Sixty-three years before Jackie Robinson made his debut on the Brooklyn Dodgers, Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker became the first African-American to play in a major league baseball game, when he played for an American Association team, the Toledo Bluestockings, on May 1, 1884. The game was played in Louisville, Kentucky. Walker, a catcher, played in 42 games for the Bluestockings. Source: Fleet Walker by Jon R. Husman...

“Twenty-fifth.—The effects of the last fall operated in some degree upon the feelings of Cribb, from its severity; yet the Champion endeavoured to remove this impression by making play, and striving (as in the former round) to put in a hit on Molineaux’s left eye, but the Moor, aware of the intent, warded it off, and in return knocked Cribb down.” — from Boxiana; or, Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism, from the Days of the...

Alice Coachman from Albany, Georgia, clears the bar 5 feet, 6-1/8 inches breaking the previous record at the 1948 Olympics held in London in front of 65,000 spectators. The last member of the team to compete, Coachman said in a 2003 interview for the National Visionary Leadership Project, that her coach criticized her for not working out the day before her jump, fearful that she would not medal, like most of the 11-member team. “I let her do...