Modern-Day Jonah Gets Swallowed By A Whale, Valentine’s Day Quote, Why There Is A Friday 13: History and Today’s Facts: Everything You Need to Know
Is the biblical tale of Jonah And The Whale really that far-fetched as some would claim?
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Quote of the day
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. | David Viscott
Did you know?
There will only be a Friday the 13th, if the first day of that month falls on a Sunday.
On this day in history, February 13
1713 Smallpox breaks out at the Cape and wreaks havoc. Hardest hit are the Khoisan.
1779 A Cape Colony edict forbids any white from settling beyond the Gamtoos River.
1941 World War II: The 12th African Division, led by the 1st SA Infantry Brigade, captures Kismayu, Somaliland.
1981 Sewer explosions destroy more than 3km of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
1982 About 15 000 people attend Neil Aggett’s funeral in Johannesburg. The trade unionist and doctor died in police custody after a 62-hour interrogation on the 70th day of his detention without trial. Fellow detainees remember seeing Aggett, 28, previously a strong and healthy man, reduced to a weak and trembling shell in the last week of his life. As a doctor, he had been exposed to the hardships and poverty-related diseases of workers. Working mainly in overcrowded hospitals in Umtata and Tembisa, Aggett won the trust and respect of staff and patients alike. He often dipped into his own pocket to help further workers’ rights, taking extra shifts at the hospital to support himself.
1984 Notorious bank robber André Stander is killed while struggling for control of a policeman’s firearm in the US. As a bored policeman in South Africa, Stander would sometimes rob a bank during his lunch break, only to return later as the investigating officer.
2004 Denis Hurley, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban, dies. He spent his early years on Robben Island, where his father was the lighthouse keeper. A fierce opponent of Apartheid, he was dubbed ‘the scourge of Apartheid’ and ‘an ecclesiastical Che Guevara’.
2008 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to indigenous Australians and the ‘Stolen Generations’.
2019 Australia’s Flinders River swells to 60km wide, creating its own weather system.
2025 Amazing footage is broadcast of a humpback whale swallowing a man on a kayak off Chilean Patagonia, before releasing him unharmed.
2025 Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid sportsman of 2024, earning $260 million, followed by basketball player Stephen Curry and boxer Tyson Fury.
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