Ephemeris Provides Interesting Look Into A Day’s History
by Brent Dirks
June 15, 2012
If you like to find out what happened on this day in history, Ephemeris (On this day) is an interesting app choice.
My birthday, August 28, has been a pretty boring day in historically. In 1996, Charles and Diana divorced in England. While in 1992, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the Communist Party, signaling the collapse of the Soviet Union. That’s about as interesting as it gets.
Along with quick snippets, you can learn more about a certain events with built-in data from Wikipedia.
Beyond finding out historical information, I can see whom I share my birthday with (LeAnn Rimes, Jack Black, Jason Priestly, Shania Twain, and more). There is also information on who passed away on a certain day.
The app also has the ability to share the information with friends and family via Twitter, Facebook, or email.
While overall the app is interesting for history buffs like me, there are some pretty big limitations.
When starting the app, the information from today’s date is displayed. But there is no way to skip quickly to another part of the year. You must tap to change the calendar day by day. So, even to skip just a few months ahead to my birthday, was a little time consuming and tedious. I don’t think I could have made it to December.
Ephemeris (On this day) is designed for the iPhone and iPod touch but does work on the iPad. It can be downloaded in the App Store for $0.99.
