Did you know? From history-making dogs to shipwrecks, scandals and global turning points on this day
This is what's special about today.
Image: ChatGPT
Did you know?
The world’s oldest dog lived to 29.5 years old. While the median age a dog reaches tends to be about 10-15 years, one Australian cattle dog, ‘Bluey’, survived to the ripe old age of 29.5.
On this day in history, January 16
1690 The Dutch ship Noord is wrecked 50km west of Cape St Francis after a survey voyage to Delagoa Bay and Natal. The crew all make it ashore and start to walk to distant Cape Town. The group quickly falls apart and only the mate and 3 others arrive in Cape Town on March 27. They are followed later by some of the others, guided by friendly locals. (The remainder might have been assimilated into tribes along the way, but their fate remains unknown.) Earlier in the month, Noord became the first ship to anchor in what is today Durban harbour, having crossed the treacherous sandbar at the mouth of the bay. There they find 3 of the crew of the Stavenisse, who they had been searching for. An unfortunate passenger on Noord when she was wrecked, Jan Claasz Ruyver, had been survived the loss of the Stavenisse only to be wrecked again.
1917 Zimmermann Telegram intercepted. It says that Mexico, a German ally, can have Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. This sways public opinion and the US enters World War I.
1970 Golfing great Gary Player slams the decision not to let talented Indian golfer Papwa Sewgolum compete in the SA Open.
1981 Ex-world heavyweight boxing champion Leon Spinks is mugged for his gold teeth.
1990 As police close in, paedophile Gert van Rooyen and mistress Joey Haarhoff commit suicide in Pretoria.
1999 Louis Kruger, 11, of Richards Bay, dies after a crocodile attack in the Mapelane nature reserve at the mouth of the Umfolozi River.
2001 Democratic Republic of Congo President Laurent Kabila is assassinated by a bodyguard.
2005 Romanian Adriana Illiescu, 66, is the oldest recorded woman to give birth.
2013 Deep in the Sahara, militants seize a BP facility. 48 hostages die.
2019 Egypt’s capital, Cairo, is engulfed by a sandstorm, turning it orange.
2022 Tennis star Novak Doković is banned from the Australian Open and deported for not vaccinating against Covid.
2023 The patient, long arm of the law catches up with Italy’s most wanted mobster, Matteo Messina Denaro (61). He is nabbed at a cancer clinic in Palermo, Sicily, after being on the run for 30 years.
DAILY NEWS