Scores On This Historic Day

The 1900 Trenton Nationals December 1, 1898: The 1st professional basketball league debuts. It is called the National Basketball League. The 1st game is played at Textile Hall, in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. The Trenton Nationals beat the Hancock Athletic Association, 21-19. Attendance was estimated at 900. The 1898–99 season saw 6 teams in the league. Three were in Philadelphia: The aforementioned Hancock A.A., the Clover Wheelmen, and the Germantown Nationals. Three were in New Jersey: The aforementioned Nationals, the Camden Electrics, and the Millville Glass Blowers. Two of the Philly teams folded within days, but the other 4 teams finished the season. Trenton went 18-2-1, to win the title. Their starting five averaged 5-foot-10, 161 pounds. Needless to say, there was no dunking. No one even took a jump shot or, God forbid, a skyhook. They hadn't been invented yet. The following season was more stable for the new league. The season was divided into 2 halves. Teams ...

December 1, 1869: Having been serialized in magazines for the past 4 years, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace is published in full, in book form.  Voyna i mir  becomes the byword for great Russian literature, but also for a very long book. Eventually, people would say, "What's taking you so long? What are you doing, reading War and Peace ?" or "I could have read War and Peace in the time it took for you to (do whatever it was you did)!" Set during the Napoleonic Wars,  the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An early version was published serially beginning in 1865, after which the entire book was rewritten and published in 1869. It is regarded, with his 1878 novel  Anna Karenina ,  as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement, and it remains an internationally praised classic of world literature. From the reign of Empress Catherine II, a.k.a. Catherine the Great, from 1762 to 1796, French ha...

November 30, 2013: The Iron Bowl is played at Jordan-Hare Stadium, in the City of Auburn, in the State of Alabama. The annual football game between the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, and Auburn University is called the Iron Bowl because of the iron and steel production in Alabama. The State's largest city, Birmingham, and 2 others, Leeds and Sheffield, are steel production cities, and were named after steel production cities in England, all of them in love with a game they call football, but which Americans call soccer. Football became a way of life in Alabama. and the University of Alabama, the Crimson Tide, built a great program in the 1920s. Auburn's took longer to get going, with coach Ralph "Shug" Jordan (and that's pronounced JUR-din, not JOHR-din) leading them to a share of the 1957 National Championship with Ohio State. Paul "Bear" Bryant, who had played on 'Bama's 1934 National Championship team, became their head coach in 1958, ...

Left to right: Roger Waters, Nick Mason David Gilmour and Rick Wright November 30, 1979:  British "progressive rock" band Pink Floyd release their concept album  The Wall . It exceeds their 1973 album  Dark Side of the Moon , a concept album about mental illness and greed, as their signature work. (Alecia Moore, the singer known as Pink, was born a few weeks before  The Wall  was released. Although she has written some deeply emotional songs, she has never suggested that Pink Floyd has been an influence on her work.) Given that it was released in the year when an election put a Conservative Party government led by right-wing icon Margaret Thatcher into power in the band's home country of Great Britain, a fan hearing this album for the first time could be excused for thinking it's about Thatcher's policies and the effects they were already having. In fact, the source of the album's themes of alienation and hopelessness predated that election by 2 years. In 1977...

November 30, 1974: The University of Southern California hosts the University of Notre Dame in football at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. USC vs. Notre Dame is the biggest inter-sectional rivalry in American college football, and has been since it was established in 1926. No other pair of traditional rivals has as many National Championships, or as many Heisman Trophy winners. Notre Dame has had more 1st-round picks in the NFL Draft than any other school, and USC is 2nd in that regard. And both teams' fans are regarded as insufferable by pretty much everyone who hasn't bought into the schools' respective myths. In odd-numbered years, the game is played at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana, in mid-to-late October, when the leaves are changing. In even-numbered years, the game is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, when it would be too cold to play it in the Midwest. It had been 10 years since USC had upset Notre ...

James Caan as Brian Piccolo (left) and Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers November 30, 1971:   The ABC Tuesday Night Movie  airs the film  Brian's Song . Billy Dee Williams plays African-American Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers, and James Caan plays his white teammate Brian Piccolo. While some dramatic license was taken, the story is mostly true: The two men overcome their respective biases and form a bond of friendship, first with Piccolo helping Sayers, the best running back in the game in the late 1960s, return from a devastating knee injury; then with Sayers helping Piccolo deal with the cancer that struck him, and ultimately brought his life to a close on June 16, 1970. The film made stars of both Williams and Caan, and is often regarded as the first movie that allowed tough guys to cry. A remake was made, airing on ABC almost exactly 30 years later, on December 2, 2001. The additional 30 years of changing sensibilities allowed some things to be filmed that cou...

November 30, 1951:  The New Jersey Turnpike opens, mostly. For the moment, it runs from Exit 1 in Penns Grove, near the newly-opened Delaware Memorial Bridge, to Exit 11 in Woodbridge, an interchange with U.S. Route 1, U.S. Route 9, State Route 440, and, by 1956, the Garden State Parkway. (On that road, that interchange will be Exit 129.) Like the later Garden State Parkway, the Turnpike was the brainchild of Governor Alfred E. Driscoll. He set a November 30, 1951 deadline, and there were delays that suggested they wouldn't make it. They did. The Turnpike was extended to its full 117-mile length the next year, connecting with New York City via the Lincoln Tunnel (Exit 16) and the George Washington Bridge (Exit 18). One notable problem was the Pulaski Skyway, which has carried Routes 1 and 9 from Newark to Jersey City since 1932. If they built the Turnpike under the Skyway, there might not be enough room for trucks to fit. If they built the Turnpike over the Skyway, there would be r...

November 30, 1935: If, as they say, football is a religion in the State of Texas, then this was their moment of evangelism, when they spread their gospel throughout the land. Dallas is the largest city in North Texas. Fort Worth is the 2nd-largest. Dallas is home to Southern Methodist University. Fort Worth is home to Texas Christian University, affiliated with a different Protestant sect, the Disciples of Christ. SMU's Ownby Stadium and TCU's Amon G. Carter Stadium are just 40 miles apart, making their schools among the closest major rivals in college football. (For comparison's sake, in the State's biggest football rivalry, Texas and Texas A&M are 104 miles apart.) Ownby Stadium was named for its benefactor, Jordan C. Ownby. Amon G. Carter was the publisher of the city's largest newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram , a.k.a. the Startle-gram. Left his fortune, his daughter Ruth Carter Stevenson spent much of it to found Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum M...

Paddy Driscoll November 30, 1922: It is Thanksgiving Day in Chicago. After 2 years under the name of the American Professional Football Association, this is the 1st season the league operates under the name of the National Football League. And, after playing in Decatur, Illinois as the Decatur Staleys in 1920, and as the Chicago Staleys in 1921, this is the 1st year that the NFL's flagship franchise uses its familiar name: The Chicago Bears. Note: Until 1940, Thanksgiving Day was always celebrated on the last Thursday in November, regardless of whether that was the 4th Thursday or the 5th. Since then, it has been celebrated on the 4th Thursday in November, regardless of whether there was a 5th. The Bears played their home games at Cubs Park, on the North Side. In 1926, it was renamed Wrigley Field. The other team in the city, the Chicago Cardinals, played on the South Side, previously at Normal Field. But, for this season, they moved into the much larger Comiskey Park, home of bas...