September 30 has a habit of introducing newcomers. In 1868 Louisa May Alcott, who had not wanted to write a book for girls, saw the first volume of Little Women published in Boston. In 1924 Truman Capote was born in New Orleans, the future author of In Cold Blood and, like Alcott, a writer who drew on the people closest to him. In 1947 Pakistan, little more than a month old, took its seat at the United Nations.

The later anniversaries belong to broadcasting. In 1960 The Flintstones brought a Stone Age family to American prime time and showed that animation could carry an evening sitcom. In 1967 the BBC launched Radio 1, its answer to the outlawed pirate stations, with Tony Blackburn welcoming listeners to “the exciting new sound”. Across a century, the date links a Concord family home, a Kansas crime story, a diplomatic chamber, a cartoon suburb, and a breakfast show, each the start of something that outlasted its first day.

September 29 has a strong Spanish accent. Miguel de Cervantes, the soldier, captive, and tax collector who went on to write Don Quixote, is traditionally said to have been born on this day in 1547 in Alcalá de Henares. Nearly three centuries later, in 1833, Ferdinand VII died after a reign of exile, broken promises, and repression, leaving a disputed throne that pulled Spain into the Carlist Wars.

The 20th century brings new voices from across the Atlantic and new forms of cooperation in Europe. In 1954, 12 countries ratified the convention that created CERN, the Geneva laboratory where physicists later found the Higgs boson and where the World Wide Web was born. Ten years later, the Argentine cartoonist Quino introduced Mafalda, a six-year-old who questions the adult world with the kind of sharp wit Cervantes would have recognized. And in 1998, Shakira released ¿Dónde Están los Ladrones?, an album about thieves of every kind that carried Latin rock to a global audience.

September 28 spans more than a century of endings and fresh starts. In 1895 Louis Pasteur died near Paris, leaving behind vaccines against rabies and anthrax and a word, pasteurization, still in everyday use. Thirty-nine years later, in 1934, Brigitte Bardot was born in the same city. She grew into the face of French cinema in the 1950s and 1960s before trading films for a long campaign on behalf of animals.

Politics and spectacle fill the later years. In 1961 Syrian officers seized Damascus at dawn and, by midnight, had ended their country’s union with Egypt. Forty years on, in 2001, Ben Stiller’s Zoolander poked fun at the fashion world from theaters in a country still shaken by the September 11 attacks. And in 2008, on a small island in the Pacific, SpaceX’s Falcon 1 finally reached orbit on its fourth try, a success that kept the young company alive.

September 27 stretches from the palaces of 17th-century France to the search box on every screen. In 1601, Marie de’ Medici gave birth at Fontainebleau to the boy who became Louis XIII, the king who, with Cardinal Richelieu, bent the French nobility to the crown. More than three centuries later, in 1937, hunters in western Bali shot a female tiger often recorded as the island’s last, closing the story of a population that colonial sport and spreading farmland had pushed to the edge.

The modern half of the day is about reinvention and image. Google, legally founded on September 4, 1998, wandered across several September dates before it settled on this one as its birthday. In 2013, a New Zealand teenager named Lorde released Pure Heroine, a quiet, bass-heavy album that changed how pop could sound. And in 2017, Hugh Hefner, who started Playboy with a $600 loan and turned it into a worldwide brand, died at his mansion at 91, leaving a legacy that is still fiercely debated.

September 26 opens in 1868 with the death of August Möbius in Leipzig, a quiet astronomer whose name lives on in a strip of paper with only one side. Nearly a century later, on the same date in 1960, a Chicago television studio hosted the first televised presidential debate, where John F. Kennedy looked calm and rested while Richard Nixon struggled under the lights. Nine years after that, the Beatles released Abbey Road, the last album they recorded together, its cover showing four musicians on a London street crossing.

The later events move from the stage to the wider world. Serena Williams was born in Michigan in 1981 and went on to win 23 major singles titles, changing what power looked like in women’s tennis. In 1999, finance ministers rattled by a run of financial crises founded the G20, a forum that brings much of the world’s economy around one table. Together, the five stories show how an image, a single performance, or a careful idea can shape what comes after it.

September 25 stretches from Renaissance Rome to American college towns. In 1534, Pope Clement VII died after a reign scarred by the Sack of Rome and England’s break with the Church, though not before backing Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. Nearly four centuries later, in 1926, members of the League of Nations signed the Slavery Convention, a treaty that gave international law its definition of slavery and outlived the League itself.

The later events share a taste for modest beginnings. In 1968, Will Smith was born in Philadelphia, years before a house party turned him into the Fresh Prince and a long film career led to an Oscar. In 1977, about 4,200 runners set off in a self-funded race that grew into the Chicago Marathon. And in 2009, Paranormal Activity, a horror film shot in one week for about $15,000, opened in 12 college towns and rode fan demand to a worldwide hit.

September 24 opens in the Andes. In 1572, Spanish authorities beheaded Túpac Amaru, the last Sapa Inca, before a vast crowd in Cuzco, closing the final chapter of the Inca Empire. More than three centuries later, the date turns to beginnings. F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1896, and grew up to capture the glitter and unease of the Jazz Age. On the feast of La Mercè in 1957, FC Barcelona opened Camp Nou, a stadium built on borrowed money that became the largest in Europe.

The later events belong to popular culture. On this day in 1991, Nirvana released Nevermind, an album its label hoped might sell a quarter of a million copies. It sold tens of millions and pulled alternative rock into the mainstream. In 2007, CBS premiered The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom about awkward physicists that grew from weak early ratings into one of the most watched comedies on television. Together, the five stories trace how a single date can hold both the end of an empire and the start of things people still argue about, watch, and read.