November 20

November 20 is the 325th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1776 to 1998 — a span of 222 years. The entry that anchors it: New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights, 1789.

The revolutionary generation left its own mark on the date. In 1776, American Revolutionary War — the Battle of Fort Lee saw the invasion of New Jersey by British and Hessian forces and the subsequent general retreat of the Continental Army. Then, in 1789, New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1861, American Civil War — a secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis ends — in response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation. Seven years on, in 1969, Occupation of Alcatraz — Native American activists seize control of Alcatraz Island until being ousted by the U.S. Government on June 11, 1971. Five years on, in 1974, the United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 1993, Savings and loan crisis — the United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating. Five years on, in 1998, a court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on November 20: Oliver Wolcott (1726), American politician; Philip Schuyler (1733), American general and senator; John Merle Coulter (1851), American botanist; Josiah Royce (1855), American philosopher; and Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866), American lawyer and judge.

November 20 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Albert Newsam (1864), American painter and illustrator; Henry Draper (1882), American doctor and astronomer; William Bliss Baker (1886), American painter; and Tom Horn (1903), American scout, cowboy, soldier.

What holds these 8 entries together is nothing more than the calendar, and nothing less. 222 years separate the earliest from the latest, and each was once simply the present day.