On November 30, 1876, Yale defeated Princeton, 2-0, in Hoboken,
New Jersey in the first collegiate football game played on the Thanksgiving holiday. Nearly 1,000 fans attended the game,
played in cold, rainy weather. "The friends of both colleges
mustered in good force," the New York Times reports. "Several
carriages containing ladies were on the ground, and a goodly
number of Alumni were there to cheer the contestants."

The football was oval and made of leather, the Times noted,
"similar to those used in Rugby Union rules." The game
resembled rugby more than a present-day game of football. 

The First AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional 
football, known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to as
the Super Bowl, was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los
Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The
National Football League (NFL) champion Green Bay Packers
defeated the American Football League (AFL) champion Kansas
City Chiefs by the score of 35–10.

   

Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr (15) drops
back to pass during Super Bowl I.

Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson (16) fires
a pass during Super Bowl I.

WINS … 31 – 20. The first Super Bowl victory 
for the Chiefs in 50 years.

SANDY KOZEL

On January 28, 1986, the NASA Space Shuttle orbiter undertaking mission
STS-51-L and the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger  broke apart 73
seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard: five NASA
astronauts, one payload specialist, and a civilian school teacher.

The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of
Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST.

Space Shuttle Challanger crew: Back row from left to right…Ellison
S. Onizuka, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, and Judy Resnik.
In the front row from left to right: Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee,
and Ron McNair.

President Reagan delivers a nationwide speech following the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

Challenger shuttle memorial in Arlington cemetery, Washington DC.