So, here's my On This Day page and here's how I built it.

WARNING Extremely quick and dirty code ahead!

This allows you to add a shortcode like [ edent_on_this_day ] to a page and have it auto generate a list of posts you published on this day in previous years. You may need to exclude that page from your cache.

Add these functions to your theme or to a new plugin:

function edent_on_this_day_shortcode() {
    $today = getdate();
    $args = array(
        'date_query' => array(
            array(
                'month' => $today['mon'],
                'day'   => $today['mday'],
            ),
        ),
    );
    $query = new WP_Query( $args );
    $posts = $query->get_posts();

    $today = getdate();
    $pubDate =  date("D, d M Y") . " 00:00:00 GMT";

    $output  = "<h2>From the " . date("jS \of F") . " archives</h2>";
    $output .= "<ul>";

    foreach($posts as $post) {
        $title = $post->post_title;
        $id    = $post->ID;
        $link  = get_permalink($id);
        $date  = $post->post_date;
        $postDate = date("D, d M Y") . " " . date("h:i:s O", strtotime($date));
        // $thumb = get_the_post_thumbnail($id, 'full');

        $archive = "" . date("Y", strtotime($date)) . ": ";

        //  Only add an item if it is before *this year*
        if (
            intval(date("Y", strtotime($date))) <  intval($today['year'])
        ) {
            $output .= '<li><a href="' . htmlspecialchars($link) .'">';
            $output .= html_entity_decode($archive . $title) . '</a></li>';
        }
    }
    $output .= "</ul>";
    return $output;
}

//  Set up the shortcode
function edent_on_this_day_shortcode_init() {
    add_shortcode( 'edent_on_this_day', 'edent_on_this_day_shortcode' );
}
add_action( 'init', 'edent_on_this_day_shortcode_init' );

I really can't be bothered to deal with WordPress's complicated plugin publishing system - so feel free to copy the above with or without attribution.

I originally built this as an RSS feed - but decided recently that a regular HTML page was more useful. If you spot any bugs, you can contribute on GitHub.

Enjoy!

The Schema.org representation of a Restaurant is pretty simple:

"itemReviewed": {
    "@type": "Restaurant",
    "name": "Example Bistro",
    "address": "42 Wallaby Way, Sydney",
    "hasMenu": "https://example.com/menu",
    "servesCuisine": "Vegetarian",
    "sameAs": "https://www.example.com/restaurant"
}

There are many more metadata items which could be added - but that's enough for my purposes.

I've written my own WordPress theme to add Semantic Reviews. It gives me a little UI box to add in all the essential data.

Once all that's fed in, it's converted to JSON+LD which looks like this:

{
    "@context": "https:\/\/schema.org",
    "@type": "Review",
    "author": {
        "@type": "Person",
        "name": "Terence Eden",
        "sameAs": [""]
    },
    "url": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/blog\/?p=44547",
    "datePublished": "2023-01-20T12:34:10+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Terence Eden\u2019s Blog",
        "sameAs": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/blog"
    },
    "description": "If you've visiting Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur, I have two tips for you. Firstly, get there as early as possible in order to avoid the heat and other tourists. Secondly, after climbing a mountain of ",
    "inLanguage": "en-GB",
    "itemReviewed": {
        "@type": "Restaurant",
        "name": "Rani Vilas Restaurant Batu Caves",
        "address": "Jalan Batu Caves, Batu Caves, Malaysia, 68100",
        "sameAs": "http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RaniVilasRestaurantBatuCaves",
        "hasMenu": "https:\/\/www.foodpanda.my\/restaurant\/w1rb\/rani-vilas-restaurant-shop",
        "servesCuisine": "Vegetarian Indian",
        "image": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/rani.jpg",
        "aggregateRating": {
            "@type": "AggregateRating",
            "ratingValue": "5",
            "reviewCount": "1",
            "worstRating": 0,
            "bestRating": 5
        }
    },
    "reviewRating": {
        "@type": "Rating",
        "worstRating": 0,
        "bestRating": 5,
        "ratingValue": "5"
    },
    "thumbnailUrl": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/rani.jpg"
}

The somewhat messy code is available on my GitLab. If there's any interest, I might turn it into a separate WordPress plugin.

I asked for a way to turn this off and I'm happy to say the developers listened!

Sadly, there's no tickbox option, only a WordPress filter so you'll have to add the following scrap of code to your theme's functions.php file.

function disable_akismet_mshots( $value ) {
   return false;
}
add_filter( 'akismet_enable_mshots', 'disable_akismet_mshots' );

I placed it at the end of the file - but check your theme's documentation.