Send your WebWorld queries to pcollins@irishtimes.com or by post to Padraig Collins, The Irish Times New Media, 4th Floor, Ballast House, Aston Quay, Dublin 2

Is there a website that lists out things that happened on a particular day in history? - Tony, via e-mail

Of course there is! There is a website out there for almost anything you could care to mention (as well as a great many dealing with things you might never care to mention). This is something that we are all interested in - who among us does not wonder what other great things happened on the day we were born?

A fun one to look at is the dMarie Time Capsule (www.dmarie.com/timecap/) which allows you to create a page on the Internet - your own time capsule - of things that happened on a particular day. Just enter the date that you are looking for and follow the instructions from there.

It is very US-oriented, but there will generally be events that most people have heard about. For instance, on my birthday, Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa began his eight-year jail sentence for defrauding the union and jury tampering.

As for people born on the same day, it did not include the South Korean man born on the same day and year as me who used to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having the world's highest IQ (I always felt a kinship to him), but I was delighted to discover that musicians Townes Van Zandt and Arthur Lee both share my birthday.

You can also add books, records, TV shows and toys to your final page. As well as the ones they suggest, you can add your own. The names of the US president and Academy Award winners, and the price (in the US) of items like bread, milk and cars in the year concerned are all automatically added in. A print-out of the page might make a nice, unusual gift for someone who is of an age to be looking back at their life (21st birthday maybe).

For a more serious look at what happened on a particular day, try This Day In History at www.historychannel.com/tdih/ tdih.html. Again, on my own birthday, Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland; Bangladesh elected its first democratic leader; a Broadway play was televised in colour for the first time; Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone; and, 50 years later, in 1926, the first transatlantic radio telephone call was made.