September 3

September 3 is the 247th day of the year, and the American record for it runs from 1777 to 1991 — a span of 214 years. The entry that anchors it: American Revolutionary War, 1777.

The revolutionary generation left its own mark on the date. In 1777, American Revolutionary War — during the Battle of Cooch's Bridge, the Flag of the United States is flown in battle for the first time. Six years on, in 1783, American Revolutionary War — the war ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The antebellum decades brought the date closer to the country’s central argument. In 1838, Future abolitionist Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery. Then, in 1855, American Indian Wars — in Nebraska, 700 soldiers under United States General William S. Harney avenge the Grattan massacre by attacking a Sioux village and killing 100 men, women and children. Six years on, in 1861, American Civil War — Confederate General Leonidas Polk invades neutral Kentucky, prompting the state legislature to ask for Union assistance.

The early twentieth century brought industry, air travel and war to the date. In 1925, USS Shenandoah, the United States' first American-built rigid airship, was destroyed in a squall line over Noble County, Ohio. Fourteen of her 42-man crew perished, including her commander, Zachary Lansdowne.

After 1945 the date reflects a country operating at global scale. In 1981, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, an international bill of rights for women, is instituted by the United Nations.

The most recent entries fall within living memory. In 1991, a fire killed 25 people locked inside a burning chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, U.S.

The date is also a birthday. Among the Americans born on September 3: Paul Dudley (1675), American lawyer and jurist; Prudence Crandall (1803), American educator; John Humphrey Noyes (1811), American activist, founded the Oneida Community; George Hearst (1820), American businessman and politician; and Sarah Orne Jewett (1849), American novelist, short story writer and poet.

September 3 is also a date of endings. Among the Americans who died on it: John Montgomery (1808), American merchant and politician; John McLoughlin (1857), Canadian-American businessman; William W. Snow (1886), American lawyer and politician; and Will James (1942), Canadian-American author and illustrator.

The date carries formal observance as well — National Welsh Rarebit Day (United States). What holds these 8 entries together is nothing more than the calendar, and nothing less. 214 years separate the earliest from the latest, and each was once simply the present day.