On This Day in 19 – The Roman general Germanicus dies near Antioch. He was convinced that the mysterious illness that ended in his death was a result of poisoning by the Syrian governor Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, whom he had ordered to leave the province.

History Delivered

OnThisDay is a simple API that can be used to fetch historical events into JSON format. While it's not hard to find a similar API, most of them require registration or just plain suck. Our service makes development quick and to the point.

No API Key Required

The OTD-API can be used free of charge but you may not use this service in a manner that exceeds reasonable request volume. When no API key is provided, attribution is required and the number of requests per IP address is limited.

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Events for October 10


19 – The Roman general Germanicus dies near Antioch. He was convinced that the mysterious illness that ended in his death was a result of poisoning by the Syrian governor Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, whom he had ordered to leave the province.

1964 – The Tokyo Summer Olympics opening ceremony is the first to be relayed live by satellites.

2018Hurricane Michael makes landfall in the Florida Panhandle as a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane. It kills 57 people in the United States, 45 in Florida, and causes an estimated $25.1 billion in damage.

1913 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike, completing major construction on the Panama Canal.

2015 – Twin bomb blasts in the Turkish capital Ankara kill 109 and injure 500+.

1971Aeroflot Flight 773 is destroyed by a bomb over Moscow Oblast, killing 25.

1973 – U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with evasion of federal income tax.

1911 – The day after a bomb explodes prematurely, the Wuchang Uprising begins against the Chinese monarchy.

1954 – The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Sultanate of Muscat, Neil Innes, sends a signal to the Sultanate's forces, accompanied with oil explorers, to penetrate Fahud, marking the beginning of Jebel Akhdar War.

1938 – Abiding by the Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia completes its withdrawal from the Sudetenland.

1980 – The 7.1 MwEl Asnam earthquake shakes northern Algeria, killing 2,633 and injuring 8,369.

2010 – The Netherlands Antilles are dissolved as a country.

1945 – The Double Tenth Agreement is signed by the Communist Party and the Kuomintang about the future of China.

2007Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor becomes the first Malaysian in space on board Soyuz TMA-11.

1980 – The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front is founded in El Salvador.

1760 – In a treaty with the Dutch colonial authorities, the Ndyuka people of Suriname – descended from escaped slaves – gain territorial autonomy.

1918RMS Leinster is torpedoed and sunk by UB-123, killing 564, the worst-ever on the Irish Sea.

1928Chiang Kai-shek becomes Chairman of the Republic of China.

1492 – The crew of Christopher Columbus's ship, the Santa Maria, attempt a mutiny.

1970Fiji becomes independent.

1575 – Roman Catholic forces under Henry I, Duke of Guise, defeat the Protestants, capturing Philippe de Mornay among others.

Notable Births & Deaths for October 10

  2002Josh Giddey, Australian basketball player
  2012 – Kyaw Zaw, Burmese commander and politician (b. 1919)
  2014 – Pavel Landovský, Czech actor, director, and playwright (b. 1936)
  2021Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistani nuclear physicist and metallurgical scientist (b. 1936)
  1994Ilya Mikheyev, Russian ice hockey player
  1990 – Kolten Wong, American baseball player
  2012 – Alex Karras, American football player, wrestler, and actor (b. 1935)
  2012 – Piotr Lenartowicz, Polish philosopher and educator (b. 1934)
  1994 – Bae Suzy, South Korean singer, actress and model
  1988 – Toby Smith, Australian-New Zealand rugby player
  2013 – Cal Smith, American singer and guitarist (b. 1932)
  1993 – Jayden Stockley, English footballer
  2014 – Damiana Eugenio, Filipino author and academic (b. 1921)
  1990Shelby Miller, American baseball player
  2014 – Valeri Karpov, Russian ice hockey player (b. 1971)
  2013 – Sohei Miyashita, Japanese politician, Japanese Minister of Defense (b. 1927)
  1992Anthony Brown, American basketball player
  1991 – Gabriella Cilmi, Australian singer-songwriter and producer
  2013Scott Carpenter, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1925)
  1995Brenko Lee, Australian-Tongan rugby league player
  2014 – Lari Ketner, American football and basketball player (b. 1977)
  1989Jeurys Familia, Dominican baseball player
  1994 – Mike Tobey, American-Slovenian basketball player
  1995 – Courtland Sutton, American football player
  1996Sami Niku, Finnish ice hockey player
  1994 – Tereza Smitková, Czech tennis player
  1991 – Xherdan Shaqiri, Swiss footballer
  2015Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Nigerian politician, Governor of Bayelsa State (b. 1952)
  1991 – Mariana Pajón, Colombian cyclist
  2015 – Manorama, Indian (Tamil) actress (b. 1937)
  2015 – Steve Mackay, American saxophonist and composer (b. 1949)
  2015 – Hilla Becher, German photographer and educator (b. 1934)
  2012Sam Gibbons, American captain and politician (b. 1920)
  1989 – Emer Kenny, English actress and screenwriter
  2012 – Basil L. Plumley, American sergeant (b. 1920)
  2012 – Mark Poster, American philosopher and educator (b. 1941)
  2016Donn Fendler, American author and speaker (b. 1926)
  2022Mulayam Singh Yadav, Indian politician, 15th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (b. 1939)
  1993Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Cuban baseball player
  2013 – Jay Conrad Levinson, American author and educator (b. 1933)
  2015 – Sybil Stockdale, American activist, co-founded the National League of Families (b. 1924)
  1991Michael Carter-Williams, American basketball player
  1990 – Geno Smith, American football player
  2014 – Ed Nimmervoll, Austrian-Australian journalist, historian, and author (b. 1947)
  1991 – Lali Espósito, Argentinian actress and singer
  1989 – Aimee Teegarden, American actress and producer
  1994 – Marquez Valdes-Scantling, American football player
  2014Olav Dale, Norwegian saxophonist and composer (b. 1958)

 Quick Start

Our API is incredibly easy to use, check out the code samples below to get started:

Read the full documentation →

Fetch Historical Events

All you need to do is send a request to https://today.zenquotes.io/api/[month]/[day]/[key] in order to generate a JSON array of historical events, including notable births and deaths. API data pulled from WikiPedia.

*[key] not required but recommended.


Sample Requests

https://today.zenquotes.io/api - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for current server time (UTC).

https://today.zenquotes.io/api/1/1 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for January 1.

https://today.zenquotes.io/api/5/5 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for May 5.

https://today.zenquotes.io/api/12/25 - Generate notable events, births, and deaths for December 25.


Response

The result data is formatted as a JSON array, grouped by event type.


{ "info":"OnThisDay API", "date":"April_20", "updated":"1615972324",
"data":{
  "Events":[ 
    { 
      "text":"1303 – The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by a bull of Pope Boniface VIII.[1]", 
      "html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/1303\" title=\"1303\">1303</a> &#8211; The <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapienza_University_of_Rome\" title=\"Sapienza University of Rome\">Sapienza University of Rome</a> is instituted by a <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_bull\" title=\"Papal bull\">bull</a> of <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Boniface_VIII\" title=\"Pope Boniface VIII\">Pope Boniface VIII</a>." 
    },
    //.. MORE DATA ..//
  ],
  "Births":[ 
    { 
      "text":"1494 &#8211; Johannes Agricola, German theologian and reformer (d. 1566)&#91;8&#93;", 
      "html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/1494\" title=\"1494\">1494</a> &#8211; <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Agricola\" title=\"Johannes Agricola\">Johannes Agricola</a>, German theologian and reformer (d. 1566)" 
    },
    //.. MORE DATA ..//
  ],
  "Deaths":[ 
    { 
      "text":"689 &#8211; Cædwalla, king of Wessex (b. 659)&#91;21&#93;", 
      "html":"<a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/689\" title=\"689\">689</a> &#8211; <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A6dwalla_of_Wessex\" title=\"Cædwalla of Wessex\">Cædwalla</a>, king of <a href=\"https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex\" title=\"Wessex\">Wessex</a> (b. 659)" },
      //.. MORE DATA ..//
    }
  ]
} }

 Usage Limits and Attribution

Requests are restricted to 5 per 30 second period, an API key or registered IP is required for unlimited access and to enable Access-Control-Allow-Origin headers. We require that you show attribution with a link back to https://today.zenquotes.io/ when using the free version of this API. Contact support@zenquotes.io to chat with our friendly dev team and get registered.

Historical event data provided by <a href="https://today.zenquotes.io/" target="_blank">ZenQuotes.io</a>
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