The history of American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football. Among the major changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football", in the 19th century were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down-and-distance rules. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, gameplay developments helped take advantage of the newly introduced forward pass. The popularity of collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport for the first half of the twentieth century. Bowl games, a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for collegiate teams. Bolstered by fierce rivalries, college football still holds widespread appeal in the US. Meanwhile, the origin of professional football can be traced back to 1892. In 1920, the National Football League (NFL) was formed, and eventually became the major league of American football. Football's increasing popularity is usually traced to the 1958 NFL Championship Game, a contest that has been dubbed the "Greatest Game Ever Played". A rival league to the NFL, the American Football League, began play in 1960; the pressure it put on the senior league led to a merger between the two leagues and the creation of the Super Bowl, which has become the most watched television event in the United States on an annual basis.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_American_football

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1488: Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and landed in Mossel Bay. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeu_Dias)

1509: Turkish-Portuguese War: Portugal defeated a joint fleet of Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, Ottoman Empire, the Zamorin of Calicut and the Sultan of Gujarat at the Battle of Diu off the coast of Diu, India. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Diu_%281509%29)

1867: Crown Prince Mutsuhito succeeded his father Kōmei as Emperor of Japan, taking the title Meiji. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_period)

1959: The Day the Music Died: A small plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, USA, killing American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died)

1966: The Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 became the first space probe to land on the Moon and transmit pictures from the lunar surface to Earth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9)

_____________________ Wiktionary's Word of the day:

fanatic: A person who is zealously enthusiastic for some cause, especially in religion. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fanatic)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

When war is waged it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it. -- Simone Weil (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_Weil)