**To describe events**

This example describes the events that have occurred for a DB instance (*test-instance*)::

    aws rds describe-events \
    --source-identifier test-instance --source-type db-instance

Output::

{
    "Events": [
        {
            "SourceType": "db-instance",
            "SourceIdentifier": "test-instance",
            "EventCategories": [
                "backup"
            ],
            "Message": "Backing up DB instance",
            "Date": "2018-07-31T23:09:23.983Z",
            "SourceArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:db:test-instance"
        },
        {
            "SourceType": "db-instance",
            "SourceIdentifier": "test-instance",
            "EventCategories": [
                "backup"
            ],
            "Message": "Finished DB Instance backup",
            "Date": "2018-07-31T23:15:13.049Z",
            "SourceArn": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:db:test-instance"
        }
    ]
}