: James K. Polk (1849), American lawyer and politician, 11th President of the United States; Frank Elbridge Webb (1949), American engineer and presidential candidate; Sam Crawford (1968), American baseball player, coach, and umpire; and Wes Montgomery (1968), American guitarist and songwriter.

8 entries, 385 years, one square on the calendar. June 15 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.