Wikipedia's On This Day feed under CC BY-SA 4.0, fetched live and cached for 24 hours per date.

What does an item include?

The year, the event text, the linked article's title, a short description, the Wikipedia URL and a thumbnail.

Which types are available?

Events, births, deaths, holidays and Wikipedia's editor-selected highlights, selectable per request, with newest-first or oldest-first ordering and a limit.

Is attribution required?

Yes. The content is CC BY-SA, so credit Wikipedia and link to the articles, which the response makes easy.

What does a call cost?

5 tokens. The free plan covers 100 lookups a month.

EntertainmentMAINTAINED5 tokens / call

Day In History API

Events, births, deaths and holidays for any day of the year from Wikipedia's On This Day, with thumbnails

Historical events, notable births and deaths, holidays and Wikipedia's editor-selected highlights for any day of the year, live from Wikipedia's "On this day" feed (CC BY-SA 4.0) with 24-hour caching. Every item carries the year, the event text, the linked article's title, short description, Wikipedia URL and thumbnail; pick a type, newest-first or oldest-first ordering, and a limit, and see totals per type. Accepts MM-DD or full dates and rejects impossible days.

Every call needs an X-Api-Key header. A free key includes 500 tokens a month, no card required. 5 tokens per call, so the free plan covers about 100 calls a month.

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response.json

{
  "query": "GET /v1/onthisday?date=07-20&type=events",
  "year": 1969,
  "title": "Apollo program",
  "text": "Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully makes the first human landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Ameri…",
  "wikipedia_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program",
  "totals": {
    "events": 69
  }
}

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Use cases for Day In History API

Show an on-this-day panel in a news app, newsletter or smart display.
Generate daily social posts with a historical event and its image.
Add context to calendar and planning apps with notable anniversaries.
Build quizzes from events of a chosen date.

Day In History API endpoints

Every endpoint with its parameters and a real example response.

OpenAPI definition Postman workspace

GETData Sources
GETOn This Day

GETData Sources

https://api-day-in-history.dataandapis.com/v1/sources

This endpoint takes no parameters.

Example request

curl "https://api-day-in-history.dataandapis.com/v1/sources" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Example response

{
  "ok": true,
  "sources": [
    {
      "slug": "wikipedia-onthisday",
      "name": "Wikipedia — On this day",
      "url": "https://api.wikimedia.org/feed/v1/wikipedia/en/onthisday",
      "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
      "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
      "cadence": "live, edge-cached 24h per date"
    }
  ]
}

GETOn This Day

https://api-day-in-history.dataandapis.com/v1/onthisday

Query parameters

Parameter	Example
date	07-20	Optional
limit	20	Optional
order	desc	Optional
type	events	Optional

Example request

curl "https://api-day-in-history.dataandapis.com/v1/onthisday?date=07-20&limit=20&order=desc&type=events" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

Example response

{
  "ok": true,
  "date": "07-20",
  "order": "desc",
  "source": "Wikipedia — On this day",
  "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
  "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
  "totals": {
    "events": 69
  },
  "events": [
    {
      "year": 1969,
      "text": "Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully makes the first human landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon six and a half hours later.",
      "title": "Apollo program",
      "description": "1961–1972 American crewed lunar exploration program",
      "wikipedia_url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program",
      "thumbnail": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Apollo_program.svg/330px-Apollo_program.svg.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail"
    }
  ]
}

Where the data comes from

Source: Wikimedia On This Day feed (CC BY-SA 4.0), proxied live.
Freshness: Cached 24 hours per date.

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import axios from 'axios';

const { data } = await axios.get(
  'https://api-day-in-history.dataandapis.com/v1/sources',
  { headers: { 'X-Api-Key': process.env.API_KEY } }
);

Day In History API · X-Api-Key

Explore the endpoints

Browse request parameters and inspect live example responses.

Available Endpoints

Request Parameters

API URL

Headers

X-Api-Key

Target:

Client:

import axios from 'axios';

const url = 'https://api-day-in-history.dataandapis.com/v1/sources';
const { data } = await axios.get(url, {
  headers: { 'X-Api-Key': 'YOUR_API_KEY' }
});