Thursday, August 20, 2020

August 20, 1920. Football, News Radio, Ships and Transjordan

On This Date in Sports August 20, 1920, the American Professional Football Association, precursor to the NFL, formed.

The Akron Pros, one of the teams in 1920.

I don't care anything about football, but a lot of people do, and this marks a notable event.  Note that one of the players on the champion 1920 team depicted above, was black, meaning that in that very early season, football was integrated.  The drafting of the first black athlete into the NFL is generally regarded as having occurred in 1949, but in fact very early on blacks were part of the professional sport.

Advertisement for 8MK from August 31, 1920.

The first commercial radio station in the United States, 8MK (at the time) began broadcasting on this date in 1920.  The radio station, now WWJ, first broadcast on an amatuer license out of Detroit, where William E. Scripps, the newspaper publisher, started the station as a new radio station.

It's still in business and its still news radio for the Detroit area.

In the Great Lakes area, on the same day, the SS Superior City collided with the Willis L. King in Whitefish Bay, resulting in the loss of 29 lives.

Far outside the United States, the British representative in Palestine announced a proclamation extending his governance into Jordan. The British rapidly repudiated the effort and denounced it.


[August 20, 1920]  The high commissioner's first visit to Transjordan. Reading of "The Durbar", a proclamation annexing Transjordan, in Es-Salt

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