The FIFA World Cup is the most important competition in international
football. The world's most representative team sport event, the World
Cup is contested by the men's national football teams of Federation
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) (the sport's largest
governing body) member nations. The championship has been awarded
every four years since the first tournament in 1930 (except in 1942
and 1946 due to World War II). However, it is more of an ongoing event
as the qualifying rounds of the competition take place over the three
years preceding the final rounds. In 1991, FIFA added a separate
Women's World Cup. The men's final tournament phase involves 32
national teams competing over a four-week period in a previously
nominated host nation, with these games making it the most
widely-viewed sporting event in the world. In the 17 tournaments held,
only seven nations have ever won the World Cup Finals. Brazil is the
current holder, as well as the most successful World Cup team, having
won the tournament five times, while Germany and Italy follow with
three titles each. The next World Cup finals will begin in Germany on
June 9, and will continue until July 9, 2006.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup
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Today's selected anniversaries:
632:
Muhammad, founder of Islam, died in Medina.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad)
1887:
Herman Hollerith received a patent for his punch card calculator.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/punch_card)
1949:
George Orwell's dystopian political novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was
first published.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four)
1966:
One of the XB-70 Valkyrie prototypes is destroyed in a mid-air
collision with a F-104 Starfighter chase plane during a photo shoot.
NASA pilot Joseph A. Walker and USAF test pilot Carl Cross were both
killed.
2004:
Ethiopian distance runner Kenenisa Bekele broke the world record for
outdoor 10,000 m in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenenisa_Bekele)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"The present is the ever moving shadow that divides yesterday from
tomorrow. In that lies hope." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright)