On This Day in Sports History: 36 Dates Every Fan Should Know

Some dates are permanently linked to great sporting moments. This calendar collects the best-known ones, with three for every month of the year. Bookmark it for trivia nights, social posts or simply to remember what happened on the day you were born.

January – March

Date	Year	What happened
January 12	1969	Joe Namath's New York Jets win Super Bowl III after he guaranteed victory
January 15	1967	The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles
January 22	2006	Kobe Bryant scores 81 points against the Toronto Raptors
February 18	2001	Dale Earnhardt dies in a last-lap crash at the Daytona 500
February 22	1980	The US hockey team beats the Soviet Union: the "Miracle on Ice"
February 25	1964	Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) beats Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title
March 2	1962	Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in an NBA game
March 8	1971	Joe Frazier beats Muhammad Ali in "The Fight of the Century"
March 28	1992	Christian Laettner's buzzer-beater sends Duke past Kentucky

April – June

Date	Year	What happened
April 8	1974	Hank Aaron hits his 715th home run, passing Babe Ruth
April 13	1997	Tiger Woods wins his first Masters by 12 strokes
April 15	1947	Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers
May 6	1954	Roger Bannister runs the first sub-four-minute mile
May 7	1989	Michael Jordan's series-winning "The Shot" over Cleveland
May 30	1911	The first Indianapolis 500 is held
June 9	1973	Secretariat wins the Belmont by 31 lengths to take the Triple Crown
June 14	1998	Michael Jordan's final shot wins his sixth NBA title with Chicago
June 19	2016	The Cleveland Cavaliers complete a comeback from 3–1 down in the NBA Finals

July – September

Date	Year	What happened
July 4	1939	Lou Gehrig's "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech
July 10	1999	The US wins the Women's World Cup on penalties at the Rose Bowl
July 17	1941	Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak ends
August 3	1936	Jesse Owens wins the 100 meters at the Berlin Olympics, the first of four golds
August 16	2008	Usain Bolt wins the Olympic 100 meters in Beijing in a world record
August 26	1939	The first televised Major League Baseball game
September 6	1995	Cal Ripken Jr. plays his 2,131st straight game, breaking Lou Gehrig's record
September 20	1973	Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes"
September 28	1941	Ted Williams finishes the season hitting .406

October – December

Date	Year	What happened
October 3	1951	Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World" wins the pennant for the New York Giants
October 8	1956	Don Larsen pitches the only perfect game in World Series history
October 27	2004	The Boston Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918
October 30	1974	Muhammad Ali beats George Foreman in the "Rumble in the Jungle"
November 2	2016	The Chicago Cubs win the World Series, ending a 108-year drought
November 30	1872	Scotland and England play the first official international soccer match
December 23	1972	Franco Harris makes the "Immaculate Reception"
December 28	1958	The Colts beat the Giants in "The Greatest Game Ever Played"
December 18	2022	Argentina beats France on penalties in a classic World Cup final

Dates that became annual celebrations

Some historic days are now marked every year by leagues and fans:

• Jackie Robinson Day (April 15) – every MLB player wears number 42, which was retired across the league in 1997.
• Lou Gehrig Day (June 2) – MLB honors Gehrig and raises awareness of ALS, the disease that ended his career.
• Roberto Clemente Day – held each September to honor the Hall of Famer's humanitarian work.
• Anniversaries of the Miracle on Ice – often celebrated with reunions of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team.

Why sports anniversaries matter

Sports history connects generations. A grandparent who remembers the Miracle on Ice and a teenager who watched the 2022 World Cup final can share the same excitement. Anniversaries give teams a reason to honor past heroes, and they help fans understand how today's records and rivalries were built. Many of the moments in this list changed their sports forever: Jackie Robinson's debut broke baseball's color line, Billie Jean King's victory boosted women's sports and Roger Bannister's mile showed what had once seemed impossible.

How to find what happened on any date

• League websites – MLB, the NBA and the NFL publish historical records and game logs.
• Reference sites – statistics databases for each sport let you search games by date.
• Hall of fame archives – the halls of fame for each major sport document landmark moments.
• Newspaper archives – many libraries offer free access to historical newspapers.

For more records and trivia, see cool baseball facts and the most famous sporting events in the world.