What else happened on the day you were born?

• 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

• 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
• Gateway to the Internet > History and archaeology  - there are several web sites that enable you to search by date to find people, events and news
• Newspapers online - you can search by date two hundred and thirty years of newspapers!
  
  For dates from 1985 to the present, use 'Infotrac custom newspaper database'. Simply click 'On' in the section that limits by date, then select your date.
  
  For dates from 1785 to 1985, use the Times Digital Archive. This gives you the 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

For example, Credo Reference has the 'Hutchinson chronology of world history' volumes 1-4, covering all periods of history in year order

At 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

At both Credo Reference and Oxford Reference Online you could 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"

At the Oxford dictionary of national biography you can 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'

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?)

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