On New Year's Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That date turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day—but Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. Among the stories here are the shocking crime that facilitated a historic heart transplant; New York Mayor Ed Koch receiving a hostile welcome at a church; Les Miserables overcoming technical difficulties in its American debut; and yBill Gates on a radio show, predicting that there will be a computer in every home. Many of the events never made it into the news, and Weingarten is profound as recounts the private dramas in the lives of everyday people.