November 17

November 17 is the 322nd day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1800 to 2013 — a span of 213 years. The entry that anchors it: Watergate scandal, 1973.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1800, the United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C. Then, in 1856, American Old West — on the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy dedicates Washington Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C., region. Five years on, in 1967, Vietnam War — Acting on optimistic reports that he had been given on November 13, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson tells the nation that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking...We are making progress." A year later, in 1968, Viewers of the Raiders–Jets football game in the eastern United States are denied the opportunity to watch its exciting finish when NBC broadcasts Heidi instead, prompting changes to sports broadcasting in the U.S. The same year, NBC controversially cut away from an American football game between the Oakland Raiders and New York Jets to broadcast Heidi, causing viewers in the Eastern United States to miss the game's dramatic ending. Five years on, in 1973, Watergate scandal — in Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook."

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 2013, an outbreak of 77 confirmed tornadoes occurred in seven U.S. states; it became the largest November tornado outbreak in Illinois and Indiana.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on November 17: Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg (1753), American pastor and botanist; Andrew L. Harris (1835), American general and politician, 44th Governor of Ohio; Voltairine de Cleyre (1866), American author and activist; Grace Abbott (1878), American social worker; and Augustus Goessling (1878), American swimmer and water polo player.

November 17 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: David Zeisberger (1808), Czech-American pastor and missionary; James McCune Smith (1865), American physician and author; George Hendric Houghton (1897), American pastor and theologian; and Ralph Johnstone (1910), American pilot.

The record for November 17 runs 213 years deep across 8 entries. Read in sequence, the date stops being a coincidence and starts being a through-line.