How To View Significant Events In World History From Command line

Today, I am going to share a tip to learn something useful when you feel bored at work. You can view significant events in world history from command line in Unix-like systems using Calendar command. To use Calendar command, you need to install bsdmainutils package that contains a collection of FreeBSD utilities such as banner, calendar, col, colcrt, colrm, column, from, hexdump, look, lorder, ncal, ul, and write.

Install bsdmainutils

Most Linux distributions comes preinstalled with bsdmainutils. If it is not installed already, you can install it from your distribution's default package manager. For example, on Debian based systems, run the following command to install bsdmainutils package.

$ sudo apt-get install bsdmainutils

On RPM based systems:

$ sudo yum install bsdmainutils

View Significant Events In World History From Command line

All history events will be stored in separate Calendar files in /usr/share/Calendar directory. To view all Calendar files, run:

$ ls /usr/share/calendar/

Sample output:

calendar.all calendar.debian calendar.holiday calendar.kazakhstan calendar.ubuntu hr_HR
calendar.argentina calendar.discordian calendar.hungarian calendar.lotr calendar.ukrainian hu_HU
calendar.australia calendar.dutch calendar.judaic calendar.music calendar.unitedkingdom ru_RU
calendar.belgium calendar.eu calendar.judaic.2016 calendar.newzealand calendar.usholiday uk_UA
calendar.birthday calendar.freebsd calendar.judaic.2017 calendar.pagan calendar.world
calendar.christian calendar.french calendar.judaic.2018 calendar.russian de_AT
calendar.computer calendar.german calendar.judaic.2019 calendar.southafrica de_DE
calendar.croatian calendar.history calendar.judaic.2020 calendar.thai fr_FR

Just type the following command to know the important and significant events happened today in World history.

$ calendar

This calendar utility checks the current directory or the directory specified by the CALENDAR_DIR environment variable for a file named calendar and displays lines that begin with either today's date or tomorrow's. On Fridays, events on Friday through Monday are displayed.

Sample output:

 Apr 11 National Heroes Day in Costa Rica
 Apr 11 Es asesinado Justo J. de Urquiza en el Palacio San José, 1870
 Apr 11 Bruce A. Mah <bmah@FreeBSD.org> born in Fresno, California, United States, 1969
 Apr 11 N'oubliez pas les Stanislas !
 Apr 11 Bonne fête aux Gemma !
 Apr 11 Aujourd'hui, c'est la St(e) Léon.
 Apr 11 Attentat auf Dutschke, Studentenunruhen, 1968
 Apr 11 Leó, Szaniszló
 Apr 12 Confederate troops fire first shots of Civil War at Ft Sumter, 1861
 Apr 12 Space Shuttle Columbia launched, 1981
 Apr 12 Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space, 1961
 Apr 12 Patrick Gardella <patrick@FreeBSD.org> born in Columbus, Ohio, United States, 1967
 Apr 12 Ed Schouten <ed@FreeBSD.org> born in Oss, the Netherlands, 1986
 Apr 12 N'oubliez pas les Jules !
 Apr 12 Bonne fête aux Sabas !
 Apr 12 Gyula
 Apr 12 День космонавтики

Just in case if you encountered with an error "calendar: /usr/bin/cpp: No such file or directory", you need to install cpp package.

In Ubuntu, run the following command to install it.

$ sudo apt-get install cpp

You can also use 'cat' command to display the events like below.

To view all history events, run:

$ cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.history

Know About Significant Events In World History From Command line

It shows mostly US-related events, yet it is useful and very interesting to read.

To list all important events related to Computer, run:

$ cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.computer

Also, you can narrow down the search results using search terms like below.

$ cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.computer | grep "Unix"

Want to know the the history events of Ubuntu? Just run:

$ calendar -f /usr/share/calendar/calendar.ubuntu -A 365

Here, The -f flag indicates which calendar you want to access, and the calendar.ubuntu is the file that has important events of Ubuntu.

Sample output:

Apr 17 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) released, 2014
Apr 19 Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) released, 2007
Apr 23 Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) released, 2009
Apr 24 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) released, 2008
Apr 25 Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) released, 2013
Apr 26 Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) released, 2012
Apr 28 Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) released, 2011
Apr 29 Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) released, 2010
Jun 01 Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) released, 2006
Oct 10 Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) released, 2010
Oct 13 Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) released, 2005
Oct 13 Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) released, 2011
Oct 17 Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) released, 2013
Oct 18 Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) released, 2007
Oct 18 Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) released, 2012
Oct 20 Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog) released, 2004
Oct 23 Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) released, 2014
Oct 26 Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) released, 2006
Oct 29 Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) released, 2009
Oct 30 Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) released, 2008
Apr 08 Ubuntu 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog) released, 2005

Want to see the birth or death dates of famous people? run this command:

$ calendar -f /usr/share/calendar/calendar.birthday -A 365

You can also search what's happened on a particular year using grep command like below.

$ grep '1984$' /usr/share/calendar/calendar.*

This command will display all events which are happened in 1984.

Sample output:

/usr/share/calendar/calendar.argentina:Oct 15 Se es concedido el Nobel de Medicina a César Milstein, 1984
/usr/share/calendar/calendar.computer:01/01 AT&T officially divests its local Bell companies, 1984
/usr/share/calendar/calendar.computer:Apr 01 Usenet site kremvax announced as an April Fool's joke, 1984
/usr/share/calendar/calendar.computer:Jan 24 Introduction of the first Mac, 1984
/usr/share/calendar/calendar.freebsd:02/26 Pietro Cerutti <gahr@FreeBSD.org> born in Faido, Switzerland, 1984
/usr/share/calendar/calendar.freebsd:05/19 Sofian Brabez <sbz@FreeBSD.org> born in Toulouse, France, 1984
/usr/share/calendar/calendar.freebsd:06/18 Li-Wen Hsu <lwhsu@FreeBSD.org> born in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, 1984
/usr/share/calendar/calendar.freebsd:10/20 Dmitry Marakasov <amdmi3@FreeBSD.org> born in Moscow, Russian Federation, 1984

How about Lord of The Rings timeline?

Yes, you can also view the major dates related to Lord of the Rings(LOTR) events. To do so, just run the following command from the Terminal:

$ cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr

Sample output would be:

/*
 * Lord Of The Rings
 *
 * $FreeBSD$
 */

#ifndef _calendar_lotr_
#define _calendar_lotr_

LANG=UTF-8

01/05 Fellowship enters Moria
01/09 Fellowship reaches Lorien
01/17 Passing of Gandalf
02/07 Fellowship leaves Lorien
02/17 Death of Boromir
02/20 Meriadoc & Pippin meet Treebeard
02/22 Passing of King Ellesar
02/24 Ents destroy Isengard
02/26 Aragorn takes the Paths of the Dead
03/05 Frodo & Samwise encounter Shelob
03/08 Deaths of Denethor & Theoden
03/18 Destruction of the Ring
03/29 Flowering of the Mallorn
04/04 Gandalf visits Bilbo
04/17 An unexpected party
04/23 Crowning of King Ellesar
05/19 Arwen leaves Lorian to wed King Ellesar
06/11 Sauron attacks Osgilliath
06/13 Bilbo returns to Bag End
06/23 Wedding of Ellesar & Arwen
07/04 Gandalf imprisoned by Saruman
07/24 The ring comes to Bilbo
07/26 Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles
08/03 Funeral of King Theoden
08/29 Saruman enters the Shire
09/10 Gandalf escapes from Orthanc
09/14 Frodo & Bilbo's birthday
09/15 Black riders enter the Shire
09/18 Frodo and company rescued by Bombadil
09/28 Frodo wounded at Weathertop
10/05 Frodo crosses bridge of Mitheithel
10/16 Boromir reaches Rivendell
10/17 Council of Elrond
10/25 End of War of the Ring
11/16 Bilbo reaches the Lonely Mountain
12/05 Death of Smaug
12/16 Fellowship begins Quest

#endif /* !_calendar_lotr_ */

Can I view only a particular character's events in Lord of the Rings? Of course, you can! The following command displays the events related to Bilbo baggins in LOTR.

$ cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr | grep "Bilbo"

Sample output:

04/04 Gandalf visits Bilbo
06/13 Bilbo returns to Bag End
07/24 The ring comes to Bilbo
07/26 Bilbo rescued from Wargs by Eagles
09/14 Frodo & Bilbo's birthday
11/16 Bilbo reaches the Lonely Mountain

For more details, check the man pages.

$ man calendar

I am not sure that these facts are accurate. Please cross check them on any legitimate offline/online sources. Knowing important events in World history from command line is really fun, and productive instead of passing time by merely playing games or watching movies.

That's all for now. I will be soon here with another interesting guide. If you find this guide useful, please share it on your social and professional networks.

Cheers!