On this day in 1997, Ila Borders becomes the first woman to pitch in a minor league baseball game, when she enters a game in relief for the St. Paul Saints of the Northern League. Mike Veeck, son of famous baseball impresario and promoter Bill Veeck, owned the Saints, and signed Borders to garner publicity […]
On May 11, 1997, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigns after 19 moves in a game against Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer developed by scientists at IBM. This was the sixth and final game of their match, which Kasparov lost two games to one, with three draws. Kasparov, a chess prodigy from Azerbaijan, was a skillful […]
Tiger Woods, whose father is African-American and mother is Thai, becomes the first person of color to win the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club, which admitted its first black member in 1990. Eldrick “Tiger” Woods was born December 30, 1975, in Cypress, California. A golf prodigy, Woods began swinging a club at age two […]
On this day in 1997, President Bill Clinton undergoes surgery to repair the quadriceps tendon of his right knee at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. Clinton, an avid golfer, had injured his knee at 1:20 that morning when he slipped down some stairs at Australian professional golfer Greg Norman’s house. Clinton’s surgeon later […]
On this day in 1996, track and field legend Carl Lewis wins his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the long jump. It was the ninth and final Olympic gold of his storied career. Frederick Carlton Lewis was born July 11, 1961, in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in a middle-class community in New Jersey. As […]
On July 23, 1996, at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team wins its first-ever team gold. The 1996 U.S. women’s team, nicknamed the “Mag 7″ or “magnificent seven,” was made up of seven immensely talented teenaged girls: Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps and […]
On this day in 1996, the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Washington Capitals, 3-2, in 139 minutes and 15 seconds of total game play, making it the fifth-longest match in the history of the National Hockey League. A regulation hockey game lasts 60 minutes. According to NHL rules, playoff matches aren’t allowed to end in a […]
On January 27, 1996, Serbian-born tennis player Monica Seles, the former No. 1 women’s player in the world, defeats Anke Huber of Germany to win the Australian Open. The win in Melbourne was Seles’ first Grand Slam title since she was stabbed by Gunther Parche, a self-professed fan of the German tennis champion Steffi Graf […]
On June 24, 1995, South Africa defeats New Zealand in the finals of the Rugby World Cup at Ellis Park in Johannesburg while a special guest looks on: Nelson Mandela, who had become the first president of South Africa to be elected in a fully representational democratic election the previous year. Mandela wore the jersey […]
Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller scores eight points in 11 seconds to lead his team over the New York Knicks 107-105 on this day in 1995. Miller was famous throughout his career for what became known as “Miller Time,” clutch performances to finish games. This 1995 Eastern Conference semifinal playoff was Miller’s greatest late-game display, […]