September 25

September 25 is the 269th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1775 to 1997 — a span of 222 years. The entry that anchors it: The United States Congress passes twelve constitutional amendments, 1789.

The colonial record reaches this date first. In 1775, American Revolutionary War — Ethan Allen and a small force of American and Quebec militia failed to capture the city of Montreal from British forces. The same year, American Revolutionary War — Benedict Arnold's expedition to Quebec sets off to join the American invasion.

In the years around independence, the date turns political. In 1789, the United States Congress passes twelve constitutional amendments: the ten known as the Bill of Rights, the (unratified) Congressional Apportionment Amendment, and the Congressional Compensation Amendment.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the date carries heavier freight. In 1804, the Teton Sioux (a subdivision of the Lakota) demand one of the boats from the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a toll for allowing the expedition to move further upriver.

In the postwar nineteenth century the date tracks a nation rebuilding. In 1890, the United States Congress establishes Sequoia National Park.

The postwar entries show a nation both expanding and contesting itself. In 1957, United States Army troops escorted nine students as Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas was integrated. Then, in 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Closer to the present, the date is still accumulating. In 1997, NASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-86 to the Mir space station.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on September 25: Nicholas Van Dyke (1738), American lawyer and politician, 7th Governor of Delaware; William Pitt Ballinger (1825), American lawyer and politician; Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866), American biologist, geneticist, and embryologist, Nobel Prize laureate; William Faulkner (1897), American novelist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate; and Robert Brackman (1898), Ukrainian-American painter and educator.

September 25 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: William Bradford (1791), American soldier and publisher; Oliver Loving (1867), American rancher, co-developed the Goodnight–Loving Trail; John M. Palmer (1900), American general and politician, 15th Governor of Illinois; and Richard F. Outcault (1928), American cartoonist, created The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown.

The date carries formal observance as well — Bangladeshi Immigration Day (United States) and National Research Administrators Day (United States). 8 entries, 222 years, one square on the calendar. September 25 is a reminder that history is experienced as an ordinary day before it is remembered as a date.