Despite Quaker opposition to "riotous sports", Pennsylvanians were quick to organize and excel in competitive tests of athletic prowess and to engage in a broad range of physical activities. Home to the nation's oldest and largest track and field event, the Commonwealth is also the birthplace of professional football.
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1716 |
Yearly Meeting urges members not to participate in horseback or foot racing, and thus avoid the temptation to gambling.
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1779 |
Pennsylvania Legislature passes a law against frivolous activities.
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1800 |
Crews from the University of Pennsylvania begin to compete in boat races on the Schuylkill River. |
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1817 |
The state legislature forbids racing on Philadelphia's public roads to protect public safety.
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1820 |
Pennsylvania legislature bans horse racing throughout the state. The law is widely ignored, especially by agricultural societies, whose annual fairs stage races under the guise of improving the breeding of horses.
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1828 |
Brothers Titian Ramsey and Franklin Peale form the United Bowmen of Philadelphia, the nation's first society of archers.
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1830 - 1839 |
English immigrants bring cricket to Philadelphia.
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1830 |
Joshua Newsam walks 1,000 miles in eighteen days on the grounds of Labyrinth Garden in Philadelphia.
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1835 |
Two eight-oared barges compete in the first formal race on the Schuylkill River. |
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1845 |
Ten young Philadelphians form the University Barge Club on the Schuylkill River, the first rowing club.
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1850 - 1859 |
Pittsburgh emerges as a center of amateur and professional rowing competitions.
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1854 |
Rotch Wister helps organize the elite Philadelphia Cricket Club.
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1857 |
Philadelphian Domick Bradley becomes the state's first heavyweight boxing champion when he beats Baltimore's Sam Rankin in the 157th round of a bare-knuckle bout.
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1858 |
Michael Phelan wins $1,000 when he defeats Ralph Benjamin of Philadelphia in the first recorded billiard match in the United States.
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1870 - 1879 |
Rowing boom fuels professional races across the eastern United States.
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1870 |
A one-mile race of female rowers in Pittsburgh attracts a crowd of more than 8,000 spectators and offers a $2,000 prize purse.
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1872 |
The Schuylkill Navy sponsors the first all-amateur regatta to foster amateurism.
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1875 |
The Pottstown Trotting Park becomes the third two-mile racing track in the Commonwealth. Point Breeze near Philadelphia and a track at Harrisburg were the other two. |
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1876 |
Penn fields the state's first collegiate football team. |
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1882 |
Organization of the Cricket Association of the United States, founded and based in Philadelphia.
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1887 |
Opening of the Foxburg Golf Course, today the nation's oldest course in continuous use.
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1890 - 1899 |
Bicycle fad sweeps across the nation. |
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1892 |
Professional football is born when the Allegheny Athletic Association pays Yale star Pudge Heffelfinger $500 to play against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club team.
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1894 |
Pittsburgh's George Banker becomes the first American to win the Grand Prix de Paris and Austrian Derby cycling events.
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1895 |
Debut of both the Penn Relays and Devon Horse Show. |
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1898 |
The Beadling Soccer Club, one of the oldest in the United States, is founded near Pittsburgh, PA.
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1899 |
Pop Warner begins coaching football at the Carlisle Indian School.
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1900 |
The Philadelphia Vesper Club's eight-oared rowing team, and University of Pennsylvania track-and-field stars Irving K. Baxter and J. W. B. Tewksbury win gold medals at the 1900 Olympics. Tewksbury brings home five medals in sprints and hurdles.
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1901 |
Swarthmore wins the national lacrosse championship. It will repeat in 1904 and 1905. |
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1904 |
Organization of the Philadelphia Sportswriters" Association, the state's first. |
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1904 |
The Pittsburgh Southside Basketball Team compiles the first perfect season in professional basketball, with a 20-0 record.
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1906 |
Haverford College wins the first intercollegiate league soccer game in American history, beating Harvard 1-0. |
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1909 |
Pittsburgh hosts the first of two national prizefights, as middleweight Stanley Ketchell defends his crown at the Duquesne Gardens. Later that year heavyweight champion Jack Johnson fights a six-round no-decision bout against Tony Ross of New Castle, PA.
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1910 |
The McKeesport Tubers of the Central Basketball League invent the first glass backboard.
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1911 |
The first major auto races in Pennsylvania take place in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. Philadelphia's Erwin Bergdoll wins the largest class by averaging 60.8 miles per hour over the 202.5 mile race.
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1912 |
Jim Thorpe of the Carlisle Indian School becomes an international sensation by running, jumping, and throwing his way to victory in the Olympic decathlon and pentathlon.
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1913 |
The Pennsylvania legislature passes the Resident Hunter's License Law to provide the Commonwealth money to purchase and maintain its public game preserves, protect endangered wildlife, and restore species native to the state.
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1920 |
Philadelphia's John B. Kelly Sr. wins the gold medal in single skulls at the 1920 Olympics. The winner of 126 consecutive races, Kelly would go on to become the greatest of Pennsylvania's celebrated rowers.
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1920 |
Germantown's Bill Tilden wins the first of six straight U. S. tennis championships, and quickly becomes one of the decade's greatest sports heroes.
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1921 |
Washington and Jefferson College plays for the national intercollegiate championship against the University of California's Golden Bears in the Rose Bowl. Using only eleven players, W & J held California to only two first downs, but neither team could put any points on the scoreboard.
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1921 |
KDKA announcer Harold Arlin gives play-by-play of the Pirates defeat of the Phillies in the first radio broadcast of a sporting event.
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1922 - 1926 |
The Pittsburgh Central YMCA wins five straight YMCA national championships in volleyball.
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1926 |
More than 125,000 watch Gene Tunney upset heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey at the Sesquicentennial Stadium in Philadelphia. More than thirty million people across the United States and abroad listen to fight over a shortwave hookup. The live audience was at the time by far the largest in sports history.
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1929 |
Philadelphia's Ora Washington becomes the first African-American woman to win the American Tennis Association's national crown. She will retain it through 1936.
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1930 |
Hammond Fisher debuts his Joe Palooka comic strip, basing his hero and many characters on local personalities from his hometown of Wilkes-Barre.
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1932 |
Swimmers from the Homestead Library win silver medals at the 1932 Olympics.
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1933 |
The Philadelphia Eagles, under owner Bert Bell, join the National Football League |
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1933 |
The Pennsylvania Legislature repeals its Sunday blue laws, opening the way for Sunday professional sports events.
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1936 |
The victories of the American weightlifting team at the Berlin Olympics convince their coach, Bob Hoffman, to devote all of his energies to the promotion of weightlifting and manufacture of barbells by his York Barbell Company.
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1940 - 1941 |
Five western Pennsylvania boxers–Billy Conn, Billy Soose, Fritzic Zivic, Sammy Angott, and Jakie Wilson–hold world championship titles in boxing.
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1946 |
Eagles founder Bert Bell is named the NFL's second commissioner. He rules the game for the next thirteen years.
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1948 |
The Philadelphia Eagles win first of two consecutive NFL championships.
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1959 |
Pennsylvania lifts its 139-year ban on Thoroughbred racing.
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1960 |
The Philadelphia Eagles win the NFL championship.
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1962 |
Philadelphia Warriors center Wilt Chamberlain becomes the only man in NBA history to score 100 points in a professional basketball game.
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1964 |
Philadelphia's Vesper Boat Club, the first non-collegiate eight to represent the United States since 1904, wins the Olympic gold medal; Philadelphia's Joe Frazier wins Olympic gold medal in heavyweight boxing. |
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1967 |
Philadelphia 76ers win NBA championship. |
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1972 |
The Educational Amendments Act Title IX requires that schools give girls equal access to school sports programs.
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1974 |
The Philadelphia Flyers win first of two consecutive Stanley Cups.
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1975 - 1975 |
The Pittsburgh Steelers win the first of two consecutive Super Bowls. They would repeat the back-to-back feat in 1979 and 1980.
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1976 |
1976: University of Pittsburgh crowned NCAA champions in college football.
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1980 |
Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series in franchise history |
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1982 |
Penn State named national champion in college football. They would be crowned again in 1986.
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1983 |
The Philadelphia 76ers win NBA championship.
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1985 |
Villanova upsets heavily favored Georgetown to win NCAA basketball championship.
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1986 |
Penn State crowned national champion in college football. |
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1991 |
The Pittsburgh Penguins win first of two consecutive Stanley Cups.
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2004 |
Smarty Jones wins Kentucky Derby and Preakness, and barely becomes being the first horse since 1978 to win racing's Triple Crown.
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2005 |
The Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl.
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Historical Markers In the Story
Original Documents