It was on this day in 1963 that first authorized* use of instant replay was used during a live sports television broadcast. The Army-Navy football game was being televised on CBS, and the director had built a machine (which weighed over 1/2 a ton) in order to re-broadcast captured footage. However, it experienced several technical difficulties and was only used on one play, a touchdown by Army which was re-shown at the original speed. (With the announcer emphasizing that the team did not score again.) It would be another four years before a machine capable of doing a “freeze-frame” would start to be used in the broadcast booths.
*In 1950 an engineer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation used a process to re-play hockey goals right after they were scored, but he didn’t have permission from the network nor the advertiser to do so and it wasn’t attempted again.
The earliest event that Wiki says happened on this day is “43 BC – Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated” and the most recent is “2007 – The Hebei Spirit oil spill begins in South Korea after a crane barge that had broken free from a tug collides with the Very Large Crude Carrier, Hebei Spirit.”
A few other things that also took place on this day are:
1787 – Delaware ratifies the US Constitution, the first state to do so.
1941 – Japanese fleet launches a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
1972 – Apollo 17, the last mission to the moon, launches into space.
Happy birthday to C. Thomas Howell.