What the site is
The Birthday Chronicle shows what was happening on the day someone was born: the number one song, the film of the year, events from that date, famous people who share the birthday, what things cost, and more. There is a page for every birthday from 1940 to 2024, in UK, US, Australian and Irish editions, and all of it is free to read.
We also sell one thing: a personalised birthday newspaper for the date you choose, as a digital download, for £4.99. That is how the site is paid for, along with advertising.
Who runs it
The Birthday Chronicle is run by Richard Wilde. You can reach us at hello@dayiwasborn.co.uk, or see the contact page.
Where the data comes from
Most of the facts on a birthday page come from Wikipedia. For the charts, films, novels, TV and vehicles below we keep a record of what we took and from which version of the page, so each one can be checked; where we don't, the entry says so. Nothing here comes directly from a chart company, a publisher or a ratings company.
- UK number one singles
- The number one on the Official UK Singles Chart (compiled by the Official Charts Company) in the week of the birthday. Covers November 1952 to the end of 2024; shown on UK pages. We do not take data from the chart company: our week-by-week record is compiled from Wikipedia's lists of UK number ones and has been checked against them week by week. Each correction we made records the exact version of the Wikipedia page it came from.
- US number one singles
- The number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week of the birthday. Covers August 1958, when the chart began, to the end of 2024; shown on US pages. We do not take data from Billboard: our week-by-week record is compiled from Wikipedia's lists of Hot 100 number ones and has been checked against them week by week, with the Wikipedia page version recorded for each correction.
- Australian number one singles
- The Australian number one in the week of the birthday, from January 1949 to the end of 2024; shown on Australian pages. Three charts are used and each song is labelled with the one it comes from: David Kent's retrospective chart (1949 to May 1974 — calculated later from radio station charts, not a chart published at the time), the Kent Music Report (May 1974 to June 1988) and the ARIA Charts (from June 1988). The record is generated by a script from Wikipedia's lists of Australian number-one singles, and the exact version of the Wikipedia page is recorded for every entry.
- Film of the year
- The highest-grossing film worldwide released in the birth year, 1940 to 2024, from the "High-grossing films by year" table in Wikipedia's List of highest-grossing films. It is a worldwide figure, so UK, US, Australian and Irish pages all show the same film. Where a figure is shown it is the lifetime worldwide gross, re-releases included; where Wikipedia has no worldwide figure we show none. Generated by a script, with the Wikipedia page version recorded. For 1945 we show the second film Wikipedia lists rather than the first, and describe it as "one of the highest-grossing".
- US bestselling novel
- US novels are the No. 1 on Publishers Weekly's annual fiction bestseller list, as compiled on Wikipedia. Covers 1940 to 2012, every year; shown on US pages only. US birthdays from 2013 to 2024 show no novel: from 2013 the lists on Wikipedia combine different kinds of book and are no longer a fiction-only list, so their No. 1 is sometimes not a novel at all. Generated by a script from Wikipedia's "Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States" pages, with each page version recorded.
- US top-rated TV show
- US TV is the No. 1 programme in the Nielsen ratings for the season starting that autumn, as listed on Wikipedia. Covers the 1950–51 season to the 2018–19 season; shown on US pages only. A birth year is matched to the season that started that autumn, so US birthdays from 1950 to 2018 show a programme and earlier or later ones show none: Wikipedia's pages start with the 1950–51 season and there is none after 2018–19. Generated by a script from Wikipedia's "Top-rated United States television programs" pages, one per season, with each page version recorded.
- Australian best-selling vehicle
- Australian vehicles are the No. 1 in the yearly top-ten sales table on Wikipedia's 'Automotive industry in Australia' page, which cites Best Selling Cars Blog. Covers 1977 to 2024; shown on Australian pages only. We say "vehicle" rather than "car" because the table covers commercial vehicles too and some years' best-sellers are utes. We show no sales figures. Generated by a script, with the Wikipedia page version recorded.
- “On this day” events and births
- The events that happened on the birthday, and the famous people born on the same date, come from English Wikipedia's "On this day" lists, for every country edition. They are Wikipedia's own selection and wording: we do not check or rewrite them. Events are read live from Wikipedia, so they change as Wikipedia does, and we show the few nearest the birth year. The people are from a copy of the births list that we save; from it we show the most famous, ranked by how often their English Wikipedia article is read (page views over the sixty days before the copy is made). We leave out people Wikipedia describes as known for serious crimes or adult entertainment.
- Events of the year
- The "Events of {year} in …" lists on the year pages and birthday pages are lines from Wikipedia's "{year} in the United Kingdom", "{year} in the United States", "{year} in Australia" and "{year} in Ireland" pages, 1940 to 2024. They are in Wikipedia's own wording: we remove the footnote marks and, where a line is very long, show only its opening sentence. We do not check or rewrite them. A script picks up to eight lines a year. It prefers events that have their own Wikipedia article, ranked by how often that article is read (page views over sixty days), and fills the rest so the list is spread across the year. It leaves out death notices, sport-only lines and lines that are mainly about a killing, a bombing, a shooting, a terror attack or a disaster with deaths. So it is a selection, not a list of the most important events of the year. The exact version of each Wikipedia page is recorded. Where a page has too few usable lines we show no list: Australia has no list for 1953.
- Famous faces by decade
- The "Famous Faces Born in the …" lists (1940s to 2000s; UK, US, Australia and Ireland) are made by a script that finds adults on Wikidata who are citizens of the country and whose English Wikipedia description gives that nationality (or, where it gives none, who were born there), by decade of birth, ranks them by how often their English Wikipedia article was read over sixty days, and leaves out people known mainly for serious crimes or adult entertainment.
- Weather on the day
- The temperature and conditions shown for the day come from Open-Meteo's historical weather archive, for one city per edition: London, New York, Sydney or Dublin. It is a reconstruction for the area, not a reading from a local weather station, and it is not the weather where you were born.
What is approximate or editorial
Not everything on the site is a checked fact. These parts are estimates, our own choices, or written to set a mood.
- Prices and wages
- The price of a pint, a loaf, petrol, a house, and the average wage are approximate and are given for interest only. They are not from a single checked source.
- UK and Australian TV
- A popular show of the time, chosen by us. There is no per-year ratings source for these countries, so we don’t call it a No. 1. Covers 1950 to 2005 for the UK and 1956 to 2005 for Australia.
- Cars
- “A Car of the {decade}” is a well-known car of the decade, chosen by us. It is not a sales claim. (Australia’s best-selling vehicle of the year is separate, and sourced — see above.)
- Toys and sweets
- The toys, games and sweets shown for each decade are our own picks of things people remember, not sales rankings.
- Irish songs
- Irish pages show an Irish chart song of the birth year (from 1962). It is one song per year, not a weekly number one, and has not been checked against a source in the way the UK, US and Australian charts have.
- Sport of the year
- Each country's page may show a few sporting results of the year, the same lines the paid newspaper prints. The Irish lines are the All-Ireland football and hurling finals, from Wikipedia's lists of those finals. The rest are our own selections: they have been reviewed, but not checked line by line against a source like the data above.
- Generation and decade descriptions
- The descriptions of each generation and each decade are our own writing, meant to set a mood rather than state facts.
- The personalised newspaper
- Two parts of the newspaper are produced using AI: the illustration (unless you add your own photo, which takes its place) and the birth-announcement headline with the short introduction beneath it. They are generated rather than drawn or written by a person. Nothing else in it is written by AI. The items under “In the News This Year” are real events from the “Events of the year” data described above: up to three, in Wikipedia's wording, dated before the birthday (for a birthday early in January they come from the end of the year before, and say so). The chart song and the film come from the same data as the site. The classified notices, reader notices, TV and radio listings and the weather outlook are period-style decoration, not real records; the prices and other period details are approximate, as they are on the site.
- Star sign, Chinese zodiac, birthstone, moon phase and day of the week
- These are worked out from the date, not looked up.
What we don't have
Where we have no sourced data for something, we leave it out rather than invent it. So some pages have gaps:
- No chart number one after the end of 2024, and none before the charts began: November 1952 for the UK, August 1958 for the US, January 1949 for Australia.
- No book for any country except the US, and no US novel for birthdays from 2013 to 2024.
- No best-selling vehicle of the year for any country except Australia, and none for Australia before 1977.
- No US top-rated TV show after the 2018–19 season (birthdays from 2019), because Wikipedia has no page for later seasons. UK and Australian TV stops at 2005.
- No TV show for Ireland.
- Birthdays are covered from 1940 to 2024.
Corrections
If you spot a mistake, tell us and we'll check it against the source. Email hello@dayiwasborn.co.uk with the page address and what looks wrong.
Wikipedia credit
Text and data from Wikipedia are used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence (CC BY-SA 4.0). Our thanks to the volunteers who write and maintain it.
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