September 12

September 12 is the 256th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1952 to 1993 — a span of 41 years. The entry that anchors it: Gemini 11, 1966.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1952, three boys in Flatwoods, West Virginia, U.S., reported seeing a ten-foot-tall (3 m) monster in the woods while investigating a UFO. A year later, in 1953, U.S. Senator and future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island. Nine years on, in 1962, US President John F. Kennedy delivers his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech at Rice University. Four years on, in 1966, Gemini 11, the penultimate mission of NASA's Gemini program, and the current human altitude record holder (except for the Apollo lunar missions) Then, in 1983, the clandestine Boricua Popular Army staged a bank robbery in West Hartford, Connecticut, making off with $7 million in the largest cash theft in U.S. history at the time.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 1991, NASA launches Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-48 to deploy the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite. A year later, in 1992, NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-47 which marked the 50th shuttle mission. On board are Mae Carol Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to fly in a US spaceship, and Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space. A year later, in 1993, NASA launches Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-51.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on September 12: Benjamin Carr (1768), English-American singer-songwriter, educator, and publisher; Samuel Joseph May (1797), American activist; Richard March Hoe (1812), American engineer and businessman, invented the Rotary printing press; Richard Jordan Gatling (1818), American inventor, invented the Gatling gun; and Charles Dudley Warner (1829), American essayist and novelist.

September 12 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1870), American journalist, explorer, and author; Sarah Frances Whiting (1927), American physicist and astronomer; Lewis Stone (1953), American actor; and Spot Poles (1962), American baseball player and soldier.

The date carries formal observance as well — Defenders Day (Maryland, United States); National Day (Cape Verde); and National Day of Encouragement (United States). The record for September 12 runs 41 years deep across 8 entries. Read in sequence, the date stops being a coincidence and starts being a through-line.