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Year
1974
Month Day
April 25

NFL adopts overtime for regular-season games

On April 25, 1974, the NFL adopts a new overtime rule for regular-season games to prevent tie games. The rule change comes as part of sweeping effort to improve the action and tempo of games. The league also moves goal posts from the front to the back of the end zone and limits contact defensive players can make with receivers.

The new overtime rule mandated teams play an extra period if the score was tied at the end of regulation play. In overtime, the first team to score was declared the winner. If the score was still tied after the overtime, the game resulted in a tie. The NFL has since modified the overtime rule.

The season before the overtime rule was adopted, the NFL had seven ties in the regular season. Unlike some changes in NFL rules, the adoption of overtime was beneficial. From 1920 to 1973, the league had 256 ties. Since the 1974 rule change, ties have decreased significantly.

Most fans dislike ties; so do players. “It’s not losing … but it’s damn sure not winning,” NFL receiver Stefon Diggs once said. 

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ALSO ON THIS DAY

Boston Celtics' Chuck Cooper
Sports
1950

Chuck Cooper becomes first African American selected in NBA draft

On April 25, 1950, the Boston Celtics make Chuck Cooper, an All-American forward from Duquesne University, the first African American picked in NBA draft. With the selection, the first pick in the second round, Cooper breaks the NBA’s color barrier and changes the league for the ...read more

Natural Disasters & Environment
2015

Magnitude 7.8 earthquake kills thousands in Nepal

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21st Century
2014

The Flint water crisis begins

On April 25, 2014 officials from Flint, Michigan switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River as a cost-cutting measure for the struggling city. In doing so, they unwittingly introduced lead-poisoned water into homes, in what would become a massive public-health crisis. ...read more

Space Exploration
1990

Hubble Space Telescope placed in orbit

The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery places the Hubble Space Telescope, a long-term space-based observatory, into a low orbit around Earth. The space telescope, conceived in the 1940s, designed in the 1970s, and built in the 1980s, was designed to give astronomers an ...read more

Africa
1859

Ground broken for Suez Canal

At Port Said, Egypt, ground is broken for the Suez Canal, an artificial waterway intended to stretch 101 miles across the isthmus of Suez and connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat who organized the colossal undertaking, delivered ...read more

This Day in History
1983

Soviet leader Yuri Andropov writes letter to U.S. fifth-grader Samantha Smith

On April 25, 1983, the Soviet Union releases a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, an American fifth-grader from Manchester, Maine, inviting her to visit his country. Andropov’s letter came in response to a note Smith had sent him in December 1982, ...read more

U.S. Presidents
1947

President Truman inaugurates White House bowling alley

President Harry S. Truman officially opens the first White House bowling alley on April 25, 1947. The two-lane bowling alley, situated in the West Wing, had been constructed earlier that year. According to Smithsonian magazine, a group of Truman’s fellow Missourians funded the ...read more

Art, Literature, and Film History
1719

"Robinson Crusoe" is published

Daniel Defoe’s fictional work The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is published. The book, about a shipwrecked sailor who spends 28 years on a deserted island, is based on the experiences of shipwreck victims and of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who spent ...read more

Art, Literature, and Film History
1917

Jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald is born

On April 25, 1917, jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia. She was called “The First Lady of Song,” an honor whose meaning is captured in a compliment paid to her by the great composer Ira Gershwin: “I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella ...read more

Natural Disasters & Environment
1980

Plane crashes on Canary Islands, killing 146

A Dan-Air Boeing 727 carrying British tourists to the Canary Islands crashes and kills all 146 on board on April 25, 1980. This terrible crash came just three years after another even deadlier accident at the Canary Islands airport. In 1977, a KLM jumbo jet had collided with a ...read more

Crime
1989

A father is exonerated after 21 years

James Richardson walks out of a Florida prison 21 years after being wrongfully convicted of killing his seven children. Special prosecutor Janet Reno agreed to the release after evidence showed that the conviction resulted from misconduct by the prosecutor. In addition, neighbor ...read more

World War II
1945

Americans and Russians link up, cut Germany in two

On April 25, 1945, eight Russian armies completely encircle Berlin, linking up with the U.S. First Army patrol, first on the western bank of the Elbe, then later at Torgau. Germany is, for all intents and purposes, Allied territory. The Allies sounded the death knell of their ...read more

World War I
1915

Allies begin invasion of Gallipoli

On April 25, 1915, a week after Anglo-French naval attacks on the Dardanelles end in dismal failure, the Allies launch a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula, the Turkish-controlled land mass bordering the northern side of the Dardanelles. In January 1915, two ...read more