A few days ago, while driving in my geomobile, I heard a radio announcer comment that in April of 1961, some 57 years ago, the program Wide World of Sports began on TV.
This is my homage to the top ten moments of that show.
“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport. The thrill of victory, and agony of defeat. The human drama of athletic competition. This is ABC’s Wide World of Sports.”
ABC's Wide World of Sports was an American sports anthology television program that aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) from April 29, 1961 to January 3, 1998, primarily on Saturday afternoons. Hosted by Jim McKay, with a succession of co-hosts beginning in 1987, the title continued to be used for general sports programs on the network until 2006. In 2007, Wide World of Sports was named by Time on its list of the 100 best television programs of all-time.
The program also lent its name to an athletic facility at Walt Disney World, the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex – which was originally known as Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex from its opening in 1997 (one year after The Walt Disney Company acquired ABC, and a majority stake in ESPN) – until 2010.
Wide World of Sports was the first U.S. television program to air coverage of – among events – Wimbledon (1961), the Indianapolis 500 (highlights starting in 1961; a longer-form version in 1965), the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship (1962), the Daytona 500 (1962), the U.S. Figure Skating Championships (1962), the Monaco Grand Prix (1962), the Little League World Series (1961), The British Open Golf Tournament (1961), the X-Games (1994) and the Grey Cup (1962).
8. In 1975, German magician Ralf Bialla catching a bullet in his teeth.
German magician Ralf Bialla started to perform the bullet catch in the 1950s for a fee of 2,000 DM a performance. He wore bullet-proof glasses, strong gloves on his hands with which he covered parts of his face, and his front teeth were made of steel. A .22 rifle was fired, and the bullet had to go through three glass panes before Bialla caught it with his teeth. He was seriously wounded nine times but survived. He was portrayed in the 1972 documentary film "Wer schießt auf Ralf Bialla?”.