What else happened on the day you were born?
(Or at other times in history?)
Online
A-Z How to Find Information > Special Topics Archive
What else was happening when you came into the world? Were any famous people
born on the same day? What major events took place in that year? What happened on your
birth date in other years?
What national or world events happened in history on the same
day and month as today?
Online
As a library member you can access a range of e-resources by logging in with your library card number and PIN.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica Online - has a 'This day in history' feature on the front page every day, linking you to articles about, and images of, people and events
- Newspapers Online - you can search by date two hundred and thirty years of
newspapers!
For recent decades, use PressDisplay; for dates from 1785 to 2007, use the Times Digital Archive. This gives you access to over two hundred years of the entire Times newspaper, including articles, photographs and other illustrations, advertisements and classified sections. To limit by date, simply click 'On' in the section that limits by date, then select your date. If you want to find obituaries enter the word 'obituary' in the search box. - Reference Books Online - hundreds of reference books for you to search including books arranged in date order and specially prepared timelines
- Credo Reference - has the 'Hutchinson Chronology of World History' volumes 1-4, covering all periods of history in year order
- Oxford Reference Online - there is a 'Timelines' section, giving you separate timelines on themes such as art, literature, politics, science and more; timelines on countries; and a twentieth century timeline
- Credo Reference and Oxford Reference Online - try simply entering a year in the search box. You will find all mentions of that year in a large range of reference books, including birth and death dates, dates when important novels were written, dates of paintings, and dates of events
- If you see far more results than you want, click the option for longer entries. Longer entries are more likely to relate to more well-known people, things and events. Another way of reducing your results is to limit your search to a particular subject area, by clicking one of the subject categories
- You could even try entering a day and month. Try searching different forms of the date and enter it in quotation marks. For example, try "14 July" and also "14th July"
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - search by date for details of notable people from British history, excluding living
people. You can search in two ways:
1) for all mentions of a particular date, enter the date in the 'Search for words in text' box. For example, enter 14 July
2) for a smaller number of results, showing important events connected with a person, scroll down the home page to 'Advanced search options' and click 'People', then select a date at 'Places, dates, life events' - History and archaeology on WebLinks - there are several web sites that enable you to search by date to find people, events and news
More resources
- For more useful resources see Page 2 of What else happened on the day you were born? (Or at other times in history?)
Page last updated: 3rd December 2013