May 22

May 22 is the 143rd day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1807 to 2017 — a span of 210 years. The entry that anchors it: Reconstruction Era, 1872.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1807, a grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason. Then, in 1849, Abraham Lincoln was issued a patent for an invention to lift boats over obstacles in a river, making him the only U.S. president ever to hold a patent. Seven years on, in 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina severely beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made regarding Southerners and slavery. Seven years on, in 1863, American Civil War — Union forces begin the Siege of Port Hudson which lasts 48 days, the longest siege in U.S. military history. A year later, in 1864, American Civil War — after ten weeks, the Union Army's Red River Campaign ends in failure.

In the postwar nineteenth century the date tracks a nation rebuilding. In 1872, Reconstruction Era — President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law, restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson launches his Great Society program.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 2017, United States President Donald Trump visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and becomes the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Western Wall.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on May 22: Worthington Whittredge (1820), American painter; Mary Cassatt (1844), American painter and educator; Maurice J. Tobin (1901), American politician, 6th United States Secretary of Labor; Al Simmons (1902), American baseball player and coach; and Horton Smith (1908), American golfer and captain.

May 22 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Mordecai Manuel Noah (1851), American journalist and diplomat; Thornsbury Bailey Brown (1861), American soldier; Gaetano Bresci (1901), Italian-American anarchist, assassin of Umberto I of Italy; and William Glackens (1938), American painter and illustrator.

The date carries formal observance as well — Aromanian National Day (marginal, celebration on May 23 is more common); International Day for Biological Diversity (International); and United States National Maritime Day. 8 entries, 210 years, one square on the calendar. May 22 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.