An infamous pirate, Old Glory and a deadly flood of molasses all make appearances in the histories of 1717, 1818 and 1919, "double dates" that come along every 101 years.
With 2020 ahead of us, we thought it would be fun to look back at some of the events, both big and small, that took place during those years and helped shape the past three centuries.
1717: Blizzards, Blackbeard and a band on a barge
In late February and early March, a series of blizzards covered the Virginia and New England colonies in 5 feet of snow, with drifts up to 20 feet deep. The snow buried whole houses and made post roads impassable for more than two weeks. Travel was also impossible for a time from New York City to Boston. The event became known as the Great Snow of 1717.
Across the Atlantic in July, composer George Frederick Handel debuted a collection of pieces known as his "Water Music" in a remarkable River Thames concert.
British King George I had commissioned the music, and he and some aristocrats in his court boarded a royal barge the evening of July 17 to hear it. About 50 musicians played "Water Music" on another barge, and along with other Londoners who had joined them on the river, both barges traveled upstream to Chelsea. A newspaper at the time said "the whole River in a manner was covered" with boats and barges.
The king so liked the music that he ordered it to be repeated at least three times. Today, the suite is often still performed outdoors, but by larger orchestras.
By 1717, it was near the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, and in November, one of the era's most infamous characters became legendary.
Edward Teach had been a privateer and in 1716 joined the crew of pirate Capt. Benjamin Hornigold. After Hornigold's retirement in 1717, Teach captured La Concorde, a French slave ship, and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge. He equipped his new ship with 40 guns and crewed it with more than 300 men.
Teach became known as Blackbeard, and until his death at the hands of Virginia soldiers and sailors a year later, he plagued the American coast, at one point blockading Charles Town, South Carolina, and ransoming its residents.
The popular image of Blackbeard became the prevalent cultural depiction of the era's pirates, which lives on in stories to this day.
1818: 'Frankenstein,' first ladies and the flag
On New Year's Day, a novel destined to resonate in popular culture for the next two centuries was first published.
Mary Shelley's name did not appear on the first edition of the 20-year-old's new novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus," and it would not be until the second edition was published in 1823 that she was recognized as the book's author.
In the now-famous story, a young scientist named Victor Frankenstein reanimates dead flesh, creating a hideous monster and raising profound questions about what it means to play God.
Depictions of the monster, especially actor Boris Karloff's portrayal in a 1931 film adaptation of the novel, have lodged in the collective imagination as symbols of terror, alienation and hubris.
On April 4, Congress enacted the Flag Act of 1818, the first law setting the current form of the the U.S. flag. The act specified that the flag must have 13 horizontal stripes to match the number of origianal American colonies and that it will have a star for each state in the union.
The previous official U.S. flag, as defined by the Flag Act of 1794, had 15 stripes and 15 stars to reflect the number of states then in the union. This flag form was the one Francis Scott Key wrote about in his poem "The Star-Spangled Banner," which became the lyrics of the U.S. national anthem.
Until 1912, when a 48-star flag was adopted, there was no standard way to arrange the stars on the flag, and creative designers used various rectangular and circular patterns of stars throughout the 19th century.
A remarkable overlapping of lives occurred in May, when for five days both Paul Revere, famed patriot of the American Revolution, and Karl Marx, the German philosopher who popularized communism, were alive.
Marx was born May 5, 1818, and died in 1883. Revere was born in 1735 and died May 10, 1818.
On Oct. 28, former first lady Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, died. On Dec. 13, future first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, was born.
1919: Molasses, making peace and the major leagues
On Jan. 15, the Great Molasses Flood killed 21 and injured 150 in Boston.
A storage tank holding 2.3 million gallons of molasses - meant to be fermented into ethanol - burst, sending a 25-foot wave through the streets of Boston's North End at 35 mph.
The viscous liquid trapped people and horses alike and caused widespread destruction.
For decades afterward, locals claimed they could still smell molasses in the neighborhood on hot days.
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, authorizing prohibition of alcohol, was ratified on Jan. 16. Congress passed the Volstead Act, a law carrying out Prohibition, on Oct. 28. Prohibition went into effect on Jan. 17, 1920, and lasted until 1933.
On June 28, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, officially ending World War I. The treaty was seen as too punitive by countries that had lost the war, including Germany, and backlash against it was a major cause of the rise of the Nazi Party and eventually of World War II.
On Oct. 9, the Cincinnati Reds baseball team wins the Major League World Series, beating the Chicago White Sox five games to three. A later investigation revealed that eight White Sox players took bribes from gamblers to intentionally lose the series.
The incident, which became known as the Black Sox Scandal, led to a crackdown on gambling by baseball players. A century later, Reds great Pete Rose is banned from the game and blocked out of the Baseball Hall of Fame because he gambled on his own team.
Another infamous occurrence in professional baseball took place Dec. 26, when Babe Ruth, one of the best players of all time, was traded by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees for $125,000.
The trade was thought to have hexed the Red Sox, and superstitious fans blamed "The Curse of the Bambino" for the team not winning a World Series between 1918 and 2004.