[Wikipedia] February 3: History of American football

[Faraaz Damji]

  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


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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)


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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)


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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)