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During 1974, the World Football League (WFL) was formed by Gary Davidson, who had already been involved with other sports leagues, including the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association. Davidson intended for the WFL to spread American-style football across the world. On January 14, 1974, the league held its first organizational meeting, with team owners from twelve cities in attendance. Some of the owners had connections to other professional sports, so their participation gave some credibility to the WFL. Most of the twelve cities represented at that first meeting took on WFL franchises; some teams eventually moved to different cities for financial reasons.

Baseball Player. Randall David Johnson was born in Walnut Creek, California, on September 10, 1963. He and his family soon moved to Livermore, southeast of San Francisco, where he grew up. The most noticeable feature of the Johnson family men was their height. His father, Rollen Johnson, was a 6-foot 6-inch police officer, and Randy and his brothers grew tall quickly. Self-conscious because of his height—he was nearly 6 feet at the age of twelve—J played the clown in school in search of popularity. His teachers found him disruptive, and his strict parents had to correct him frequently. His father noticed that as Randy practiced for Little League baseball by throwing a tennis ball against the garage, the nails popped out of the wall.

SPORT: Football

Hockey Player. Like most French Canadian children, Mario Lemieux developed a love for his national sport of ice hockey at an early age. Born on October 5, 1965, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Jean-Guy and Pierrette Lemieux, Mario grew up in a redbrick, box-shaped house on rue Joques in Ville Emard, a working-class neighborhood on the southwest outskirts of the city. Mario’s father, a retired construction worker, used to pack wall-to-wall snow in the front hallway of his house so Mario and his two older brothers, Richard and Alain, could practice skating indoors. Mario learned to skate at a rink behind the local church and began playing organized hockey at the age of three. By nine years old, he had established himself as the dominant player among his local peers. At the age of fifteen, he was playing in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, and at sixteen, he dropped out of school to concentrate on his athletic career. Translated from French, le mieux means “the best.” Mario set out to prove that he deserved that label in ice hockey. [n]Lemieux, Mario [c]CANADA;Mario Lemieux[Lemieux, Mario] [s]ICE HOCKEY;Mario Lemieux[Lemieux, Mario]

During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1EQ fighter launched two Exocet missiles, hitting the American Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Stark and severely damaging the vessel. The Stark was in international waters in the Persian Gulf at the time of the attack. President Ronald Reagan had ordered a U.S. naval fleet to the Persian Gulf to monitor the area.