The Belgian national football team has represented Belgium in
association football since their maiden match in 1904. The squad is
supervised by the Royal Belgian Football Association, stands under the
global jurisdiction of FIFA and is governed in Europe by UEFA. Most of
their home games are played at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.
The squad has been known as the Red Devils since 1906; its fan club is
named "1895". Belgium has long-standing football rivalries with its
Dutch and French counterparts, having played both teams nearly every
year from 1905 to 1967. Periods of regular Belgian representation at the
highest international level, from 1920 to 1938, and 1970 to 2002, have
alternated with mostly unsuccessful qualification rounds. The national
team played in three Olympic football tournaments, including the one in
1920, which they won. They achieved victories over four reigning world
champions—West Germany, Brazil, Argentina and France—between 1954
and 2002. Belgium topped the FIFA World Rankings for the first time in
November 2015. They are competing in the European qualifiers for the
2018 World Cup, which will run until October 2017.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium_national_football_team>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1745:
War of the Austrian Succession: French forces defeated the
Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian "Pragmatic Army" at the Battle of Fontenoy in the
Austrian Netherlands in present-day Belgium.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fontenoy>
1812:
Spencer Perceval became the only British Prime Minister to be
assassinated when he was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Spencer_Perceval>
1894:
In response to a 28 percent wage cut, 4,000 Pullman Palace Car
Company workers went on strike in Illinois, bringing rail traffic west
of Chicago to a halt.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike>
1985:
During an association football match between Bradford City and
Lincoln City in Bradford, England, a flash fire consumed one side of the
Valley Parade stadium, killing 56 attendees.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_City_stadium_fire>
1997:
Deep Blue became the first computer to win a match against a
world chess champion, when it defeated Garry Kasparov in six games.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
hold the ring:
1. (sports, theater, obsolete) To maintain order among spectators
encircling participants in a prizefight or a performance and keep them
from coming too near the participants; to keep the ring.
2. To be a spectator at a fight; (figuratively) to watch other people
argue.
3. (Britain, idiomatic) To oversee a situation while attempting to remain
uninvolved in it.
4. (sports) Of a prizefighter: to hold one's own during a fight; to
continue winning a series of fights.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hold_the_ring>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick
society.
--Jiddu Krishnamurti
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti>