On this day 125 years ago, Lord Stanley pledged to donate a silver cup to the best Canadian hockey team, establishing the Stanley Cup. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise, and is given to the National Hockey League playoff winner each year. The original trophy was a bowl made of silver, a copy of which now adorns the top of the current Stanley Cup, a huge 35-pound piece of silver and nickel alloy 35 inches high. Unlike the trophies awarded by the other major professional sports leagues, a new Stanley Cup is not made each year—it is passed between the former and new champions. (1893)
MORE Good News on this Date:
- Frank Sinatra made his first recording, a song called ‘Our Love’, with the Frank Mane band (1939)
- 4,400-year-old mummy found in Egyptian Pyramid (1989)
- South Africa voted for political reforms to end apartheid (1992)
- The first-ever Muslim Friday prayer led by a woman (in a mixed-gender New York mosque) marked a break with 1426-year Islamic…
