May 13

May 13 is the 134th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1780 to 2013 — a span of 233 years. The entry that anchors it: During a visit to Caracas, 1958.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1780, the Cumberland Compact is signed by leaders of the settlers in the Cumberland River area of what would become the U.S. state of Tennessee, providing for democratic government and a formal system of justice.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1846, Mexican–American War — the United States declares war on the Federal Republic of Mexico following a dispute over the American annexation of the Republic of Texas and a Mexican military incursion. Then, in 1861, American Civil War — Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the Confederacy as having belligerent rights. A year later, in 1862, Southern slave Robert Smalls steals the steamboat Planter, spirits it through Confederate lines and hands it to the United States Navy, who quickly commission it as the gunboat USS Planter and appoint Smalls as captain, thus making him the first black man to command a United States ship.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1948, Arab–Israeli War — the Kfar Etzion massacre occurs, a day prior to the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Ten years on, in 1958, during a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, the US Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 1998, India carries out two nuclear weapon tests at Pokhran, following the three conducted on May 11. The United States and Japan impose economic sanctions on India. Then, in 2013, American physician Kermit Gosnell is found guilty in Pennsylvania of murdering three infants born alive during attempted abortions, involuntary manslaughter of a woman during an abortion procedure, and other charges.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on May 13: Zebulon Baird Vance (1830), American colonel, lawyer, and politician, 37th Governor of North Carolina; Tom O'Rourke (1856), American boxer and manager; Sumner Paine (1868), American target shooter; Joe Forshaw (1881), American runner; and Georgios Papanikolaou (1883), Greek-American pathologist, invented the pap smear.

May 13 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Eliphalet Dyer (1807), American colonel, lawyer, and politician; John Littlejohn (1836), American sheriff and Methodist preacher; Joseph Henry (1878), American physicist and academic; and Cyrus McCormick (1884), American businessman, co-founded the International Harvester Company.

May 13 carries 8 entries spread across 233 years. None of the people in them knew they were sharing a date; that is a pattern only visible looking back.