On This Day in 1096 – Pope Urban II confirms the foundation of the abbey of La Roë under Robert of Arbrissel as a community of canons regular.

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.

Check out the full documentation →

Unlimited Requests

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Events for February 12


1946World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.

2016Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill sign an Ecumenical Declaration in the first such meeting between leaders of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches since their split in 1054.

1771Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden.

2009Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York while on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, killing all on board and one on the ground.

1733Georgia Day: Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, by settling at Savannah.

1945 – A devastating tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama kills 45 people and injures 427 others.

1990Carmen Lawrence becomes the first female Premier in Australian history when she becomes Premier of Western Australia.

1894Anarchist Émile Henry hurls a bomb into the Cafe Terminus in Paris, killing one person and wounding 20.

1966 – Rabbi Morris Adler is fatally shot by a disgruntled congregant at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Michigan, United States.

1983 – One hundred women protest in Lahore, Pakistan against military dictator Zia-ul-Haq's proposed Law of Evidence. The women were tear-gassed, baton-charged and thrown into lock-up. The women were successful in repealing the law.

2002 – The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He dies four years later before its conclusion.

1832Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands.

1965Malcolm X visits Smethwick near Birmingham following the racially-charged 1964 United Kingdom general election.

1946 – African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the civil rights movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil.

1961 – The Soviet Union launches Venera 1 towards Venus.

1817 – An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops at the Battle of Chacabuco.

2019 – The country known as the Republic of Macedonia renames itself the Republic of North Macedonia in accordance with the Prespa agreement, settling a long-standing naming dispute with Greece.

1541Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia.

1096Pope Urban II confirms the foundation of the abbey of La Roë under Robert of Arbrissel as a community of canons regular.

1963 – Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.

1825 – The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.

1502Isabella I issues an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.

Notable Births & Deaths for February 12

  1994Kemal Bilmez, Belgian politician
  2015Movita Castaneda, American actress and singer (b. 1916)
  2014 – John Pickstone, English historian and author (b. 1944)
  1991 – Kane Richardson, Australian cricketer
  2020Christie Blatchford, Canadian newspaper columnist, journalist and broadcaster (b. 1951)
  1992Magda Linette, Polish tennis player
  2015 – Steve Strange, Welsh singer (b. 1959)
  2015 – Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, Malaysian cleric and politician, 12th Menteri Besar of Kelantan (b. 1931)
  2012 – John Severin, American illustrator (b. 1921)
  1994 – Arman Hall, American sprinter
  1987 – Gabriela Mărginean, Romanian basketball player
  2016Dominique D'Onofrio, Italian-Belgian footballer and coach (b. 1953)
  1988 – Nicolás Otamendi, Argentine footballer
  1994 – Paxton Lynch, American football player
  2017 – Ren Xinmin, Chinese rocket scientist (b. 1915)
  1988 – Mike Posner, American singer-songwriter and producer
  1991Patrick Herrmann, German footballer
  2013Sattam bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabian prince (b. 1941)
  2019Gordon Banks, English footballer (b. 1937)
  2000Kim Ji-min, South Korean actress
  1988 – Josh Phegley, American baseball player
  1989Josh Harrellson, American basketball player
  1993 – Jennifer Stone, American actress
  2012 – David Kelly, Irish actor (b. 1929)
  1986Todd Frazier, American baseball player
  1987Jérémy Chardy, French tennis player
  2017 – Anna Marguerite McCann, first female American underwater archaeologist (b. 1933)
  2013 – Reginald Turnill, English journalist and author (b. 1915)
  1993 – Rafinha, Brazilian footballer
  2014Sid Caesar, American actor and comedian (b. 1922)
  2015 – Gary Owens, American radio host and voice actor (b. 1934)
  1984 – Andrei Sidorenkov, Estonian footballer
  2016 – Yannis Kalaitzis, Greek cartoonist (b. 1945)
  1993Bud Dupree, American football player
  2016 – Yan Su, Chinese general and composer (b. 1930)
  2001Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Georgian footballer
  2013 – Hennadiy Udovenko, Ukrainian politician and diplomat, 2nd Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ukraine (b. 1931)
  1990Katherine Barrell, Canadian actress, director, writer, and producer
  2019 – Pedro Morales, Puerto Rican professional wrestler and commentator (b. 1942)
  1988DeMarco Murray, American football player
  2022Ivan Reitman, Slovak-Canadian actor, director, and producer (b. 1946)
  1990 – Robert Griffin III, American football player
  1985Konstantin Pushkaryov, Kazakhstani ice hockey player
  2017Al Jarreau, American singer (b. 1940)
  1984 – Peter Vanderkaay, American swimmer
  2018Bill Crider, American author (b. 1941)
  2020 – Geert Hofstede, Dutch social psychologist (b. 1928)
  2019 – Lyndon LaRouche, American political activist (b. 1922)

 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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