Browsing: Sports

A Brief History On April 29, 1967, heavyweight boxing champ, Muhammad Ali, was stripped of his crown when he refused induction into the US military.  He later was vindicated and regained his championship belt in the ring, and today we look at some sports champions that were stripped of their honors. Digging Deeper One of the saddest and most famous cases was Olympic champ Jim Thorpe, stripped of his Gold Medals won at the 1912 Olympics in the Decathlon and Pentathlon because he had once played semi-pro baseball. In 1982, his honors were posthumously returned. Performance enhancing drugs have cost…

A Brief History On April 3, 2024, Americans celebrate National Walking Day, a day celebrated only since 2007 in spite of being an activity people have been doing since proto-humans came down from the trees. Digging Deeper People seem to walk as little as possible to travel from point A to point B, and yet all sorts of walking machines, treadmills, and elliptical machines, are sold every year.  In honor of those blessed with the ability to perambulate, stroll, trudge, hike, amble, plod, march, tramp, stride, and tread, here are a few facts about walking. You burn about 5 calories…

A Brief History On March 31, 1995, American singer and “Queen of Tejano Music,” Selena, was murdered, incredibly by the president of her fan club!  The bad fan had as part of her fan club duties the responsibility for managing income from club dues, merchandise, and other Selena income, money that she was embezzling.  Soon after the thefts were discovered, the fan gone bad shot Selena to death at the age of 23. Digging Deeper It may be nice at times to have loyal fans, but some fans go too far.  Some examples of fans going overboard include: John Lennon,…

A Brief History On March 4, 2020, Nik Wallenda of the famous acrobat and daredevil family, became the first person to walk on a wire above the crater of the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua.  Not to be outdone, his wife, Erendira, performed an aerial routine above the smoking crater! Digging Deeper The Wallenda family is famous for many of their death-defying firsts, with Nik personally holding 11 Guinness World Records, including being the first to walk across Niagara Falls on a high wire. Other daredevils have achieved epic firsts, including: Annie Edson Taylor, the first to survive going over Niagara…

A Brief History On March 3, 2018, the track and field world lost one of its greatest runners when Roger Bannister died, the first person to run a mile in under four minutes.  Prior to Bannister’s run in 1954, many people doubted that any man could break the “four-minute barrier.”  Obviously, those doubters were wrong! Digging Deeper Bannister was involved in another historic race, this time in the finals of the 1500-meter run at the 1952 Olympics, in which he finished 4th, the incredible part being that all eight runners in that race broke the Olympic record for the 1500!…