This is the day that was.
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The best way to predict the future is to create it. | Peter Drucker
You can swallow food while upside down – just ask astronauts. This is because the body uses a process called peristalsis – rhythmic muscle contractions in the oesophagus that push food or liquid from your mouth to your stomach. This works whether you’re standing, lying down, or even inverted.
1593 The Portuguese cargo ship Santo Alberto is wrecked off Pondoland, south-west of the mouth of the Umtata River. Through the admirable leadership of the captain, only 28 Portuguese and 34 slaves drown, while 125 sailors and 160 slaves reach the shore safely. Most of the survivors who set out for Delagoa Bay (Gqeberha) get there and establish contact with the locals. Another party was not so fortunate – of a group of 28, 26 died. Similar shipwrecks continued until and throughout the 17th century and reached such proportions that some regard them as the main reason for the Portuguese empire’s collapse.
1944 The Great Escape: 76 Allied PoWs break out of German prison camp Stalag Luft III. 73 are recaptured and 50 executed on Hitler’s orders, among them South Africans Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, who organised the escape, and lieutenants Johannes Gouws, Clement McGarr, and Rupert Stevens.
1999 The US and Nato attack Yugoslavia.
2015 A plane crashes in the French Alps in a pilot mass murder-suicide, killing 150 people.
2017 A fire, the biggest in Durban’s history, breaks out at a 21 ha warehouse. It burns for three days, takes millions of litres of water, and more than 100 firefighters to put out.
2020 Japan postpones Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games because of Covid-19.
2021 Insurgents attack the town of Palma, in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, killing 87 people and displacing some 15 000. Among them is South African Adrian Nel, who was killed while driving in a convoy of tourists fleeing a hotel. The attack leads to a two-week battle between the Islamic State-linked insurgents, the Mozambique army, and private military contractors.
2023 Africa’s first Biodiversity Biobank opens in Pretoria, South Africa, collecting more than a million biodiversity samples.
2023 A chocolate factory explosion in West Reading Borough, Pennsylvania, kills at least four people and injures 10, with three missing.
2025 The Atlantic publishes The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans, claiming US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth included a journalist in a group chat detailing airstrikes in Yemen.
DAILY NEWS