The 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl was a postseason bowl game between the college football teams South Carolina Gamecocks and Connecticut Huskies on January 2, 2010, at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama; it ended in a 20–7 victory for Connecticut. Both teams had a 7–5 regular season record. Connecticut's tumultuous season had seen a victory at Notre Dame, and the murder of Jasper Howard, their cornerback. Connecticut scored twice in the first quarter: on a one-handed 37-yard touchdown reception by wide receiver Kashif Moore and then on a 33-yard field goal after South Carolina failed to convert a fourth-down play at its 32-yard line. Andre Dixon, Connecticut's running back, scored on a 10-yard rush early in the fourth quarter. South Carolina scored its sole touchdown on a two-yard run by Brian Maddox after the game had effectively been decided. Dixon was named player of the game, and finished with 126 rushing yards and one touchdown.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_PapaJohns.com_Bowl

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1862:

The Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, began with an engagement in which both sides would suffer their highest casualty rates in the American Civil War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stones_River

1965:

Central African military officers led by Jean-Bédel Bokassa began a coup d'état against the government of President David Dacko. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Sylvestre_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

1986:

Three disgruntled employees set fire to the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, killing more than 90 people and injuring 140 others (rescue efforts depicted), making it the second-deadliest hotel fire in United States history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupont_Plaza_Hotel_arson

1998:

The European Exchange Rate Mechanism froze the exchange rates of the legacy currencies in the eurozone, establishing the value of the euro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Exchange_Rate_Mechanism

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

auld lang syne: (idiomatic) Days gone by; former times. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/auld_lang_syne

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The authoritarian impulse is reasserting itself, to challenge free people and free societies, everywhere. In our own country, from the trivial to the truly dangerous, it is the range and regularity of the untruths we see that should be cause for profound alarm, and spur to action. Add to that the by-now predictable habit of calling true things false, and false things true, and we have a recipe for disaster. As George Orwell warned, "The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." … The question of why the truth is now under such assault may well be for historians to determine. But for those who cherish American constitutional democracy, what matters is the effect on America and her people and her standing in an increasingly unstable world — made all the more unstable by these very fabrications. What matters is the daily disassembling of our democratic institutions. We are a mature democracy — it is well past time that we stop excusing or ignoring — or worse, endorsing — these attacks on the truth. For if we compromise the truth for the sake of our politics, we are lost.   --Jeff Flake https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeff_Flake