Find Information about the Day You Were Born

There are several ways to quickly learn a few things about what happened on your birth date. Scroll down or jump to a specific resource:

Databases

 
Online Database: Facts on File

Best Bet: Try Facts on File: World News Digest from the Library's alphabetical list of databases. A "What Happened That Day?" search option is in the Advanced Search interface. When you access the database, the link to the Advanced Search is in the tan menu box on the left.

Screenshot of What Happened That Day advanced search of Facts on File: World News Digest

 
Online Database: Historical New York Times

Another resource: The New York Times is published daily and covers U.S. and international news. Steely Library has issues online going back to 1851. Go to our Databases and Indexes page and select Historical New York Times in the "H" section of the alphabetical list.

Screenshot of listing for the Historical New York Times in the H section of the alphabetical list

In the database, type in the exact date of your birth in the "On this date" box. The New York Times is a big newspaper so you will probably get a long list of articles.

Screenshot of selecting On this Date. After you type in your date, click on Search to view articles.

To narrow your list to major news events, click on the link for "More Search Options" near the bottom of the screen, and choose "Front page" from the drop down menu for "Document type." When you click on "Search" again your results will be limited to top news stories.

Note: These articles can be easily e-mailed to yourself, if you choose the e-mail function within the article.

 
Online Database: Access World News

Access World News provides full-text access to news articles from regional, national, and international sources. For this assignment, Access World News is very useful for its local sources. For example, full-text articles from the Cincinnati Post are available back to 1990. Go to our Databases and Indexes page and select Access World News in the "A" section of the alphabetical list. Once you log in, you will see this screen:

Screenshot showing the search shortcuts for the Lexington Herald-Leader, The Cincinnati Post, and Kentucky News Sources.

Once you select a newspaper to search, you can browse by date:

Screenshot of browsing an issue of The Cincinnati Post.

 

More Newspapers/Magazines

It's also possible to use other newspapers to complete this assignment. A title search for the newspaper of your choice in NKUIRE, the library's catalog, will let you know if the library receives that paper, the dates available, and the format it's available in.

Screenshot of searching for the Cincinnati Enquirer journal title using the basic library catalog search

Note: Many of Steely's newspapers (especially older issues) will be available in microform. These are held on the 4th floor of Steely Library. This is a "self service" area; however, if you need assistance, please ask at the third floor Public Service Desk for assistance.

Another useful type of publication for this assignment is weekly news magazines, such as Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. Here you can quickly see events of the week you were born. To locate news magazines, first, check Steely's Electronic Journals list. You can access this list from the Quick Links menu at the library's website.

Screenshot of listing for Newsweek U.S. Edition. This lists all of Steely Library's databases that provide access to Newsweek. Pay attention to the date. If you were born before 1990, you will want to select LexisNexis.

If the magazine is not available electronically, check NKUIRE. As with the newspapers, many of the older issues will be available in microform.

 

Reference Books

Depending on your birth date, there are also sets of books in the Reference collection at Steely Library called: Day by Day in the Nineties, Day by Day in the Eighties, Day by Day in the Seventies, etc. These are located on the 3rd floor of Steely Library. Call numbers: REF D856, D840 and D848. For each day, you'll find brief information about world and U.S. events, including politics, science, culture, and leisure time. Also: 20th Century Day by Day (REF D422 C53 2000x) offers lots of great photos.