The temperature records do not go too far back. In few places up to about 250 years, in most places maybe 100 years or even a lot less.
Do you think that Wyatt Earp was waking up every day and before going to shoot, carefully recorded the temperature every day in the same place?
Assuming 100 years of the data, just by statistics, you get 3-4 record heats and 3-4 record colds every year!
With press making big fuzz of each of them, people get the impression, we are living in some extreme time.
But its been the hottest year ever for the last 10 years. Even though the record is broken by 1 or two hundredths of a degree where even the high quality measuring devices are barely accurate to one decimal place