Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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19591776 Club

Six men gather in a Chicago hotel and vote a rival league into being

Lamar Hunt, turned away by the NFL, lines up owners for Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and the Twin Cities.

Bert Bell's NFL had refused to expand, and a young Dallas oilman named Lamar Hunt had just failed to buy the Chicago Cardinals and move them south. On August 14, 1959, Hunt and representatives from Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul met in Chicago and agreed to charter memberships in a brand-new professional football league. Bud Adams took Houston, Bob Howsam took Denver, Barron Hilton took Los Angeles, Harry Wismer took New York, and Max Winter and Bill Boyer took Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Eight days later in Dallas, the group gave the new venture its name: the American Football League…

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More from August 14
1935

Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act; the elderly get a federal pension

Payroll taxes will fund old-age benefits, unemployment insurance, and aid to families with dependent children.
1842

Washington declares the Seminole war over; no one signed anything

General Worth's campaign of burned villages and starved crops empties the Everglades of most Seminole resistance, but a few hundred hold out.
1941

Churchill and Roosevelt issue a joint charter for the postwar world

Meeting in secret off Newfoundland, the two leaders lay out eight principles for peace before America has even entered the war.
18481776 Club
Seven years after the first wagon trains rolled west, the region finally got a governor appointed in Washington.
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Read the full August 14 edition →Everything that happened on August 14 →
More from Cold War America
1967

The first Saturn V leaves Florida with no crew aboard; the shock rattles the control center ceiling

Ten months after the Apollo 1 fire, NASA flies every stage and the spacecraft together on the very first try.
1979

NORAD screens show a massive Soviet strike; satellite and radar checks find no attack

A test tape is running as though it were real, and the warnings reach two continuity of government bunkers and command posts around the world.
1982

Columbia lifts off with four aboard, the biggest crew yet, and two commercial satellites in the bay

After four test flights, the shuttle's fifth trip is its first with customers, and its crew rides up without pressure suits.
1976

Six Flags opens the world's first modern looping coaster; the Great American Revolution launches at Magic Mountain

The ride debuts in the park's Bicentennial summer, sending riders through a complete vertical loop for the first time on a modern steel coaster.
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