This Day In History

• 1902 The first professional indoor football game was played at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was the first World Series of pro football. It was a five-team tournament. The first game was played among a team made up of players from both the Athletics and the Phillies baseball teams named simply New York and Syracuse. 3,000 were in attendance. Syracuse, with Glen (Pop) Warner at guard, won 6-0 and went on to win the tournament.
• 1937 The Irish Free State became the Republic of Ireland when a new constitution established the country as a sovereign state under the name of Eire.
• 1945 The U.S. Congress officially recognized the "Pledge of Allegiance". The phrase "Under God" was added in In 1954 after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, pissing off atheists and liberals ever since.
• 1973 The Chamber of Commerce of Akron, OH, terminated its association with the All-American Soap Box Derby. It was stated that the race had become "a victim of cheating and fraud." The DNC immediately hired all involved as political consults.
• 1981 Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, VA. The ACLU, NOW, and Planned Parenthood all protested against the birth because the test-tube's right to decide had been ignored.
• 1991 Nine people died in a crush to get into a basketball game at City College in New York. Evidently they had mistakenly thought that The Who were playing that night.
• 1995 Pressure from German prosecutors investigating pornography forced CompuServe to set a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups on the Internet for its customers. CompuServe subscriptions have been falling steadily ever since.
• 2000 U.S. District Court Judge Matsch held a hearing to ensure that confessed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh understood that he was dropping his appeals. McVeigh said that he wanted an execution date, set but wanted to reserve the right to seek presidential clemency. McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection at 7:14 a.m. (8:14 EDT) on Monday, June 11, 2001.