On January 18th 1958 Willie O’Ree made his professional hockey debut for the Boston Bruins. This event broke the NHL color barrier. During parts of two seasons he played a total of 45 games, all for Boston.

It is a common situation in business that once a company is success a competitor will appear and try to replace it. The NFL and MLB both are made of an older established league that merged with a new league that challenged it. In 1966 the NFL announced a merger with the competing AFL. 13 of the original NFL teams became the NFC and the AFL teams along with four NFL teams became the AFC. The National League in baseball was around for 28 years before the World Series created a matchup between the its champion and the champion of the American League. Since 1903 the two leagues have met for the World Series and only in the year 2000 did the two league become a single legal entity.

When professional football was still in its infancy professional baseball was by far the most popular professional sport in the United States. For this reason many of the teams chose names that sounded similar to the local baseball team. Some of these teams no longer exist but there are two teams that keep the tradition alive. The Chicago Cubs inspired the name for the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Tigers helped give the Detroit Lions their name. The other NFL team still owing their name to baseball is the New York Giants. The New York Giants football team actually outlasted its baseball counterpart which moved to become the San Francisco Giants in 1957.

In 1924 Adolf and Rudolf Dassler started a shoe company in Germany. They were able to grow their company successfully during the 20s and 30s. Their shoes were used by athletes during the Berlin Olympics and afterwards were in great demand by athletes around the world. Both brothers were members of the Nazi party and during WWII their relationship started to splinter. In 1948 they split the business. Adolf Dassler started Adidas, the name came from his nickname Adi and the beginning of his last name Das. Rudolf started a company called Ruda, which was also a combination of the beginning of his first and last names. The company quickly changed its name to Puma.

By the time Squaw Valley hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics television had become a big part of the Olympic movement. CBS had the rights to broadcast the games and was taping a downhill ski event when there was a dispute over whether or not a skier had missed a gate. The officials asked CBS to look at their footage to see if there was proof either way. It is said that this gave CBS the idea to create instant replay.

Originally there was only the Summer Olympics. The first winter Olympics took place in 1924 at Chamonix France. In 1920 the Summer Olympics in Antwerp included Hockey. The other winter event held in the summer was figure skating, which were included in the 1908 and 1920 Olympics.

The 1976 Winter Olympics were awarded to Denver. The announcement was made in 1970 that Denver had successfully bid for the games. In 1972 the city held a referendum on public funding for the games. The proposed funding for the games was rejected by the referendum and so Denver pulled out of hosting. The games were moved to be in Innsbruck Austria, despite the fact that the games had just been there in 1964.

The 1956 Summer Olympics were held in Melbourne Australia… mostly. Due to quarantine laws horses could not be brought to Australia. For this reason all equestrian events were held five months earlier in Stockholm Sweden.

Three separate cities were awarded the 1940 Winter Olympics, and then it was cancelled because of World War 2. Originally Sapporo Japan was awarded the games. In 1937 war broke out between Japan and China so the games were taken from Sapporo and given to St.Moritz Switzerland. After a fight between the International Olympic committee and the Swiss organizing committee the games were moved again. Since this last move happened in 1939, only a year before the games were to happen, the new city chosen was Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany which had hosted the 1936 Winter games. In the end the games did not happen because of the outbreak of war.

For a long time baseball was considered to be an American invention. The legend of Abner Doubleday inventing the game was supported by the baseball establishment for many years. It has now become clear that the game was a British import. In fact Jane Austen referenced baseball in her book Northanger Abbey, which she wrote in 1798.