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Highfield Road, the match venue, in 1982

A 2–2 draw was played on 19 May 1977 between the English association football clubs Coventry City and Bristol City. The teams were playing their final match of the 1976–77 season in the Football League First Division, at Highfield Road (pictured), Coventry. Both teams faced potential relegation, along with Sunderland, who played their final game at the same time, against Everton at Goodison Park; the lowest-placed of the three teams would be relegated. As many Bristol City supporters were delayed in traffic, the kick-off at Highfield Road was delayed by five minutes. The score was 2–2 with five minutes remaining, when the supporters and players learned via the stadium scoreboard that Sunderland had lost to Everton and that a draw would let both Coventry and Bristol City escape relegation at Sunderland's expense. As a result, the last five minutes were played out with neither team's players attempting to score and the match finished as a 2–2 draw. A complaint by Sunderland was unavailing. (Full article...)

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HMS Winchester

... that Commander Samuel Sparshott, who testified at Lord Gambier's court-martial, and Admiral Edward Sparshott, who commanded the 52-gun HMS Winchester (pictured), were brothers who served in the Napoleonic Wars?
... that Kirby was designed simply so that children could draw him with ease?
... that William Brault was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame 28 years after he founded it?
... that a 1905 steam-powered pump was assembled on-site in Virginia with its housing constructed around it?
... that when the financially failing Walker Interactive Products could not find a buyer, it staged a large-scale layoff in order to stay alive?
... that to encourage upscale development of the neighborhood, J. Harper Smith had the street leading to his Victorian mansion renamed to have a "higher tone"?
... that in 2001, around 64 percent of all films produced in Malayalam were of the soft-porn variety?
... that although Jules Meysmans invented an entire language, he is best known for his invention of one word?

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On this day

December 26: Boxing Day in the Commonwealth; Kwanzaa begins (African diaspora in the Americas)

Johann Sebastian Bach

1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach (pictured) directed the premiere of Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes, his first Christmas cantata composed in Leipzig.
1800 – Philip Gidley King, Governor of New South Wales, ordered the formation of the Governor's Body Guard of Light Horse, described as the first full-time military unit raised in Australia.
1943 – World War II: In the Battle of Cape Gloucester, American and Australian forces bombarded Japanese positions on New Britain in the Territory of New Guinea while U.S. Marines invaded from two sides of the island.
1996 – The Federation of Korean Trade Unions called on its 1.2 million members to refuse to work, beginning the largest organized strike in South Korean history.
2006 – Two earthquakes off the southwest coast of Taiwan damaged submarine communications cables, disrupting Internet services in Asia and affecting financial transactions.

Willy Corsari (b. 1897)
Elizabeth David (b. 1913)
Milagros Benet de Mewton (d. 1948)
Stanisław Kot (d. 1975)

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Today's featured picture

The Sonoma chipmunk (Neotamias sonomae) is a species of rodent in the squirrel family, Sciuridae. It is endemic to the U.S. state of California, north of San Francisco Bay, with most of its range within Sonoma County and Marin County. The species is found in areas of coniferous forests such as sticky laurel and ponderosa pine, as well as in chaparral, particularly sagebrush plains. Its range includes elevations from sea level to 1800 meters (5,900 ft). The chipmunk typically lives on the ground and makes burrows, but can also climb and may make nests in trees. Like other members of the Neotamias genus, it has two premolars. This Sonoma chipmunk was photographed in Samuel P. Taylor State Park in Marin County, California.

Photograph credit: Frank Schulenburg

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