Triple world champion South African Baby Jake Matlala exchanges blows with Colombian Luis Doria, during an IBA Junior Flyweight title fight at the Carousel, north of Pretoria 15 November, 1997. Matlala won the fight by TKO in the 12th round.
Image: WALTER DHLADHLA / AFP
“It is not what happens to you, but how you respond that determines your life.” | Epictetus
Dolphins have names for each other (signature whistles).
1902 – The Treaty of Vereeniging peace conference begins to discuss ending the Anglo-Boer War.
1912 – On her maiden voyage, the RMS Titanic sinks after striking an iceberg. Of the more than 2,200 people on board, only 706 survive. Women and children are prioritised for lifeboats. One passenger recalled a crewman saying, “God himself could not sink this ship.” As panic spread, the ship’s orchestra played ragtime music to calm passengers – later mythologised as the hymn Nearer My God to Thee.
1936 – Amy Johnson arrives in Croydon, England, after a record-breaking solo flight from South Africa in just 4 days and 16 hours.
1940 – Richard McDonald and Maurice McDonald open the first McDonald's restaurant in San Bernardino, California.
1993 – South African flyweight champion 'Baby' Jake Matlala wins the WBO world championship title.
1997 – Former Vlakplaas commander Dirk Coetzee, along with accomplices, is found guilty of murdering human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge in 1981.
2010 – Jessica Watson, aged 16, becomes the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world.
2019 – A devastating fire engulfs Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Priceless relics, including the Crown of Thorns, are saved.
2024 – A report reveals that advanced AI systems now rival or surpass humans in reading comprehension, image classification, and high-level mathematics.
2025 – At least 148 passengers die when a motorised wooden boat catches fire and capsizes on the Congo River near Mbandaka.
2025 – A massive sandstorm hospitalises over 3,700 people and forces airport closures across central and southern Iraq due to poor visibility.
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