1894 — J.L. Johnstone of England invents the starting gate for horse racing.
1920 — NYU wins the national amateur basketball championship in Atlanta. The Violets beat Rutgers 49-24 in the final of the AAU tournament.
1961 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Ingemar Johansson in the sixth round to retain the world heavyweight title in Miami Beach.
1982 — Elaine Zayak of the United States wins the world figure skating championship.
1983 — Randy Smith’s consecutive game streak ends at 906 games, the longest in NBA history. Smith played for Buffalo, San Diego (twice), Cleveland and New York during the streak.
1997 — The America’s Cup, the oldest trophy in international sports and yachting’s most coveted prize, is all but destroyed by a Maori protester who struck it repeatedly with a sledgehammer in Auckland, New Zealand.
1998 — Bryce Drew hits a leaning 3-pointer as time expires to give Valparaiso a shocking 70-69 upset of Mississippi in the first round of the NCAA Midwest Regional.
2001 — Philadelphia’s Mark Recchi picks up his 1,000th career point during 5-2 win over St. Louis. He’s the 60th player in NHL history to reach the mark.
2005 — Donyell Marshall ties the NBA record with 12 3-pointers and the Toronto Raptors finish with a league-record 21 in their 128-110 victory over Philadelphia. Marshall, 12-for-19 from 3-point range, finishes with a career-high 38 points.
2007 — Lance Mackey wins the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, becoming the first musher to win major long-distance North American sled dog races back-to-back. On Feb. 20, Mackey won his third consecutive Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, a 1,000 mile race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon.
2007 — Dallas’ Mike Modano becomes the 39th player in NHL history and second born in the United States to reach 500 goals, scoring with 10:24 left in the third period of a 3-2 victory over Philadelphia.
2008 — Bode Miller clinches the men’s overall World Cup ski title. Miller earns his second title in four years with a 12th-place finish in the super-G combined along with Didier Cuche’s announcement that he would not enter the season-ending slalom in Bormio, Italy.
2008 — Detroit clinches a playoff berth after beating Dallas 5-3 while reaching 100 points for a league-record tying eighth-straight season. Montreal had 100-point seasons from 1975-82.
2010 — Oregon’s Ashton Eaton breaks Dan O’Brien’s 17-year-old world record in the indoor heptathlon. Eaton sets a mark of 6,499 points at the NCAA indoor track and field championships, passing O’Brien’s record of 6,476.
2011 — The NCAA men’s basketball selection committee releases its 68-team draw which included a record 11 teams from the Big East, the deepest conference in the nation. The tournament adds three more at-large teams that will open the tournament in what the NCAA is calling the “First Four.”
2012 — BYU pulls off the biggest comeback in NCAA tournament history on a wild opening night in Dayton, Ohio. The Cougars rally from 25 points down to beat Iona 78-72 in the first round. Previously, the largest deficit overcome was 22 points in 2001 when Duke fought back to beat Maryland 95-84 in the national semifinals. It’s the second incredible turnaround of the night. With President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron watching, Western Kentucky comes back from a 16-point deficit in the final 5 minutes to beat Mississippi Valley State 59-58.
