Apart from using mysqlbinlog, you can also use the SHOW BINLOG EVENTS command to display the events.
The following command will display the events in the server1.000008 binary log. If LIMIT is not specified, all the events are displayed:
mysql> SHOW BINLOG EVENTS IN 'server1.000008' LIMIT 10;+----------------+-----+----------------+-----------+-------------+------------------------------------------+| Log_name | Pos | Event_type | Server_id | End_log_pos | Info |+----------------+-----+----------------+-----------+-------------+------------------------------------------+| server1.000008 | 4 | Format_desc | 200 | 123 | Server ver: 8.0.3-rc-log, Binlog ver: 4 || server1.000008 | 123 | Previous_gtids ...