Since 1967, professional football's annual championship game, dubbed the Super Bowl, has been played on a Sunday in January. At first just a novelty, the game has grown in popularity so that it stands as something of an unofficial national holiday. There are Super Bowl parties from coast to coast, and the game is televised around the world to enthusiastic audiences.

The first Super Bowl pitted the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (see entry under 1920s—Sports and Games in volume 2) against the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League. The game was designed to settle the score between the rival leagues, each vying for national supremacy. The Packers won that game, and the following one, but in 1969 the AFL's New York Jets created the first Super Bowl sensation (in the first of the games to be officially called the "Super Bowl") with...