The 1998 NFC Championship Game was a National Football League game played on January 17, 1999, to determine the National Football Conference (NFC) champion for the 1998 NFL season. The visiting Atlanta Falcons defeated the heavily favored Minnesota Vikings 30–27 in sudden death overtime to win their first conference championship and advance to the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance. The Vikings had gone undefeated in their home stadium, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (pictured), during the regular season, and their placekicker, Gary Anderson, had become the first kicker in NFL history to convert every field goal and extra point attempt in a season. At a critical moment late in the game, Anderson missed a field goal that would have given the Vikings a nearly insurmountable 10-point lead. Instead, the Falcons scored a touchdown to tie the game on their ensuing drive, and in overtime they won by a field goal. The Vikings became the first team with an NFL regular season record of 15–1 that did not go on to win the Super Bowl.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_NFC_Championship_Game

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

960:

Emperor Taizu began his reign in China, initiating the Song dynasty period that eventually lasted for more than three centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty

1899:

The Philippine–American War opened when an American soldier, under orders to keep insurgents away from his unit's encampment, fired upon a Filipino soldier in Manila. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manila_(1899)

1945:

World War II: U.S. Army forces liberated the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila, the largest of the Japanese internment camps in the Philippines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Tomas_Internment_Camp

1998:

A magnitude 5.9 MW earthquake struck northern Afghanistan, triggering landslides that killed over 2,300 people and destroyed around 15,000 homes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_1998_Afghanistan_earthquake

2008:

The London low emission zone, governing what types of vehicles may enter Greater London, came into being. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_low_emission_zone

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

dabble: 1. (transitive) To make slightly wet or soiled by spattering or sprinkling a liquid (such as water, mud, or paint) on it; to bedabble. 2. (transitive) To cause splashing by moving a body part like a bill or limb in soft mud, water, etc., often playfully; to play in shallow water; to paddle. 3. (intransitive) To participate or have an interest in an activity in a casual or superficial way. 4. (intransitive, obsolete) To interfere or meddle in; to tamper with. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dabble

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The war might stop this winter, but that is improbable. It may go on for fifty years or more. That also is improbable. The elements are too conflicting and confused to form any accurate judgment of its length. There may be a series of wars, one after another, going on indefinitely. Possibly the world will come to its senses sooner than I expect. But, as I have often said, the environment of human life has changed more rapidly and more extensively in recent years than it has ever changed before. When environment changes, there must be a corresponding change in life. That change must be so great that it is not likely to be completed in a decade or in a generation.   --Charles Lindbergh https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh