On August 20, 1920, seven men, including legendary all-around
athlete and football star Jim Thorpe, met to organize a professional football league at the Jordan and Hupmobile Auto Showroom in
Canton, Ohio. The meeting led to the creation of the American Professional Football Conference (APFC), the forerunner to the
hugely successful National Football League.

James Francis Thorpe
(May 22 or 28, 1887 – March 28, 1953)

In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton  (below) and
Adolphus Solomons founded the American National Red Cross,
an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims
of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International
Red Cross.       

Clarissa Harlowe Barton (December 25, 1821 – April 12, 1912)

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

On February 21, 1948, the National Association for Stock Car
Racing, —or NASCAR, as it will come to be widely known—is
officially incorporated. NASCAR racing will go on to become
one of America’s most popular spectator sports, as well as a
multi-billion-dollar industry.

The driving force behind the establishment of NASCAR was
William “Bill” France Sr. (1909-1992), a mechanic and auto-
repair shop owner from Washington, D.C., who in the mid-
1930s moved to Daytona Beach, Florida.

William Henry Getty France
(September 26, 1909 – June 7, 1992)

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (L), founder of the March
of Dimes to fight polio, is shown at the White House with
Basil O’Connor, who worked with the president in forming
the charity.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an adult victim of polio, founded the
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which he later renamed
the March of Dimes Foundation, on January 3, 1938. A predominantly childhood disease in the early 20th century, polio wreaked havoc
among American children every summer. The virus, which affects
the central nervous system, flourished in contaminated food and
water and was easily transmitted. Those who survived the disease
usually suffered from debilitating paralysis into their adult lives. In
1921, at the relatively advanced age of 39, Roosevelt contracted
polio and lost the use of his legs. With the help of the media, his
Secret Service and careful event planning, Roosevelt managed to
keep his disease out of the public eye, yet his personal experience inspired in him an empathy with the handicapped and prompted
him to the found the March of Dimes.

Roosevelt talking with two young fellow polio patients at
Warm Springs.