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

_______________________________ 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)

_____________________ 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)