On This Day

App · Misc References · 7 actions

Look up what happened on any day of the year with On This Day, the free keyless API behind byabbe.se. Get the events, births and deaths Wikipedia records for a date, today's unless you name another, narrowed by keyword or by century, pick one at random for a fact-of-the-day post, or find what turns fifty or a hundred today. Every year comes back as a number rather than the string the service sends, BC years included, and a date with an empty section is an empty answer rather than a failed step. The data is harvested from Wikipedia and shares its CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. No account and no API key: connecting takes one click.

Actions

ActionWhat it does
Check service statusCheck whether On This Day is answering, and how quickly.
Get a random historical factPick one entry at random from a date, for a fact-of-the-day post.
Get births on a dateGet who was born on a day of the year, with the year and the Wikipedia article for each.
Get deaths on a dateGet who died on a day of the year, with the year and the Wikipedia article for each.
Get events on a dateGet what happened on a day of the year, as Wikipedia records it: the year, what happened, and the articles it links to.
Get round-number anniversariesFind what turns fifty, a hundred or two hundred today: the entries on a date whose age this year divides exactly by the interval you set.
Get this day in historyGet the events, the births and the deaths of one date in a single step, with the full count of each.

Check service status

Check whether On This Day is answering, and how quickly. This is the one action that reports a problem as a value instead of failing the step, so a workflow can decide what to do about it. Being asked to slow down is reported separately from being down. No API key required.

Inputs

None.

Outputs

messagetext
What happened, in a sentence.
onlinetrue/false
Whether the service answered with usable day-of-the-year data.
rate_limitedtrue/false
Whether it asked this workspace to slow down.
reachabletrue/false
Whether it answered at all. A service that is reachable but not online is refusing or misreporting rather than down.
response_time_msnumber
How long the answer took, in milliseconds.
status_codenumber
The HTTP status it answered with, or empty when it could not be reached.
Example output
{
  "message": "On This Day is up and serving Wikipedia's day-of-the-year data.",
  "online": true,
  "rate_limited": false,
  "reachable": true,
  "response_time_ms": 128.4,
  "status_code": 200
}

Get a random historical fact

Pick one entry at random from a date, for a fact-of-the-day post. Choose which section to draw from, and narrow it by keyword or year first. A date with nothing to draw from comes back with 'found' false rather than failing the step. No API key required.

Inputs

Datedatetext
The day of the year to look up, as a date: 2026-02-02, 2/2 or February 2 all work. Any year in it is ignored, because the service is keyed on a month and a day: asking about 2026-02-02 returns everything that ever happened on a 2 February. Leave empty to use today, or to use the month and day fields below.
Monthmonthnumber
The month to look up, 1 to 12. Give a day as well, or leave both empty for today. Ignored when a date is given above.From 1 to 12.
Daydaynumber
The day of the month to look up. 29 February is served like any other date, since the service is keyed on a month and a day with no year. Give a month as well, or leave both empty for today.From 1 to 31.
UTC offset for 'today'utc_offsetnumber
Hours from UTC to decide which day 'today' is, such as -8 for California or 5.5 for India. Only used when no date is given. A workflow posting at 9am in Auckland reads yesterday's page without it.From -12.0 to 14.0. Default: 0.
Draw fromcategorytext
Which section to pick from. 'Anything' draws from all three, which costs three requests instead of one.One of: events, births, deaths, any (Anything). Default: events.
Keywordkeywordtext
Only return entries mentioning this text. The linked article titles are searched as well as the sentence, which is where the names usually are. Matching ignores capitalisation.
From yearfrom_yearnumber
Only return entries from this year onwards. Use a negative number for a year BC, so -509 means 509 BC. Entries whose year could not be read are left out once a range is given.
To yearto_yearnumber
Only return entries up to and including this year.

Outputs

categorytext
Which section it was drawn from.
choicesnumber
How many entries it picked from, after the filters.
datetext
The day of the year asked about, as the service names it.
daynumber
The day asked about.
descriptiontext
The picked entry's text on its own, so a message template reads 'description' rather than 'fact.description'.
factobject
The entry that was picked, empty when there was nothing to pick.
foundtrue/false
Whether there was anything to pick from. False means the date and filters matched nothing, which is an answer rather than a failure.
monthnumber
The month asked about, 1 to 12.
wikipediatext
The Wikipedia article for that day of the year.
yearnumber
The picked entry's year, on its own.
Example output
{
  "category": "events",
  "choices": 123,
  "date": "February 2",
  "day": 2,
  "description": "Mexican\u2013American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States.",
  "fact": {
    "category": "event",
    "description": "Mexican\u2013American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States.",
    "links": [
      {
        "title": "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo",
        "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo"
      }
    ],
    "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo",
    "year": 1848,
    "year_text": "1848",
    "years_ago": 178
  },
  "found": true,
  "month": 2,
  "wikipedia": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2",
  "year": 1848
}

Get births on a date

Get who was born on a day of the year, with the year and the Wikipedia article for each. Leave the date empty for today. Narrow it to a century with a year range, or to a field with a keyword, which searches the linked article titles as well as the sentence. No API key required.

Inputs

Datedatetext
The day of the year to look up, as a date: 2026-02-02, 2/2 or February 2 all work. Any year in it is ignored, because the service is keyed on a month and a day: asking about 2026-02-02 returns everything that ever happened on a 2 February. Leave empty to use today, or to use the month and day fields below.
Monthmonthnumber
The month to look up, 1 to 12. Give a day as well, or leave both empty for today. Ignored when a date is given above.From 1 to 12.
Daydaynumber
The day of the month to look up. 29 February is served like any other date, since the service is keyed on a month and a day with no year. Give a month as well, or leave both empty for today.From 1 to 31.
UTC offset for 'today'utc_offsetnumber
Hours from UTC to decide which day 'today' is, such as -8 for California or 5.5 for India. Only used when no date is given. A workflow posting at 9am in Auckland reads yesterday's page without it.From -12.0 to 14.0. Default: 0.
Keywordkeywordtext
Only return entries mentioning this text. The linked article titles are searched as well as the sentence, which is where the names usually are. Matching ignores capitalisation.
From yearfrom_yearnumber
Only return entries from this year onwards. Use a negative number for a year BC, so -509 means 509 BC. Entries whose year could not be read are left out once a range is given.
To yearto_yearnumber
Only return entries up to and including this year.
Orderordertext
Which end of history to start at. Oldest first matches the order the service publishes; newest first puts this century at the top, which is usually what a digest wants.One of: oldest_first (Oldest first), newest_first (Newest first). Default: oldest_first.
Maximum entrieslimitnumber
How many births to return at most. Leave empty for every one of them; a busy date publishes over a hundred.From 1 to 500.

Outputs

categorytext
Which section this is: always 'births'.
countnumber
How many entries are in the returned list.
datetext
The day of the year asked about, as the service names it, e.g. 'February 2'.
daynumber
The day asked about.
descriptionslist
Just the text of each birth, ready to put in a message.
entrieslist
The births, oldest first unless reordered.
monthnumber
The month asked about, 1 to 12.
totalnumber
How many births the service publishes for that date altogether, before any filter or limit. Zero is a real answer: some dates have no entries in a section at all.
wikipediatext
The Wikipedia article for that day of the year, which is where these entries were harvested from.
Example output
{
  "category": "births",
  "count": 2,
  "date": "February 2",
  "day": 2,
  "descriptions": [
    "Piero di Cosimo, Italian painter (d. 1522)",
    "James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet (d. 1941)"
  ],
  "entries": [
    {
      "category": "birth",
      "description": "Piero di Cosimo, Italian painter (d. 1522)",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Piero di Cosimo",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero di Cosimo"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero di Cosimo",
      "year": 1462,
      "year_text": "1462",
      "years_ago": 564
    },
    {
      "category": "birth",
      "description": "James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet (d. 1941)",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "James Joyce",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/James Joyce"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/James Joyce",
      "year": 1882,
      "year_text": "1882",
      "years_ago": 144
    }
  ],
  "month": 2,
  "total": 97,
  "wikipedia": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2"
}

Get deaths on a date

Get who died on a day of the year, with the year and the Wikipedia article for each. Leave the date empty for today. A date whose section Wikipedia has not filled in comes back empty rather than failing the step: 2 February publishes no deaths at all. No API key required.

Inputs

Datedatetext
The day of the year to look up, as a date: 2026-02-02, 2/2 or February 2 all work. Any year in it is ignored, because the service is keyed on a month and a day: asking about 2026-02-02 returns everything that ever happened on a 2 February. Leave empty to use today, or to use the month and day fields below.
Monthmonthnumber
The month to look up, 1 to 12. Give a day as well, or leave both empty for today. Ignored when a date is given above.From 1 to 12.
Daydaynumber
The day of the month to look up. 29 February is served like any other date, since the service is keyed on a month and a day with no year. Give a month as well, or leave both empty for today.From 1 to 31.
UTC offset for 'today'utc_offsetnumber
Hours from UTC to decide which day 'today' is, such as -8 for California or 5.5 for India. Only used when no date is given. A workflow posting at 9am in Auckland reads yesterday's page without it.From -12.0 to 14.0. Default: 0.
Keywordkeywordtext
Only return entries mentioning this text. The linked article titles are searched as well as the sentence, which is where the names usually are. Matching ignores capitalisation.
From yearfrom_yearnumber
Only return entries from this year onwards. Use a negative number for a year BC, so -509 means 509 BC. Entries whose year could not be read are left out once a range is given.
To yearto_yearnumber
Only return entries up to and including this year.
Orderordertext
Which end of history to start at. Oldest first matches the order the service publishes; newest first puts this century at the top, which is usually what a digest wants.One of: oldest_first (Oldest first), newest_first (Newest first). Default: oldest_first.
Maximum entrieslimitnumber
How many deaths to return at most. Leave empty for every one of them; a busy date publishes over a hundred.From 1 to 500.

Outputs

categorytext
Which section this is: always 'deaths'.
countnumber
How many entries are in the returned list.
datetext
The day of the year asked about, as the service names it, e.g. 'February 2'.
daynumber
The day asked about.
descriptionslist
Just the text of each death, ready to put in a message.
entrieslist
The deaths, oldest first unless reordered.
monthnumber
The month asked about, 1 to 12.
totalnumber
How many deaths the service publishes for that date altogether, before any filter or limit. Zero is a real answer: some dates have no entries in a section at all.
wikipediatext
The Wikipedia article for that day of the year, which is where these entries were harvested from.
Example output
{
  "category": "deaths",
  "count": 1,
  "date": "February 2",
  "day": 2,
  "descriptions": [
    "Liu Chengyou, Emperor Yin of the Later Han"
  ],
  "entries": [
    {
      "category": "death",
      "description": "Liu Chengyou, Emperor Yin of the Later Han",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Liu Chengyou",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu Chengyou"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu Chengyou",
      "year": 951,
      "year_text": "951",
      "years_ago": 1075
    }
  ],
  "month": 2,
  "total": 1,
  "wikipedia": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2"
}

Get events on a date

Get what happened on a day of the year, as Wikipedia records it: the year, what happened, and the articles it links to. Leave the date empty for today. Narrow it with a keyword or a year range, and every year comes back as a number rather than the string the service sends. No API key required.

Inputs

Datedatetext
The day of the year to look up, as a date: 2026-02-02, 2/2 or February 2 all work. Any year in it is ignored, because the service is keyed on a month and a day: asking about 2026-02-02 returns everything that ever happened on a 2 February. Leave empty to use today, or to use the month and day fields below.
Monthmonthnumber
The month to look up, 1 to 12. Give a day as well, or leave both empty for today. Ignored when a date is given above.From 1 to 12.
Daydaynumber
The day of the month to look up. 29 February is served like any other date, since the service is keyed on a month and a day with no year. Give a month as well, or leave both empty for today.From 1 to 31.
UTC offset for 'today'utc_offsetnumber
Hours from UTC to decide which day 'today' is, such as -8 for California or 5.5 for India. Only used when no date is given. A workflow posting at 9am in Auckland reads yesterday's page without it.From -12.0 to 14.0. Default: 0.
Keywordkeywordtext
Only return entries mentioning this text. The linked article titles are searched as well as the sentence, which is where the names usually are. Matching ignores capitalisation.
From yearfrom_yearnumber
Only return entries from this year onwards. Use a negative number for a year BC, so -509 means 509 BC. Entries whose year could not be read are left out once a range is given.
To yearto_yearnumber
Only return entries up to and including this year.
Orderordertext
Which end of history to start at. Oldest first matches the order the service publishes; newest first puts this century at the top, which is usually what a digest wants.One of: oldest_first (Oldest first), newest_first (Newest first). Default: oldest_first.
Maximum entrieslimitnumber
How many events to return at most. Leave empty for every one of them; a busy date publishes over a hundred.From 1 to 500.

Outputs

categorytext
Which section this is: always 'events'.
countnumber
How many entries are in the returned list.
datetext
The day of the year asked about, as the service names it, e.g. 'February 2'.
daynumber
The day asked about.
descriptionslist
Just the text of each event, ready to put in a message.
entrieslist
The events, oldest first unless reordered.
monthnumber
The month asked about, 1 to 12.
totalnumber
How many events the service publishes for that date altogether, before any filter or limit. Zero is a real answer: some dates have no entries in a section at all.
wikipediatext
The Wikipedia article for that day of the year, which is where these entries were harvested from.
Example output
{
  "category": "events",
  "count": 3,
  "date": "February 2",
  "day": 2,
  "descriptions": [
    "In the Battle of the Zab, the Abbasid rebels defeat the Umayyad Caliphate, leading to overthrow of the dynasty.",
    "Mexican\u2013American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States.",
    "The Groundhog Day gale strikes the north-eastern United States and southern Ontario."
  ],
  "entries": [
    {
      "category": "event",
      "description": "In the Battle of the Zab, the Abbasid rebels defeat the Umayyad Caliphate, leading to overthrow of the dynasty.",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Battle of the Zab",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle of the Zab"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle of the Zab",
      "year": 750,
      "year_text": "750",
      "years_ago": 1276
    },
    {
      "category": "event",
      "description": "Mexican\u2013American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States.",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo",
      "year": 1848,
      "year_text": "1848",
      "years_ago": 178
    },
    {
      "category": "event",
      "description": "The Groundhog Day gale strikes the north-eastern United States and southern Ontario.",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Groundhog Day gale of 1976",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog Day gale of 1976"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog Day gale of 1976",
      "year": 1976,
      "year_text": "1976",
      "years_ago": 50
    }
  ],
  "month": 2,
  "total": 123,
  "wikipedia": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2"
}

Get round-number anniversaries

Find what turns fifty, a hundred or two hundred today: the entries on a date whose age this year divides exactly by the interval you set. The service publishes a year and never a distance from one, so this is arithmetic it cannot do. Biggest anniversary first. No API key required.

Inputs

Datedatetext
The day of the year to look up, as a date: 2026-02-02, 2/2 or February 2 all work. Any year in it is ignored, because the service is keyed on a month and a day: asking about 2026-02-02 returns everything that ever happened on a 2 February. Leave empty to use today, or to use the month and day fields below.
Monthmonthnumber
The month to look up, 1 to 12. Give a day as well, or leave both empty for today. Ignored when a date is given above.From 1 to 12.
Daydaynumber
The day of the month to look up. 29 February is served like any other date, since the service is keyed on a month and a day with no year. Give a month as well, or leave both empty for today.From 1 to 31.
UTC offset for 'today'utc_offsetnumber
Hours from UTC to decide which day 'today' is, such as -8 for California or 5.5 for India. Only used when no date is given. A workflow posting at 9am in Auckland reads yesterday's page without it.From -12.0 to 14.0. Default: 0.
Anniversary interval (years)intervalnumber
The round number to look for. The default of 25 catches the quarter, half and full centuries as well as itself; 100 catches only centenaries.From 1 to 1000. Default: 25.
Sections to searchcategorieslist
Which sections to look in. Each one costs a request, so narrowing to events alone is three times cheaper than the default of all three.One or more of: events, births, deaths.
Keywordkeywordtext
Only return entries mentioning this text. The linked article titles are searched as well as the sentence, which is where the names usually are. Matching ignores capitalisation.
Maximum entrieslimitnumber
How many anniversaries to return at most, biggest first. Leave empty for all of them.From 1 to 500.

Outputs

anniversarieslist
The entries falling on a round anniversary, biggest first. Each carries the section it came from in 'category'.
categorieslist
Which sections were searched.
countnumber
How many anniversaries were found.
datetext
The day of the year asked about, as the service names it.
daynumber
The day asked about.
descriptionslist
Just the text of each, ready to put in a message.
intervalnumber
The interval that was looked for.
monthnumber
The month asked about, 1 to 12.
reference_yearnumber
The year the anniversaries were counted to, which is the current year at the UTC offset given.
searchednumber
How many entries were read to find them, across every section searched.
wikipediatext
The Wikipedia article for that day of the year.
Example output
{
  "anniversaries": [
    {
      "category": "event",
      "description": "The Groundhog Day gale strikes the north-eastern United States and southern Ontario.",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Groundhog Day gale of 1976",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog Day gale of 1976"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog Day gale of 1976",
      "year": 1976,
      "year_text": "1976",
      "years_ago": 50
    }
  ],
  "categories": [
    "events",
    "births",
    "deaths"
  ],
  "count": 1,
  "date": "February 2",
  "day": 2,
  "descriptions": [
    "The Groundhog Day gale strikes the north-eastern United States and southern Ontario."
  ],
  "interval": 25,
  "month": 2,
  "reference_year": 2026,
  "searched": 220,
  "wikipedia": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2"
}

Get this day in history

Get the events, the births and the deaths of one date in a single step, with the full count of each. Built for a daily post or digest: three separate steps would each need the same date, and a workflow running across midnight would give two of them one day and the third another. No API key required.

Inputs

Datedatetext
The day of the year to look up, as a date: 2026-02-02, 2/2 or February 2 all work. Any year in it is ignored, because the service is keyed on a month and a day: asking about 2026-02-02 returns everything that ever happened on a 2 February. Leave empty to use today, or to use the month and day fields below.
Monthmonthnumber
The month to look up, 1 to 12. Give a day as well, or leave both empty for today. Ignored when a date is given above.From 1 to 12.
Daydaynumber
The day of the month to look up. 29 February is served like any other date, since the service is keyed on a month and a day with no year. Give a month as well, or leave both empty for today.From 1 to 31.
UTC offset for 'today'utc_offsetnumber
Hours from UTC to decide which day 'today' is, such as -8 for California or 5.5 for India. Only used when no date is given. A workflow posting at 9am in Auckland reads yesterday's page without it.From -12.0 to 14.0. Default: 0.
Orderordertext
Which end of history to start at. Oldest first matches the order the service publishes; newest first puts this century at the top, which is usually what a digest wants.One of: oldest_first (Oldest first), newest_first (Newest first). Default: oldest_first.
Maximum entrieslimitnumber
How many entries to return from each of the three sections. Leave empty for 10, which is digest-sized; the counts always describe the whole day.From 1 to 500.

Outputs

birth_countnumber
How many births it has altogether.
birthslist
Who was born, up to the limit asked for.
datetext
The day of the year asked about, as the service names it, e.g. 'February 2'.
daynumber
The day asked about.
death_countnumber
How many deaths it has altogether. Zero is a real answer for some dates.
deathslist
Who died, up to the limit asked for.
event_countnumber
How many events the date has altogether, before the limit.
eventslist
What happened, up to the limit asked for.
monthnumber
The month asked about, 1 to 12.
total_countnumber
All three counts added together.
wikipediatext
The Wikipedia article for that day of the year.
Example output
{
  "birth_count": 97,
  "births": [
    {
      "category": "birth",
      "description": "Piero di Cosimo, Italian painter (d. 1522)",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Piero di Cosimo",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero di Cosimo"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero di Cosimo",
      "year": 1462,
      "year_text": "1462",
      "years_ago": 564
    },
    {
      "category": "birth",
      "description": "James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet (d. 1941)",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "James Joyce",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/James Joyce"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/James Joyce",
      "year": 1882,
      "year_text": "1882",
      "years_ago": 144
    }
  ],
  "date": "February 2",
  "day": 2,
  "death_count": 0,
  "deaths": [],
  "event_count": 123,
  "events": [
    {
      "category": "event",
      "description": "In the Battle of the Zab, the Abbasid rebels defeat the Umayyad Caliphate, leading to overthrow of the dynasty.",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Battle of the Zab",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle of the Zab"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle of the Zab",
      "year": 750,
      "year_text": "750",
      "years_ago": 1276
    },
    {
      "category": "event",
      "description": "Mexican\u2013American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States.",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo",
      "year": 1848,
      "year_text": "1848",
      "years_ago": 178
    },
    {
      "category": "event",
      "description": "The Groundhog Day gale strikes the north-eastern United States and southern Ontario.",
      "links": [
        {
          "title": "Groundhog Day gale of 1976",
          "url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog Day gale of 1976"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia_url": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog Day gale of 1976",
      "year": 1976,
      "year_text": "1976",
      "years_ago": 50
    }
  ],
  "month": 2,
  "total_count": 220,
  "wikipedia": "https://wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2"
}

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