Take a Break
FOOTBALL AND THANKSGIVING: A MATCH MADE IN MARKETING HEAVEN
Last year, 30.3 million people tuned in to watch the NFL’s Thanksgiving showdown between the Washington Football Team and the Dallas Cowboys. For those Americans (and probably for you if you’re reading this article), football is as essential to Thanksgiving as turkey and stuffing — but why?
As it turns out, there are two answers to that question. The first is that games have been played on the holiday for almost as long as it has officially existed. Thanksgiving became a holiday in 1863, and just six years later, the third American football game in history was played on it. According to SB Nation, the Young America Cricket Club and the Germantown Cricket Club faced off in that inaugural Thanksgiving game in Philadelphia, and football has been played on Thanksgiving pretty much ever since! When the NFL was founded in 1920, the Thanksgiving game was official from the get-go. The second reason we watch football on Thanksgiving is more about money than tradition. In 1934, a Detroit Lions coach, George A. Richards, decided that in order to attract more fans, his team would make a point to always play on Thanksgiving when most people were off work. To sweeten the pot, he committed his radio station (an affiliate of the NBC Blue Network) to broadcasting the Thanksgiving game live on 94 different stations across America. This idea was a hit from day one! According to Sporting News, the long-unloved Lions “not only sold out the stadium, they also had to turn people away at the gates.” In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys signed on to play every Thanksgiving, too, for similar publicity reasons. Since those early days, football-themed traditions have flourished in American families. Apart from watching games on TV, one of the most popular is organizing a pre-turkey game of family touch football a la the sitcom “Friends.” (Its famed episode “The One With the Football” aired Nov. 21, 1996.) If you’ve never organized a game, this could be your year! To get started, Google “Scott’s Family-Friendly Touch Football” and click the first link.
WAS ALEXANDER THE GREAT BURIED … ALIVE?!
Alexander the Great is most known for his hard-fought capture of land all across the globe after succeeding his father on Greece’s throne at just 20 years old. Today, the facts of his premature death are starting to piece together a curious puzzle for historians, because some now believe Alexander was buried alive. After 12 days of abdominal pain that led to a fever and paralysis, ancient Greek doctors couldn’t detect a breath from Alexander, and he was declared dead. His body was prepared for the afterlife, but he didn’t show signs of decomposition for six days. This only fed the belief that Alexander — like other rulers of his time — was part god. Dr. Katherine Hall of the University of Otago, New Zealand, believes this suggests Alexander wasn’t yet dead. In fact, he may have been suffering from a rare bacterial infection that attacks the nervous system and leads to paralysis, which could result in the lack of breath.
This is still a theory, so while we may not know exactly how Alexander died, some of the final pieces of the puzzle may fall into (an eerie) place.
(440) 720-0959 | 3
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator