On This Day CLI

A simple command-line tool that fetches historical events for the current date from Wikipedia's "On this day" API. Get interesting facts about what happened on this day in history!

Features

• Fetches real-time data from Wikipedia's "On this day" API
• Filter events by type (all, selected, births, deaths, holidays, events)
• Display oldest or newest events, or get a random selection

Installation

Make sure you have Rust installed on your system. Then clone and build the project:

git clone <repository-url>
cd on-this-day
cargo build --release

Usage

Run the application with:

cargo run

Or after building:

./target/release/on-this-day

Command Line Options

Flags

• -o, --oldest: Display the oldest event for today (conflicts with --newest)
• -n, --newest: Display the newest event for today (conflicts with --oldest)
• -h, --help: Print help information
• -V, --version: Print version information

Event Type Filter

• -t, --event-type <TYPE>: Filter by event type

Available event types:

• all (default): Shows events from all categories
• selected: Curated selection of notable events
• births: Notable births that occurred on this day
• deaths: Notable deaths that occurred on this day
• holidays: Holidays and observances
• events: General historical events

Dependencies

This project uses the following Rust crates:

• reqwest - HTTP client for API requests
• serde & serde_json - JSON serialization/deserialization
• tokio - Async runtime
• chrono - Date and time handling
• clap - Command-line argument parsing
• rand - Random selection of events

API

This tool uses the Wikimedia REST API to fetch historical events. The API is free to use and doesn't require authentication, but the application includes a proper User-Agent header as required by Wikipedia's policies.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.