Exporting HistEvents data
In addition to viewing your events online on HistEvents, it is possible to download/export some of the event listings in various formats. Alternatively, you might want to embed one of our calendar widgets on your site. This is a simpler way of using our data on an external site. Read on if you're interested in the more flexible way.
Exporting events based on topics
Every topic on HistEvents has a unique identifier. View the list of topics and identifiers
You can view all upcoming events in a topic area by navigating to a URL of this form:
For example, if the topic identifier for Metaphysics is 577, navigating to
http://events.history.ac.uk/search/topic/577
will list the upcoming events in Metaphysics.Once you visit a URL of the above form, a few export links appear on the right-side of the page. They include:
- RSS feed for this search
- iCal for this search (Outlook, Google Calendar)
- Download as CSV
Clicking on any of these links allows you to get the results in the respective format.
For example, the RSS export URL will look something like this (notice the format parameter):
For iCal and CSV formats of the same listings, only the format parameter changes. The format parameter will be 'calendar' and 'csv' for iCal and CSV formats, respectively.
http://events.history.ac.uk/search/topic/577?format=csv
How you use the above URLs is up to you. You could use the RSS feeds to view the events in your favourite RSS reader (like Google Reader), or you could download the list of events in iCal format and add them to your Outlook or Apple calendar, or if you are a developer you could make REST-like API calls to fetch the results in CSV format and process the results as required.
List of topics with identifiers
| Topic | Identifier |
|---|---|
| 16th-17th Century | 657 |
| 18th-19th Century | 658 |
| 20th Century | 659 |
| 21st Century | 660 |
| Administrative History | 663 |
| Africa | 648 |
| Agriculture | 664 |
| All geographical areas | 645 |
| All periods | 646 |
| All topics | 644 |
| All types of history | 647 |
| Ancient | 661 |
| Ancient History | 665 |
| Archaeology | 666 |
| Art and Architecture | 667 |
| Asia | 649 |
| Australasia and Pacific | 650 |
| Britain and Ireland | 651 |
| Byzantine History | 668 |
| Computing and History | 669 |
| Conference | 785 |
| Cultural History | 670 |
| Economic History | 671 |
| Education | 672 |
| Environmental History | 673 |
| Europe | 652 |
| Event type | 781 |
| Gender and Women | 674 |
| Historical Geography | 675 |
| Historiography | 676 |
| Imperial and Colonial | 677 |
| Intellectual History | 678 |
| International History | 679 |
| Latin America and West Indies | 653 |
| Lecture | 782 |
| Legal History | 680 |
| Local and Regional History | 681 |
| Maritime History | 682 |
| Medicine | 683 |
| Medieval | 662 |
| Middle East | 654 |
| Military History | 684 |
| North America | 655 |
| Oral history | 685 |
| Other | 784 |
| Palaeography and Diplomatic | 686 |
| Philosophy of History | 687 |
| Political History | 688 |
| Population | 689 |
| Religious History | 690 |
| Science and Technology | 691 |
| Seminar | 774 |
| Social History | 692 |
| Transport | 693 |
| Urban History | 694 |
| Workshop | 783 |
| World | 656 |
Exporting advanced search results
Although the ability to export events based on a topic of interest is enough in most cases, HistEvents also provides the ability to export events based on an advanced combination of criteria. This is provided by the Advanced Search on HistEvents.
Every search on HistEvents generates a unique identifier in the form of a number. This identifier can be used to export the results frequently, updated each time on request. To understand this better, go to our Advanced Search page where you can search for events based on a number of criteria and perform a search.
Once you get the results you are looking for, a few export links appear on the right-side of the page. They let you export these listings similarly to the exporting of events of a particular topic.
Let's take RSS for instance. If the unique identifier generated for your search was '12345', then the RSS export URL will look something like this (notice the identifier '12345' and the format parameter):
For iCal and CSV formats of the same search, the identifier remains the same, and only the format parameters change. The format parameter will be 'calendar' and 'csv' for iCal and CSV formats, respectively.
http://events.history.ac.uk/search/format/12345?format=csv
