Historical Fact / On This Day
A daily "on this day" history entry — one event, one date, and one reason it matters — in the register of a good history channel rather than a textbook: archive brown and sepia parchment alternating scene to scene, real film grain on every ground, faded red reserved for furniture rules and section labels, and a single period photograph shown twice at two scales (a matted archival print with a credit line, then a graded cinemascope band under a hard red rule). Five hard-cut scenes, 1080x1920 (9:16), 34 seconds at 30fps, with a background music bed. Nine fields change per render: eight text — date_label ("AUGUST 13", day and month only), year_label ("1961", which does structural work five times at four treatments including two outlined settings), location_label, event_title, event_summary (the 36-word record), payoff_line (the italic line the viewer repeats), photo_caption (the archival credit) and series_name — plus one image, period_image (a landscape period photograph, reused in scenes 02 and 04). Because the framing is keyed to a calendar date rather than a campaign, a 365-row date-keyed dataset renders an entire year in a single pass and posts one entry a day indefinitely.
- Aspect ratio
- 9:16 · Vertical
- Duration
- ~34s
- Category
- Educational
Try it with your own copy
Edit a field and the frame re-renders in your browser. No account, no credits - previews are free because they cost a browser paint, not a render.
What you can customize
This template exposes 9 dynamic fields you can swap per video - edit them in the editor or pass them to the API to batch-render variations at scale. The monospace name is the exact key to send in replacements.
Series Name
textseries_nameTHE DAILY RECORD
~78 characters max · 1 line
Date Label
textdate_labelAUGUST 13
~22 characters max · 1 line
Year Label
textyear_label1961
~5 characters max · 1 line
Location Label
textlocation_labelBERLIN · GERMANY
~78 characters max · 1 line
Event Title
textevent_titleOvernight, Berlin is cut in two
~38 characters max · 2 lines
Period Image
urlperiod_imagehttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/East_German_Construction_Workers_-_Flickr_-_The_Central_Intelligence_Agency.jpg
Photo Caption
textphoto_captionEast German workers raise the first concrete courses at the sector border, August 1961. — Central Intelligence Agency, public domain.
~241 characters max · 3 lines
Event Summary
textevent_summaryJust after midnight, East German troops sealed the border around West Berlin with barbed wire. By breakfast the trams had stopped in the street, and sixty thousand people could not reach the jobs they left the evening before.
~241 characters max · 7 lines
Payoff Line
textpayoff_lineOne night to build it. Twenty-eight years to tear it down.
~71 characters max · 3 lines
Render it from the API
Copy either call below. Both already carry this template's ID and its real variable keys - swap the values for your own.
1. Preview it — free
Same body as a render. Costs no credits, creates no job. Returns a public URL that plays the video in a browser, plus a list of problems with your payload — a mistyped key is otherwise ignored in silence.
curl -X POST https://renderly.video/api/v1/previews \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $RENDERLY_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"templateId": "historical-fact-on-this-day",
"replacements": {
"series_name": "THE DAILY RECORD",
"date_label": "AUGUST 13",
"year_label": "1961",
"location_label": "BERLIN · GERMANY",
"event_title": "Overnight, Berlin is cut in two",
"period_image": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/East_German_Construction_Workers_-_Flickr_-_The_Central_Intelligence_Agency.jpg"
}
}'2. Render it
Change one word in the URL. Keep templateId — it is what links your call to this template, so later improvements reach you automatically.
curl -X POST https://renderly.video/api/v1/renders \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $RENDERLY_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"templateId": "historical-fact-on-this-day",
"replacements": {
"series_name": "THE DAILY RECORD",
"date_label": "AUGUST 13",
"year_label": "1961",
"location_label": "BERLIN · GERMANY",
"event_title": "Overnight, Berlin is cut in two",
"period_image": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/East_German_Construction_Workers_-_Flickr_-_The_Central_Intelligence_Agency.jpg"
}
}'The body above shows 6 of 9 variables. Send any subset — every key you leave out renders its authored default. Read the full contract, with character limits, from GET /api/v1/templates/historical-fact-on-this-day/variables. See the previewing guide, the rendering guide, or the OpenAPI spec.
Frequently asked questions
How do I customize the Historical Fact / On This Day template?
Open the template in the Renderly editor and replace its 9 customizable fields (such as Series Name) with your own text, images, or video. Every change previews instantly before you render.
How much does it cost to render this template?
Rendering is credit-based - 1 credit equals 1 minute of 1080p video. You only pay when you export, and credits never expire on the pay-as-you-go plan.
Can I generate this video at scale via the API?
Yes. POST this template's ID and a replacements object to /api/v1/renders - one call per row of data, 9 fields swappable per video. Send the same body to /api/v1/previews first to check it for free. No-code integrations like Zapier work the same way.
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