Scores On This Historic Day

January 1, 1902: The Tournament of Roses Association, operator of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, outside Los Angeles, every New Year's Day since 1890, hosts a college football game. Although not immediately, it becomes an annual tradition. By the dawn of the 20th Century, football had become a big business at a few American colleges, especially in the East. The schools that would eventually form the Ivy League led the way: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown. A few other Northeastern schools were already playing, including Rutgers and Penn State. In the South, schools such as the Universities of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and Auburn University, had already begun play. And in the Midwest, some of the schools that would eventually form the Big Ten Conference had done so, including the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, and the University of Chicago -- a school that w...

January 1, 1901: The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia, completing a process that began in 1842, federate as "The Commonwealth of Australia." The Constitution of Australia comes into effect at the same time. Edmund Barton, Leader of the Protectionist Party in Victoria, and one of the drafters of the Constitution, is named the new country's 1st Prime Minister. Edmund Barton While this doesn't make sense in terms of names or geography, South Australia governed what became the Northern Territory. The colonies of Fiji and New Zealand had been part of the Federation process, but they decided not to join. New Zealand achieved Dominion status, a kind of semi-independence, in 1907, with full independence in 1947; Fiji did not achieve independence until 1970. Australia's 1st national election was held on March 29 and 30, 1901. Barton's Protectionists won 32 seats in the new Parliament, while Geor...

January 1, 1900: Or should I say, December 31, 1899? The last major feat of the 19th Century is performed, and it is also the first great feat of the 20th Century. Spare me the semantics. It was widely accepted at the time that the 19th Century ended, and the 20th Century began, on January 1, 1901. But most people accepted that the 20th Century ended, and the 21st Century began, on January 1, 2000, and thus retroactively decided on 1899 to 1900, not 1900 to 1901. So put a sock, or whatever passed for a sock in 1899, in it. SS  Warrimoo  was a passenger and refrigerated cargo  liner that was launched in 1892, in England for Australian  owners. It was named for the village of Warrimoo, New South Wales, not far from Sydney. On December 31, 1899, Warrimoo was sailing quietly across the Pacific Ocean, on its way from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to Australia.  The navigator finished checking the stars for the ship’s position, and gave the result to Captain J...

* Professional baseball, as we know it, began in 1869. So did the recording of scores for it. Therefore, no historical events prior to 1869 will be posted. * I have tried to find lists of scores from baseball's amateur era, roughly 1858, when the rules became standardized, until 1868, the last officially all-amateur season. If I can find them, I will correlate them with famous dates history from those years, and extend this blog, probably starting in 1860, the year before the American Civil War began, the Year of Meteors , as historian Douglas Edgerton called it as the title of his book on the year's events. * Baseball Leagues eligible to be covered in this blog: The National Association (NA, 1871-1875), the National League (NL, 1876-present), the American Association (AA, 1882-1891), the Players' League (PL, 1890), the American League (AL, 1901-present), and the Federal League (FL, 1914-1915). * Professional Football Leagues eligible: The National Football League (NFL, 192...