When pondering things to write on this blog, it’s useful to know if there are any particularly interesting historic anniversaries coming up in the future.

It’s fairly easy, if tedious to wade through “this day in history” databases to see what happened, and if any of the dates are interesting.

After all, while finding out that something happened 648 years ago is interesting, but as a historic anniversary, the 650th is going to be more noteworthy than the 648th.

What is needed is a database that lists just the key anniversaries that are coming up.

So I have created one.

Currently based largely on “this day in history” records, it will be added to over time, but I think enough is now there to release the first version.

So, you can now learn that this month marks the 25th anniversary of the completion of the M25, or as I wrote recently, the 40th anniversary of the rededication of London Bridge in Arizona.

Or you can look to next month and learn that it is the 70th anniversary of the sinking of HMS Ark Royal, or 400 years since William Shakespeare’s The Tempest was first performed.

It might give fellow scribes hints about interesting things to write about – and I have been using it for the past couple of months while I was working on the database.

You can have a look at the system in the new Anniversaries section on the website – which is now also a menu option at the top of the website.