June 30

June 30 is the 182nd day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1805 to 1986 — a span of 181 years. The entry that anchors it: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, 1864.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1805, under An act to divide the Indiana Territory into two separate governments, adopted by the U.S. Congress on January 11, 1805, the Michigan Territory is organized. Then, in 1864, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation"

In the postwar nineteenth century the date tracks a nation rebuilding. In 1882, Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1921, U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the United States. A year later, in 1922, in Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ends the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1959, a United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood. Seven years on, in 1966, the National Organization for Women, a leading United States feminist organization, was founded in Washington, D.C. Then, in 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bowers v. Hardwick that states can outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on June 30: Man Mountain Dean (1891), American wrestler and sergeant; Ed Lewis (1891), American wrestler and manager; Nellah Massey Bailey (1893), American politician and librarian; Heinz Warneke (1895), German-American sculptor and educator; and Madge Bellamy (1899), American actress.

June 30 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Abraham Yates Jr. (1796), American lawyer and politician; Charles J. Guiteau (1882), American preacher and lawyer, assassin of James A. Garfield; Samuel Parkman Tuckerman (1890), American organist and composer; and Thomas Hill (1908), American painter.

June 30 carries 8 entries spread across 181 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.