June 23

June 23 is the 175th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1865 to 1982 — a span of 117 years. The entry that anchors it: Watergate scandal, 1972.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1865, American Civil War — at Fort Towson in the Oklahoma Territory, Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant Confederate army.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1947, the United States Senate follows the United States House of Representatives in overriding U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto of the Taft–Hartley Act. Then, in 1959, Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumes a scientific career. Eight years on, in 1967, Cold War — U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey for the three-day Glassboro Summit Conference. Two years on, in 1969, Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren. Three years on, in 1972, Watergate scandal — U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman are taped talking about illegally using the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into the Watergate break-ins. The same year, Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds. Ten years on, in 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin died after being beaten into a coma in Highland Park, Michigan, U.S., by two automotive workers who were angry about the success of Japanese auto companies.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on June 23: John Milton Bernhisel (1799), American physician and politician; Bronson M. Cutting (1888), American publisher and politician; Alfred Kinsey (1894), American entomologist and sexologist; Blanche Noyes (1900), American aviator, winner of the 1936 Bendix Trophy Race; and Gordon B. Hinckley (1910), American religious leader, 15th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

June 23 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Samuel Newitt Wood (1891), American lawyer and politician; Roscoe Turner (1970), American soldier and pilot; Clyfford Still (1980), American painter and academic; and Eric Andolsek (1992), American football player.

The date carries formal observance as well — National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism (Canada). What holds these 8 entries together is nothing more than the calendar, and nothing less. 117 years separate the earliest from the latest, and each was once simply the present day.