Every so often I include a small “This Day in History” item. The research leads down countless paths, many of no Illinois significance. Those diversions inform a philosophy about interconnectedness, reflections about what our culture remembers and why and also the passage of time.

In childhood, my 1979 birthday never seemed unusual. Even my great-grandmother was born in the same century. But all my sons are 2000s kids, and should they become parents someday their children will consider me a breathing time capsule, although all my life was photographed in color.

July 21 is an especially ripe day for history nuggets, like the first battle of Bull Run in 1861, Jesse James’ first successful train robbery in 1873, the 1925 guilty verdict against science teacher John Scopes or the 1969 moonwalk.

There are some Illinois angles as well: In 1865, La Salle County native Wild Bill Hickok killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, Missouri, possibly the first old west gunfight. In 1919, the Wingfoot Air Express crashed into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in the Chicago Loop, killing 13 and injuring dozens more in what then was the worst blimp disaster on record. And in 1959, at Comiskey Park, “Pumpsie” Green debuted as a Boston Red Sox pinch runner, the first Black player for the last big league club to integrate.

That last item set me thinking about how we consider time. It’s not so much that 1959 is 63 years ago, but that Green debuted 12 years after Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby integrated the National and American leagues and 10 before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left footprints on the moon.

President Kennedy’s speech declaring the country would put astronauts on the moon happened in September 1962. The address was so significant it anchored a student’s remarks at my son’s eighth-grade graduation in May 2022. Apollo 11 captivated the world 2,504 days after JFK’s vow, whereas the span from Robinson’s debut to Green’s was 4,481.

The further we get from any of these events, the more the years seem to compress into some vague concept of “the past.” But what might we experience in seven years, or 12?

Two years ago today I first wrote about Michael Madigan’s implication in the ComEd bribery investigation. He’d seemingly been in power forever; his reign ended within six months. Indicted in March, we can’t guess a date for the end of Madigan’s legal saga. Eventually the events will be timeline entries in the complete biography of a guy who turned 5 a day after Robinson’s first MLB home run.

All of us are living the history future Illinoisans may study. Only time will tell which events have lasting significance.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Media. Follow him on Twitter @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.