A birthday on the globe
14 March on the globe: what happened in the world on this day, and who was born
For 14 March, the English Wikipedia lists 48 events and 186 births. 27 of the events stand at their places as rays of light; five more are dashed circles, where the sentence links only to a country or a sea. The taller the ray, the longer ago it happened. The people born that day come further down, as blue points.
A birthday, yours or someone else’s:
Turn it into a greetingScroll: the globe turns to each place
The day you were born, on the globe.
Three things from your day
Scroll: your day first, then 14 March through the years
The Earth on 14 March
The picture on the globe was assembled by NASA from satellite photographs taken in March 2004: the snow, the ice and the green are those of the month.
On 14 March the Sun passes straight overhead at noon along the parallel of 2.3° south. In London, the day lasts about 11 hours 45 minutes.
Beyond 88° south the Sun no longer sets; beyond 88° north it no longer rises.
The line between day and night is tilted on the globe exactly as on this day of the year. On the dark side you can see the lights of towns.
Latin America · Escondida
1991
Escondida in Chile's Atacama Desert – which was to become the worlds most productive copper mine – is officially inaugurated.
On the map: Escondida.
North America · Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge
1903
Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the first national wildlife refuge in the US, is established by President Theodore Roosevelt.
On the map: Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge.
14 March
What the other Wikipedias remember#
For these years the English list has nothing on this day. The events below come from the same day’s lists on Wikipedia in Spanish and were translated for this page.
From Wikipedia in Spanish · Barcelona
1909
In Barcelona (Spain), the Camp del Carrer Indústria, the former stadium of Futbol Club Barcelona, is inaugurated.
On the map: Barcelona.
Translated from the list on Wikipedia in Spanish.
14 March
Born on 14 March#
The English Wikipedia lists 186 births for this day. The blue points are the birthplaces of 60 of these people: those written about in the most Wikipedia editions, where Wikidata gives a place of birth.
Born on 14 March
1879
Albert Einstein, German-American physicist, academic and Nobel Prize laureate (died 1955)
Place of birth: Ulm.
Born on 14 March
1933
Michael Caine, English actor
Place of birth: Rotherhithe.
Born on 14 March
1965
Aamir Khan, Indian film actor, producer, and director
Place of birth: Mumbai.
Born on 14 March
1854
Paul Ehrlich, German physician and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1915)
Place of birth: Strzelin.
Born on 14 March
1988
Stephen Curry, American basketball player
Place of birth: Akron.
Born in Britain and Ireland
1990
Joe Allen, Welsh footballer
Place of birth: Carmarthen.
Born in Britain and Ireland
1869
Algernon Blackwood, English author and playwright (died 1951)
Place of birth: Greenwich.
Born in Britain and Ireland
1836
Isabella Beeton, English author of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (died 1865)
Place of birth: London.
14 March
Number one in the charts that week
At the cinema
An animal recorded that day
The record can be seen in GBIF, which brings together wildlife records from around the world.
All your birthdays
The weather that day
Data: Met Office Hadley Centre (HadCET); NOAA (GHCN-Daily, Mauna Loa).
Above the Earth
Sources: Jonathan McDowell, GCAT (launches); GFZ Potsdam (Kp index). Days are counted in Universal Time.
Football that day
International matches played that day:
Source: the “International football results” dataset kept by Mart Jürisoo (CC0).
Also that day
The earthquake’s page at the USGS
Source: the USGS catalogue. The day is counted in Universal Time (UTC).
In those days
Make a link for someone
Type the name, pick the day and the year of birth. The link opens straight on their day, with their name in the greeting.
The link carries the name, date and place typed here; anyone who gets it can see them.
Put another birthday beside it
Your mother’s, your child’s, a friend’s: the two days appear side by side.
Below: 14 March through the years.
The whole globe of the day
Drag the globe to turn it. Touch a ray or a point to read what happened there.
Everything Wikipedia lists for 14 March
The list is the English Wikipedia’s, in its own wording, as it stood in October 2026. 16 events have no place on the map: the sentence links to no place with coordinates, only to places too wide to mark, or to several countries.
- 1074
Battle of Mogyoród: Dukes Géza and Ladislaus defeat their cousin Solomon, King of Hungary, forcing him to flee to Hungary's western borderland.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Battle of Mogyoród - 1309
On Eid al-Fitr, the citizens of Granada stormed palaces in the city, deposing Sultan Muhammad III and placing his half-brother Nasr on the throne.
Europe · GranadaWikipedia: Eid al-Fitr - 1489
Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, was forced to abdicate and sell the administration of the island to the Republic of Venice.
Europe · Republic of VeniceWikipedia: Catherine Cornaro - 1590
Battle of Ivry: Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots defeat the forces of the Catholic League under Charles, Duke of Mayenne, during the French Wars of Religion.
Europe · Ivry-la-BatailleWikipedia: Battle of Ivry - 1593
Japanese invasions of Korea: A force of 3,000 Korean soldiers successfully defended Haengju Fortress against 30,000 Japanese invaders.
Asia · Battle of HaengjuWikipedia: Battle of Haengju - 1647
Thirty Years' War: Bavaria, Cologne, France and Sweden sign the Truce of Ulm.
Europe · UlmWikipedia: Truce of Ulm - 1663
According to his own account, Otto von Guericke completes his book Experimenta Nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de Vacuo Spatio, detailing his experiments on vacuum and his discovery of electrostatic repulsion.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Otto von Guericke - 1674
The Third Anglo-Dutch War: The Battle of Ronas Voe results in the Dutch East India Company ship Wapen van Rotterdam being captured with a death toll of up to 300 Dutch crew and soldiers.
Britain & Ireland · Battle of Ronas VoeWikipedia: Battle of Ronas Voe - 1757
Admiral Sir John Byng is executed by firing squad aboard HMS Monarch for breach of the Articles of War.
no place on the mapWikipedia: John Byng - 1780
American Revolutionary War: Spanish forces capture Fort Charlotte in Mobile, Alabama, the last British frontier post capable of threatening New Orleans.
North America · Battle of Fort CharlotteWikipedia: Battle of Fort Charlotte - 1794
Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Eli Whitney - 1864
Rossini's Petite messe solennelle is first performed, by twelve singers, two pianists and a harmonium player in a mansion in Paris.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Petite messe solennelle - 1885
The Mikado, a light opera by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, receives its first public performance at the Savoy Theatre in London.
no place on the mapWikipedia: The Mikado - 1900
The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing the United States currency on the gold standard.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Gold Standard Act - 1901
Utah governor Heber Manning Wells vetoes a bill that would have eased restrictions on polygamy.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Heber Manning Wells - 1903
Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the first national wildlife refuge in the US, is established by President Theodore Roosevelt.
North America · Pelican Island National Wildlife RefugeWikipedia: Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge - 1916
Battle of Verdun: German attack captures Côte 265 at the west end of Mort-Homme but the French 75th Infantry Brigade manages to hold Côte 295 at the east end.
Europe · Battle of VerdunWikipedia: Battle of Verdun - 1920
In the second of the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites, about 80% of the population in Zone II votes to remain part of Weimar Germany.
Europe · Weimar RepublicWikipedia: 1920 Schleswig plebiscites - 1921
Six members of a group of Irish Republican Army activists known as the Forgotten Ten are hanged in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison.
Britain & Ireland · Mountjoy PrisonWikipedia: Irish Republican Army - 1923
Charlie Daly and three other members of the Irish Republican Army are executed by Irish Free State forces.
Britain & Ireland · Irish Free StateWikipedia: Charlie Daly - 1926
The El Virilla train accident, Costa Rica, kills 248 people and wounds another 93 when a train falls off a bridge over the Río Virilla between Heredia and Tibás.
Latin America · Heredia, Costa RicaWikipedia: El Virilla train accident - 1931
Alam Ara, India's first talking film, is released.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Alam Ara - 1939
Slovakia declares independence under German pressure.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Slovak Republic - 1942
Anne Miller becomes the first American patient to be treated with penicillin, under the care of Orvan Hess and John Bumstead.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Penicillin - 1943
The Holocaust: The liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto is completed.
Europe · Kraków GhettoWikipedia: The Holocaust - 1945
The R.A.F. drop the Grand Slam bomb in action for the first time, on a railway viaduct near Bielefeld, Germany.
Europe · BielefeldWikipedia: Royal Air Force - 1951
Korean War: United Nations troops recapture Seoul for the second time.
Asia · SeoulWikipedia: Korean War - 1961
A USAF B-52 bomber carrying nuclear weapons crashes near Yuba City, California.
North America · 1961 Yuba City B-52 crashWikipedia: 1961 Yuba City B-52 crash - 1964
Jack Ruby is convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin who had shot and killed John F. Kennedy the previous year.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Jack Ruby - 1967
The body of U.S. President John F. Kennedy is moved to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery.
North America · John F. Kennedy Eternal FlameWikipedia: John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame - 1972
Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, known for his translation of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago after it had been smuggled out of the Soviet Union, died in an explosion.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli - 1972
Sterling Airways Flight 296 crashes near Kalba, United Arab Emirates while on approach to Dubai International Airport, killing 112 people.
Asia · Sterling Airways Flight 296Wikipedia: Sterling Airways Flight 296 - 1973
Vietnam War: After having been captured by North Vietnamese forces five and a half years earlier, U.S. Navy pilot John McCain was released with 108 other prisoners of war.
Asia · North VietnamWikipedia: Vietnam War - 1978
The Israel Defense Forces launch Operation Litani, a seven-day campaign to invade and occupy southern Lebanon.
Asia · LebanonWikipedia: 1978 South Lebanon conflict - 1979
Alia Royal Jordanian Flight 600 crashes at Doha International Airport, killing 45 people.
Asia · Doha International AirportWikipedia: Alia Royal Jordanian Flight 600 - 1980
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 crashes during final approach near Warsaw, Poland, killing 87 people, including a 14-man American boxing team.
Europe · LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007Wikipedia: LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007 - 1982
The South African government bombs the headquarters of the African National Congress in London.
Britain & Ireland · 1982 bombing of the African National Congress headquarters in LondonWikipedia: 1982 bombing of the African National Congress headquarters in London - 1984
Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Féin, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by Ulster Freedom Fighters in central Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Britain & Ireland · BelfastWikipedia: Gerry Adams - 1988
In the Johnson South Reef Skirmish Chinese forces defeat Vietnamese forces in an altercation over control of one of the Spratly Islands.
Oceans · Johnson South Reef skirmishWikipedia: Johnson South Reef skirmish - 1991
Escondida in Chile's Atacama Desert – which was to become the worlds most productive copper mine – is officially inaugurated.
Latin America · EscondidaWikipedia: Escondida - 1995
Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Norman Thagard - 2006
Operation Bringing Home the Goods: Israeli troops raid an American-supervised Palestinian prison in Jericho to capture six Palestinian prisoners, including PFLP chief Ahmad Sa'adat.
Asia · Operation Bringing Home the GoodsWikipedia: Operation Bringing Home the Goods - 2006
The 2006 Chadian coup d'état attempt ends in failure.
no place on the mapWikipedia: 2006 Chadian coup attempt - 2007
The Nandigram violence in Nandigram, West Bengal, results in the deaths of at least 14 people.
Asia · NandigramWikipedia: Nandigram violence - 2008
A series of riots, protests, and demonstrations erupt in Lhasa and subsequently spread elsewhere in Tibet.
Asia · 2008 Tibetan unrestWikipedia: 2008 Tibetan unrest - 2017
A naming ceremony for the chemical element nihonium takes place in Tokyo, with then Crown Prince Naruhito in attendance.
no place on the mapWikipedia: Nihonium - 2019
Cyclone Idai makes landfall near Beira, Mozambique, causing devastating floods and over 1,000 deaths.
Oceans · Cyclone IdaiWikipedia: Cyclone Idai - 2021
Burmese security forces kill at least 65 civilians in the Hlaingthaya massacre.
Asia · Hlaingthaya massacreWikipedia: Hlaingthaya massacre
What the other Wikipedias remember
For these years the English list has nothing on this day. The events below come from the same day’s lists on Wikipedia in Spanish and were translated for this page.
- 1909
In Barcelona (Spain), the Camp del Carrer Indústria, the former stadium of Futbol Club Barcelona, is inaugurated.
Who was born on 14 March
In order of how many Wikipedia editions have an article about each. The first 60 of 186 are shown.
- 1879
Albert Einstein, German-American physicist, academic and Nobel Prize laureate (died 1955)
- 1933
Michael Caine, English actor
RotherhitheWikipedia: Michael Caine - 1965
Aamir Khan, Indian film actor, producer, and director
MumbaiWikipedia: Aamir Khan - 1958
Albert II, Prince of Monaco
Prince's Palace of MonacoWikipedia: Albert II of Monaco - 1854
Paul Ehrlich, German physician and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1915)
StrzelinWikipedia: Paul Ehrlich - 1820
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy (died 1878)
- 1844
Umberto I of Italy (died 1900)
- 1988
Stephen Curry, American basketball player
- 1933
Quincy Jones, American producer (died 2024)
South SideWikipedia: Quincy Jones - 1997
Simone Biles, American gymnast
ColumbusWikipedia: Simone Biles - 1979
Nicolas Anelka, French footballer and manager
Le ChesnayWikipedia: Nicolas Anelka - 1905
Raymond Aron, French journalist, sociologist, and philosopher (died 1983)
6th arrondissement of ParisWikipedia: Raymond Aron - 1835
Giovanni Schiaparelli, Italian astronomer and historian (died 1910)
SaviglianoWikipedia: Giovanni Schiaparelli - 1948
Billy Crystal, American actor, comedian, director, producer, and screenwriter
New York CityWikipedia: Billy Crystal - 1928
Frank Borman, American astronaut (died 2023)
- 1908
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, French philosopher and academic (died 1961)
RochefortWikipedia: Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1934
Eugene Cernan, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (died 2017)
ChicagoWikipedia: Gene Cernan - 1854
Thomas R. Marshall, American lawyer and politician, 28th Vice President of the United States of America (died 1925)
North ManchesterWikipedia: Thomas R. Marshall - 1941
Wolfgang Petersen, German-American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2022)
- 1804
Johann Strauss I, Austrian composer and conductor (died 1849)
LeopoldstadtWikipedia: Johann Strauss I - 1977
Naoki Matsuda, Japanese footballer (died 2011)
- 1823
Théodore de Banville, French poet and critic (died 1891)
- 1990
Joe Allen, Welsh footballer
CarmarthenWikipedia: Joe Allen - 1994
Ansel Elgort, American actor and DJ
New York CityWikipedia: Ansel Elgort - 1853
Ferdinand Hodler, Swiss painter (died 1918)
- 1923
Diane Arbus, American photographer (died 1971)
New York CityWikipedia: Diane Arbus - 1990
Kolbeinn Sigþórsson, Icelandic footballer
ReykjavíkWikipedia: Kolbeinn Sigþórsson - 1911
Akira Yoshizawa, Japanese origamist (died 2005)
KaminokawaWikipedia: Akira Yoshizawa - 1939
Bertrand Blier, French director and screenwriter (died 2025)
Boulogne-BillancourtWikipedia: Bertrand Blier - 1882
Wacław Sierpiński, Polish mathematician and academic (died 1969)
- 1972
Irom Chanu Sharmila, Indian poet and activist
- 1822
Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies (died 1889)
- 1869
Algernon Blackwood, English author and playwright (died 1951)
GreenwichWikipedia: Algernon Blackwood - 1932
Naina Yeltsina, Russian wife of Boris Yeltsin, First Lady of Russia
ΤιτόβκαWikipedia: Naina Yeltsina - 1836
Isabella Beeton, English author of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (died 1865)
- 1978
Pieter van den Hoogenband, Dutch swimmer
MaastrichtWikipedia: Pieter van den Hoogenband - 1862
Vilhelm Bjerknes, Norwegian physicist and meteorologist (died 1951)
ChristianiaWikipedia: Vilhelm Bjerknes - 1965
Kevin Williamson, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
New BernWikipedia: Kevin Williamson - 1999
Olivia Dean, English singer-songwriter
WalthamstowWikipedia: Olivia Dean - 1968
Megan Follows, Canadian-American actress
TorontoWikipedia: Megan Follows - 1974
Santino Marella, Canadian wrestler
MississaugaWikipedia: Santino Marella - 1801
Kristjan Jaak Peterson, Estonian poet (died 1822)
- 1975
Steve Harper, English footballer and referee
EasingtonWikipedia: Steve Harper - 1990
Tamás Kádár, Hungarian footballer
VeszprémWikipedia: Tamás Kádár - 1993
Anthony Bennett, Canadian basketball player
BramptonWikipedia: Anthony Bennett - 1886
Firmin Lambot, Belgian cyclist (died 1964)
FlorennesWikipedia: Firmin Lambot - 1946
Wes Unseld, American basketball player, coach, and manager (died 2020)
LouisvilleWikipedia: Wes Unseld - 1979
Chris Klein, American actor
HinsdaleWikipedia: Chris Klein - 1854
Alexandru Macedonski, Romanian author and poet (died 1920)
- 1939
Yves Boisset, French director and screenwriter (died 2025)
5th arrondissement of ParisWikipedia: Yves Boisset - 1942
Rita Tushingham, English actress
GarstonWikipedia: Rita Tushingham - 1948
Theo Jansen, Dutch sculptor
ScheveningenWikipedia: Theo Jansen - 1969
Larry Johnson, American basketball player and actor
- 1847
Castro Alves, Brazilian poet and playwright (died 1871)
MuritibaWikipedia: Castro Alves - 1912
Cliff Bastin, English footballer (died 1991)
- 1957
Tad Williams, American author
San JoseWikipedia: Tad Williams - 2008
Abby Ryder Fortson, American actress
- 1983
Bakhtiyar Artayev, Kazakh boxer
- 1887
Sylvia Beach, American-French bookseller and publisher, who founded Shakespeare and Company (died 1962)
BaltimoreWikipedia: Sylvia Beach - 1948
Tom Coburn, American physician and politician (died 2020)
CasperWikipedia: Tom Coburn
What is celebrated on 14 March
- Christian feast day: Leobinus
- Christian feast day: Matilda of Ringelheim
- Christian feast day: March 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Constitution Day (Andorra)
- Heroes' Day (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)
- Mother Tongue Day (Estonia)
- Nanakshahi New Year, first day of the month of Chet (Sikhism)
- Pi Day
- Steak and Blowjob Day, a satirical unofficial holiday created in the United States as a male response to Valentine's Day
- Summer Day (Albania)
- White Day on which men give gifts to women; complementary to Valentine's Day (Japan and other Asian nations)
A greeting link for someone
Type a name and, if you like, the year of birth. The link opens with a greeting, and beside each event it says how old the person turned that day, or how many years before their birth it happened.
The name and the year go only into the link you send.
All 366 days
How the globe is made
Where the events come from
Each edition of this page uses the day’s list from Wikipedia in its own language: Romanian, English, Spanish, Chinese. The lists are written by volunteers and differ from one edition to the next; the text of each event is Wikipedia’s, with a link to the article. A row that appears twice in a list is shown once. The lists have not been checked event by event: they are Wikipedia’s, mistakes included.
For events before 1582, and for countries that moved to the Gregorian calendar later (Britain in 1752, Russia in 1918), the same day may be counted Old Style in one list and New Style in another.
The chapter “What the other Wikipedias remember” adds up to five events a day from the lists of the other three editions, only for years in which the English list has nothing on that day. They were translated for this page, passed the same filters as the tour, and are not counted among the events of the English list.
How an event gets onto the map
The place comes from Wikidata. If the sentence links to the article about the event itself (a battle, an opening, an earthquake), dated to the same year, the ray stands on its coordinates or on those of its location. Otherwise it stands on the first place the sentence links to: a town, a building, a mountain, an island. This second step can be wrong: sometimes the sentence only mentions the place. That is why the page says, under each event, which place the ray stands on.
When the sentence links to a single state or province, or to a single sea, lake or desert larger than 5,000 km², the globe shows a dashed circle, not a ray. The circle has the area Wikidata gives, with its radius kept between 1.2° and 16°, or a radius of 4.5° when Wikidata gives no area; it says only that the sentence links to that place. Organisations, ships, spacecraft, museum objects, rivers, mountain ranges, languages and continents are never used as places. When a sentence names several states and no exact place, the event stays in the list only.
What the height means
The height of a ray shows how many years have passed, on a logarithmic scale: 10 years, 100 years and 1,000 years are equal steps apart; anything older than about 2,600 years has the tallest ray. The colour runs from pale yellow for recent years to violet for antiquity.
Where the tour stops
In each region the tour stops at up to three events (five in Britain and Ireland), chosen mainly by three things: whether Wikipedia’s editors put the event in the “On this day” box of their main page (the English, Spanish and Chinese editions), how many Wikipedia editions have an article about it, and how many of the four lists include it. Events whose sentence or article is about a war, an attack, a crime or a disaster are left out of the tour; they stay in the whole list, in Wikipedia’s wording. The filter is a list of words and a list of Wikidata types, so it can miss some.
The tour of births names the people with articles in the most editions and leaves aside those whom the list or Wikidata describes as rulers, politicians, commanders, leaders of movements or criminals; they stay in the list.
The Earth and the Sun
The daytime images are NASA’s Blue Marble Next Generation mosaics, one for each month of 2004; the night side is Black Marble 2016. The tilt of the line between day and night is computed for the day; the hour is chosen so that the place being read is in daylight. The latitude where the Sun stands overhead is the average of the four years of the leap cycle; in a given year it can differ by up to 0.4°.
The day you were born
The number ones come from the weekly lists on Wikipedia: Billboard for the United States (from 1940; the Hot 100 from August 1958), the UK Singles Chart (from November 1952), Los 40 Principales for Spain (from July 1966) and, for Romania, the Romanian Top 100 and Airplay 100 (2001–2021, with missing weeks). The page shows the chart of the week in which the day of birth falls, with its date; Billboard and the UK chart are dated at the end of their week. For Romania before 2001 and for China these sources have no weekly chart.
The films are those that reached cinemas in the United States up to ten days before or three days after that day (some of them in a few cinemas at first), from the English Wikipedia’s yearly lists (from 1968), in order of how many editions have an article about them. The events “in those days” are the ones on the neighbouring days’ lists that carry the year of birth, passed through the same filter as the tour.
The day of birth, year included
The Moon, the star sign and the constellation are worked out by the page itself, for noon Universal Time on the day. The lit part of the Moon is rounded and can differ by a few per cent from that at the hour of birth. The sign follows the usual zodiac of twelve equal parts starting at the March equinox; the constellation is the one the Sun actually stood in front of, by the borders set by the International Astronomical Union, and within a day of a border the page does not name it. When the Sun changes sign while it is that day anywhere on Earth, the page gives the moment of crossing, rounded to ten minutes and accurate to within about a quarter of an hour, and the clock time in a few cities, with the time zone and summer time of that year.
The year in the Chinese calendar is the one your device’s own calendar gives for the date, checked against the Hong Kong Observatory’s tables. “All your birthdays” uses the same sources as the rest of the chapter for the same day in every year since the birth: the temperature, well-known launches that took place on that very day, matches of the teams the edition follows, snow deeper than 10 cm and strong geomagnetic storms. The three things at the top and the four on the picture are chosen in a fixed order (the song, the animal, a full Moon, a well-known launch before an ordinary earthquake); on the picture you can change them.
When the link carries a year of birth, the page adds a few things about that exact day. The weather is the Met Office’s Central England temperature record and the readings from New York’s Central Park; the “usual high” is the average of the daily highs of 1961–1990 for that date, with two days either side. The carbon dioxide figure is the monthly mean at the Mauna Loa observatory, where measurements begin in March 1958.
The earthquake is the one with the largest magnitude in the USGS catalogue for that day, counted in Universal Time. Before the 1960s the catalogue has gaps even above magnitude 5.5, so in the older years many days have no earthquake. The page gives only the magnitude and the place: the country the epicentre falls in or, when the epicentre is at sea within 300 km of a coast, the nearest country; farther out, only the ocean.
The launches are those that reached orbit or left for the Moon and the planets, from Jonathan McDowell’s GCAT catalogue. If nothing left that day, the page shows the nearest launch within three days before or after, and says how many days away it was. The geomagnetic storm appears only when the Kp index reached at least 5 in one of the day’s eight three-hour intervals.
The animal comes from GBIF: an observation made by a person (the animal seen or heard, or its tracks), dated to that exact day, with coordinates and a CC0 or CC BY licence. Only a few hundred well-known species are searched (mammals, birds, turtles, butterflies); of those noted that day, mammals and species with articles in many Wikipedia editions come first; birds noted almost every day, and species used recently, wait their turn. Observations dated 1 January are left out, because records without a day are often filed there. An observation shows that the animal was recorded there, not how many animals there were.
The matches are those between national teams. Only matches of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australia are shown, along with those at the big final tournaments. The picture to send is drawn in the page from the day’s globe and the facts above, and stays on your device until you send it.
Sources
- Events, births and holidays: the day’s page on Wikipedia, text under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Coordinates, places of birth and the number of editions: Wikidata (CC0).
- The Earth by day: NASA Blue Marble Next Generation. The Earth by night: NASA Black Marble 2016.
- Borders and regions: Natural Earth.
- World population and births per year: UN World Population Prospects 2024.
- Charts and films: Wikipedia’s lists for Billboard, the UK Singles Chart, Los 40 Principales, Romanian Top 100, Airplay 100 and American films by year (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Weather: Met Office Hadley Centre, HadCET (Open Government Licence) and NOAA GHCN-Daily, New York Central Park. Carbon dioxide: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory, Mauna Loa.
- Earthquakes: the USGS catalogue. Launches: Jonathan McDowell, GCAT (CC BY). Kp index: GFZ Potsdam (CC BY 4.0). Matches: International football results, Mart Jürisoo (CC0).
- Animal observations: GBIF, with a link to each record; species names come from Wikidata.