December 15
Sports
1917 - The NHL's first exhibition game was played four days before the start of the regular season. The Montreal Canadiens and the Montreal Wanderers played a benefit game for victims of the Halifax Explosion, which had occurred 10 days earlier.
1925 - The first Madison Square Garden was opened with a game between the Montreal Canadiens and the New York Americans.
1966 - The New Orleans Saints became the 16th NFL franchise.
1982 - Paul "Bear" Bryant announced his retirement as head football coach at the University of Alabama.
1984 - Edmonton's Wayne Gretzky lit the lamp five times en route to an 8-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues.
1992 - Arthur Ashe was named Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year.
1994 - Major League owners voted 25-3 to give its Executive Counsel power to declare impasse and implement salary caps if no agreement was reached in player strike negotiations by December 22.
1996 - Troy Aikman surpassed Roger Staubach's Dallas Cowboy record of 22,700 passing yards.
1996 - John Elway (Denver Broncos) won his 126th game to set an NFL record.
1997 - The San Francisco 49ers retired Joe Montana's number 16 during halftime of a game against the Denver Broncos.
2002 - Edgardo Alfonzo and the San Francisco Giants agreed on a four year contract worth $26 million.
2002 - Indianapolis wide receiver Marvin Harrison set a single-season record for most receptions in a year. He passed Herman Moore, who caught 123 balls for the Lions in 1995. Harrison also became the first player in NFL history to post consecutive 1,500-yard receiving seasons.
World
1791 - Following ratification by the state of Virginia, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, become the law of the land.
1890 - As U.S. Army soldiers attempt to arrest Sitting Bull at his cabin in Standing Rock, South Dakota, shooting breaks out and Lt. Bullhead shoots the great Sioux leader.
1939 - Gone With the Wind premieres in Atlanta. The film, based on Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, became an instant hit, breaking all previous box office records.
1961 - In Tel Aviv, Israel, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who organized Adolf Hitler's "final solution of the Jewish question," is condemned to death by an Israeli war crimes tribunal.
1966 - Animation pioneer Walt Disney dies on this day.
1972 - The Commonwealth of Australia orders equal pay for women.
1973 - Jean Paul Getty III, the grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, five months after his kidnapping by an Italian gang. J. Paul Getty, who became the richest man in the world in 1957, had initially refused to pay his 16-year-old grandson's $17 million ransom but finally agreed to cooperate after the boy's severed right ear was sent to a newspaper in Rome.
1988 - Legendary singer James Brown, also known as the "Godfather of Soul" and the "Hardest Working Man in Show Business," becomes inmate number 155413 at the State Park Correctional Institute in South Carolina.
Happy Birthday
Mo Vaughn (1967) - MLB
Rick Helling (1970) - MLB
Rodney Harrison (1972) - NFL
Jack Dempsey (1862) - Boxing
Sports
1917 - The NHL's first exhibition game was played four days before the start of the regular season. The Montreal Canadiens and the Montreal Wanderers played a benefit game for victims of the Halifax Explosion, which had occurred 10 days earlier.
1925 - The first Madison Square Garden was opened with a game between the Montreal Canadiens and the New York Americans.
1966 - The New Orleans Saints became the 16th NFL franchise.
1982 - Paul "Bear" Bryant announced his retirement as head football coach at the University of Alabama.
1984 - Edmonton's Wayne Gretzky lit the lamp five times en route to an 8-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues.
1992 - Arthur Ashe was named Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year.
1994 - Major League owners voted 25-3 to give its Executive Counsel power to declare impasse and implement salary caps if no agreement was reached in player strike negotiations by December 22.
1996 - Troy Aikman surpassed Roger Staubach's Dallas Cowboy record of 22,700 passing yards.
1996 - John Elway (Denver Broncos) won his 126th game to set an NFL record.
1997 - The San Francisco 49ers retired Joe Montana's number 16 during halftime of a game against the Denver Broncos.
2002 - Edgardo Alfonzo and the San Francisco Giants agreed on a four year contract worth $26 million.
2002 - Indianapolis wide receiver Marvin Harrison set a single-season record for most receptions in a year. He passed Herman Moore, who caught 123 balls for the Lions in 1995. Harrison also became the first player in NFL history to post consecutive 1,500-yard receiving seasons.
World
1791 - Following ratification by the state of Virginia, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, become the law of the land.
1890 - As U.S. Army soldiers attempt to arrest Sitting Bull at his cabin in Standing Rock, South Dakota, shooting breaks out and Lt. Bullhead shoots the great Sioux leader.
1939 - Gone With the Wind premieres in Atlanta. The film, based on Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, became an instant hit, breaking all previous box office records.
1961 - In Tel Aviv, Israel, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who organized Adolf Hitler's "final solution of the Jewish question," is condemned to death by an Israeli war crimes tribunal.
1966 - Animation pioneer Walt Disney dies on this day.
1972 - The Commonwealth of Australia orders equal pay for women.
1973 - Jean Paul Getty III, the grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, five months after his kidnapping by an Italian gang. J. Paul Getty, who became the richest man in the world in 1957, had initially refused to pay his 16-year-old grandson's $17 million ransom but finally agreed to cooperate after the boy's severed right ear was sent to a newspaper in Rome.
1988 - Legendary singer James Brown, also known as the "Godfather of Soul" and the "Hardest Working Man in Show Business," becomes inmate number 155413 at the State Park Correctional Institute in South Carolina.
Happy Birthday
Mo Vaughn (1967) - MLB
Rick Helling (1970) - MLB
Rodney Harrison (1972) - NFL
Jack Dempsey (1862) - Boxing
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