March 5

March 5 is the 65th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1766 to 1979 — a span of 213 years. The entry that anchors it: Boston Massacre, 1770.

The colonial record reaches this date first. In 1766, Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans. Four years on, in 1770, Boston Massacre — five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are fatally shot by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence) five years later. The same year, American Revolution — British soldiers fired into a crowd in Boston, killing five people.

In the first half of the twentieth century the date turns technological. In 1906, Moro Rebellion — United States Army troops bring overwhelming force against the native Moros in the First Battle of Bud Dajo, leaving only six survivors.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1960, Indonesian President Sukarno dismisses the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR), 1955 democratically elected parliament, and replaces it with DPR-GR, the parliament of his own selected members. Three years on, in 1963, American country-music performers Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and Hawkshaw Hawkins were killed when their PA-24 crashed shortly after takeoff in Camden, Tennessee. Then, in 1978, the Landsat 3 is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A year later, in 1979, Soviet probes Venera 11, Venera 12 and the German-American solar satellite Helios II all are hit by "off the scale" gamma rays leading to the discovery of soft gamma repeaters.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on March 5: Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge (1739), American colonel and physician; Robert Cooper Grier (1794), American lawyer and jurist; John Wentworth (1815), American journalist and politician, 19th Mayor of Chicago; Howard Pyle (1853), American author and illustrator; and Frank Norris (1870), American journalist and author.

March 5 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Crispus Attucks (1770), American slave, sailor, and stevedore, generally regarded as the first victim of the Boston Massacre; Mary Louise Booth (1889), American writer, editor and translator; David Dunbar Buick (1929), Scottish-American businessman, founded Buick; and Edgar Lee Masters (1950), American poet, author, and playwright.

8 entries, 213 years, one square on the calendar. March 5 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.