About What On This Date: history, one day at a time
We answer one question every morning — what happened in the past, today? Pick a date and you get the events, the births and deaths, and the cultural milestones that belong to it.
02 — Why this site exists
A calendar date is the shortest way into the past
Big history is hard to hold all at once. A single day is a size anyone can finish before the kettle boils.
Most of us don't sit down with a thousand years. We sit down with a spare five minutes. Take one date — a birthday, an anniversary, today — and the past arrives in a shape you can actually get through: a handful of events, a few lives, one or two things that changed how people lived.
What On This Date is built and run from Australia, and written for readers anywhere. The dates belong to the whole world; the editing is ours. Entries use Australian spelling, stick to plain language, and stay short enough to read on a phone between stops.
03
How we work
A clear path from first conversation to finished work.
Discover
We start from what you need and the constraints on the job.
Deliver
We do the work with a clear quote and a named contact.
Handover
You get a clean finish and a clear next step.
03 — What we cover
Four kinds of entry sit behind every date
Every day's page is organised the same way, so you always know where to look and what you're looking at.
This is a curated editorial reference, not a complete record of everything that happened on a given day.
Who it's for
Who reads What On This Date, and what they take from it
The site gets used in a few consistent ways. If you spot something wrong or missing in an entry, we would rather hear about it than not.
Students and teachers
A date-sized starting point for homework, a lesson opener or a this-week-in-history slide. Short enough to read aloud, specific enough to follow further.
Writers and newsletter authors
A daily prompt with dates and names already attached. Take an entry as your hook, then go and do your own digging around it.
Trivia enthusiasts
Firsts, records, birthdays and odd coincidences, sorted by the day they happened. Good for quiz night, better for settling arguments.
Anyone with five spare minutes
A daily dose of the past with no account and no homework. Read today's page, or look up the date you were born.
See what happened in the past, today
One date, a few minutes, and a day you didn't know you shared with anyone.