March 7

March 7 is the 67th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1850 to 1968 — a span of 118 years. The entry that anchors it: United States senator Daniel Webster delivered a speech advocating compromise on slavery, 1850.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1850, United States senator Daniel Webster delivered a speech advocating compromise on slavery, which proved to be unpopular with abolitionists in his home state.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1945, World War II — the American 9th Armored Division unexpectedly captures an intact bridge over the Rhine.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1965, Unarmed civil rights activists marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, were attacked by police on "Bloody Sunday" Three years on, in 1968, Vietnam War — the United States and South Vietnam began Operation Truong Cong Dinh to sweep the area surrounding the Mekong Delta town of Mỹ Tho to root out Viet Cong forces in the area.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on March 7: Increase A. Lapham (1811), American scientist; Henry Draper (1837), American physician and astronomer; William Rockhill Nelson (1841), American businessman and publisher, founded The Kansas City Star; Marriott Henry Brosius (1843), American senator; and Luther Burbank (1849), American botanist.

March 7 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Robert Townsend (1838), American spy; Robert Abbe (1928), American surgeon and radiologist; Baby Doe Tabor (1935), American pioneer; and Bradbury Robinson (1949), American football player, physician, and politician.

What holds these 4 entries together is nothing more than the calendar, and nothing less. 118 years separate the earliest from the latest, and each was once simply the present day.