And you thought today was hot, that's mild compared to this

Did you know that . . . 

WHAT A LOT THEY GOT: The Philippines is made up 7 641 islands. Many of the sandbars and other landforms that appear at low tide, numbering in the thousands, are not included in that estimate.

On this day in history, November 13

1926 The first recorded aerial bombing on US soil takes place in Williamson County, Illinois, during a feud between rival liquor gangs.

1966 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin takes the first ‘space selfie’, long before selfies were a thing.

1970 A cyclone kills 500 000 in Bangladesh.

1990 The World Wide Web is mooted by CERN scientists Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau.

2003 With a speed of 501km/h, which makes even Japan’s bullet train look pedestrian, the Shanghai Transrapid, a magnetic levitation train (maglev), sets up a world speed record for commercial railways. Then, in 2021 China unveils a maglev system capable of 600km/h.

2015 Out Magazine names US President Barack Obama ‘Ally of the Year’. He is the first sitting president to pose for the cover of a gay magazine because he ‘and his administration ushered extraordinary change into the lives of LGBT Americans’.

2023 An unprecedented heatwave in Brazil affects more than 3 000 towns, with Rio de Janeiro reaching 42.5ºC. High humidity makes it feel like a blisteringly hot 58.5ºC, making for exceptionally dangerous conditions for all life.

2023 The WHO calls for Israeli attacks on and around hospitals in Gaza to stop, with newborn Palestinians reportedly dying as a result of power, water and oxygen cuts.

2024 The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, resigns in the wake of the damning Makin Report into sadist John Smyth, who was actively involve in church ministry for children. (Welby will be replaced by the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, in January 2026.) Lawyers say the Church’s failure to report Smyth’s abuse in the UK between 1982 and 1984, directly led to his relocation to Zimbabwe, where he continued to prey on vulnerable boys and young men (and possibly in South Africa). A former barrister, Smyth, QC, escaped justice, dying of a heart attack in Bergvliet, Cape Town, aged 77. The Makin Report found he was an appalling abuser, with victims were subjected to traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks. The impact of that abuse, the report said, was impossible to overstate and had permanently marked the lives of his victims, with his own family also victims of his depravity.

DAILY NEWS