Enter your birthdate to find out.
1980Hamza al-Ghamdi, Saudi Arabian terrorist, hijacker of United Airlines Flight 175 (died 2001)[†]
Hamza Salah Sa'id al-Ghamdi was a Saudi terrorist hijacker. He was one of five hijackers of United Airlines Flight 175 as part of the 11 September attacks.
1980Luke Chadwick, English footballer[†]
Luke Harry Chadwick is an English former professional footballer who played as a midfielder.
1980Minori Chihara, Japanese voice actress and singer[†]
Minori Chihara is a Japanese voice actress and singer who has had roles in several anime series. She is well known for her voice role as Yuki Nagato in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Leon in The iDOLM@STER, while in her musical career, she has been signed under King Records and Lantis. She was born in the city of Utsunomiya, Tochigi and was raised in Saitama. She was affiliated with the talent agency HoriPro International.
1980François Duval, Belgian racing driver[†]
François Duval is a Belgian rally driver.
1980Denny Hamlin, American race car driver[†]
James Dennis Alan Hamlin is an American professional stock car racing driver and team owner. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 11 Toyota Camry XSE for Joe Gibbs Racing. He also co-owns and operates 23XI Racing with basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan.
1980C. J. Wilson, American baseball player[†]
Christopher John Wilson is an American auto racing team owner and former professional baseball pitcher. Wilson pitched in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Texas Rangers from 2005 to 2011 and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim from 2012 to 2015. He is the founder and owner of sports car team CJ Wilson Racing, which competes in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge full-time and WeatherTech SportsCar Championship part-time.
1980Conn Smythe, Canadian soldier, ice hockey player, and businessman (born 1895)[†]
Constantine Falkland Cary Smythe MC was a Canadian businessman, soldier and sportsman in ice hockey and horse racing. He is best known as the principal owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1927 to 1961 and as the builder of Maple Leaf Gardens. As owner of the Leafs during numerous championship years, his name appears on the Stanley Cup eight times: 1932, 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951 and 1962.
Dozens of banks across the nation raised their prime lending rates yesterday to 16 percent from 15 percent, and a number of bankers predicted that interest rates would climb higher still.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17--Three Federal agencies announced today that they had agreed to pay the Penn Central Corporation $2.1 billion for the assets of its bankrupt railroad in the largest claims settlement by the Government in the nation's history.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 17--Citing the potential for serious conflicts with its traditional academic role, Harvard University decided today not to participate in creating a potentially lucrative genetic engineering company.
GREENSBORO, N.C., Nov. 17--Six present or former members of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party were each acquitted today on five counts of first-degree murder and one count of felonious rioting after an all-white jury deliberated ...
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17--Ignoring last-minute appeals by defenders of civil rights legislation, the Senate passed a bill today that could significantly reduce the use of busing as a remedy for school segregation.
PEKING, Nov. 17-There is a snorting giant harvester combine, swirling oil-well drills, a 12-ton truck the buyer can put together himself and an office computer system that prints out simultaneously in Chinese and English.
WHICH of earth's many endangered life forms will survive, and which will disappear forever?
Buffeted by vandalism and mechanical breakdowns, New York's commuter railroads have been bracing recently for yet another assault--the winter snows, which made their first appearance last night.
The number of serious crimes in New York City is virtually certain to set a record this year, and their occurrence is continuing to shift from high-crime areas to middle-income neighborhoods, an analysis of Police Department statistics shows.
A decision barring a group of students from holding prayer meetings in a public school was issued in Manhattan yesterday by a Federal appeals court that stressed the "wall of separation" between church and state.
I was wondering if anything interesting on the news was going on when I was born, and decided to create this website for fun. The purpose is to show people what was going on when they were born. With this website I've found out that it was a pretty slow news day on my birthday, but I bet it would feel cool to know a historical event happened on your birthday.
The data used in this project is provided by the New York Times API. They have by far the best API I was able to find, with articles dating back to the 1950s. There weren't any other major newspapers that had an API with close to as much data. The closest was the Guardian API, but theirs only went back to the 1990s. I decided to only use articles from the New York Times because their API was by far the best. This tool works if you have a birthday after the 1950s or so.
Some important dates in history I'd recommend looking up on this website are:
These historical events are just a few examples of the fascinating moments in history you can explore through this tool. Whether you're interested in your own birthday, significant historical dates, or just curious about what was making headlines on any given day, this website offers a unique window into the past through the lens of contemporary news coverage.
You can read more on our blog.