I don’t really know what I am doing wrong. For a second I was able to go to the endpoint and I got the json output. Now no matter what I do I am just routed to a blank page on the site, I get the 200 status and an html document. I am using express for the back server and React for the front but statically built. I am running this all via cpanel.

React fetch

 useEffect(() => {
        const fetchImageData = async () => {
            try {
                const response = await fetch(
                    "/api/getHistoryInfo"
                );

                if (!response.ok) {
                    throw new Error("Network response was not ok");
                }
                //console.log(response);
                const { data } = await response.json();
                console.log(data);

                setTimeLineEvents(data.timeline);
                console.log(data);
            } catch (error) {
                console.error("Failed to fetch image data:", error);
            }
        };

        fetchImageData();
    }, []);

Express server

const express = require('express');
const cors = require('cors');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const app = express();
const port = 8080;


const timelineRouter = require('./routes/getHistoryInfo');
const faqRouter = require('./routes/getFAQ');
const eventsRouter = require('./routes/getEvents');
const gridRouter = require('./routes/getGridImages');

app.use(cors());
app.use(bodyParser.json());

app.use('/api/getHistoryInfo', timelineRouter);
app.use('/api/getFAQ', faqRouter);
app.use('/api/getEvents', eventsRouter);
app.use('/api/getGridImages', gridRouter);


app.listen(port, ()=> {
  console.log("Server running");
});

getHistoryInfo

const express = require('express');
const fs = require('fs');

const router = express.Router();

const formatDate = (dateString) => {
    const date = new Date(`${dateString}T00:00:00Z`); // Append 'T00:00:00Z' to indicate UTC time
    const options = {
        timeZone: "UTC", // Specify timezone as UTC
        month: "long",
        day: "numeric",
        year: "numeric",
    };
    return date.toLocaleDateString("en-US", options);
};

router.get("/", (req, res) => {
    try {
        console.log('hit');
        const jsonData = JSON.parse(
            fs.readFileSync("./public/history/history.json", "utf-8")
        );
        res.status(200).json({ data: jsonData });
    } catch (error) {
        console.error("Error reading image files:", error);
        res.status(500).json({ error: "Internal Server Error" });
    }
});

module.exports = router;

.htaccess

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^index.html$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
RewriteRule . /index.html [L]
</IfModule>