The expansion era of the National Hockey League (NHL) began when six new teams were added to the original six for the 1967–68 season. The expansion teams formed the newly created West Division: the Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Oakland Seals, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues. By 1978, the NHL had lost the Seals and had added another six teams: the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, Atlanta Flames, New York Islanders, Colorado Rockies, and Washington Capitals. They added another four teams in 1979, absorbed from the defunct World Hockey Association—the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets—for a total of 21 teams, a figure that remained constant until the San Jose Sharks joined as an expansion franchise in 1991. The NHL became involved in international play in the Summit Series in 1972, matching NHL players against the top players of the Soviet Union, and in the Canada Cup and Super Series between 1976 and 1991. The expansion era was one of the highest-scoring periods in NHL history, led in the 1980s by the Edmonton Oilers and Wayne Gretzky (pictured in 2006), who scored 215 points in 1985–86, still a league record. Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Hockey_League_(1967%E2%80%9392)> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1253: Nichiren, a Japanese monk, expounded Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for the first time and declared it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichiren_Buddhism> 1789: About 1,300 miles west of Tahiti, Fletcher Christian, master's mate on board the Royal Navy ship HMAV Bounty, led a mutiny against the ship's commander William Bligh. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty> 1910: Frenchman Louis Paulhan won the London to Manchester air race, the first long-distance aeroplane race in England. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_London_to_Manchester_air_race> 1952: Japan and China signed the Treaty of Taipei to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War, seven years after fighting in that conflict ended due to World War II. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Taipei> 1975: Chief of the South Vietnamese army Cao Văn Viên fled the country as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_V%C4%83n_Vi%C3%AAn> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: doggedly: In a way that is stubbornly persistent: Abby marked the International Day of the Dog with her beloved Jack Russell terrier, despite how he was doggedly gnawing through her extensive collection of shoes. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doggedly> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   We ARE history! Everything we've ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. Would you like the rest of the story? I'm made up of the memories of my parents and my grandparents, all my ancestors. They're in the way I look, in the color of my hair. And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think.   --Terry Pratchett <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett>