Sarah Palin continues string of stunning upsets as America's #1 Political Outsider

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In spite of the extensive and ongoing national and cable media efforts to sink Sarah's ship her candidates continue to shake the foundation of politics in America, control of politics by the national political parties, and the progressive liberal media's dying grasps to have a voice in the fall elections.

As the Palin touch brought down yet another incumbent previously declared the clear winner by the left, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Palin had endorsed long shot Joe Miller last June, he holds a clear lead with the majority of votes counted. While several thousand absentee votes remain to be counted, no major race has been decided this year by absentee votes in spite of the hesitation of the media to call the race.

The Palin juggernaut has stunned the political pundits and professional politicians of both parties and when combined with the huge Republican lead in total primary votes cast in state after state should foreshadow a massive Republican victory and setback for the progressive agenda in the fall elections.

Add to that the fact the Obama economic program has failed in spite of efforts by Administration talking heads to plea for patience, the public shows no mood for patience when jobs are stagnate, the future looks bleak, the cause for the economic crisis, housing, has continued to undermine the American dream and the Obama deficit continues to dwarf the Bush years.

If the progressives and liberal media continue their two year coordinated campaign to destroy Palin they are in danger of creating a voter backlash that could well leave liberals an endangered species. Each time the left elite try to end the career of the new American candidates they fail. From the New Jersey and Massachusetts races long ago to Rand Paul in Kentucky, Nikki Haley in South Carolina to Joe Miller yesterday, just when the liberals pronounce them dead on arrival they win.

Even the races lost by the populist candidates, particularly those backed by Palin, have been far closer than the polls indicated and might have been won on recounts in some cases. People are really upset and the media still doesn't get it. One day the pundits who are consistently dead wrong may finally get it, like when they no longer know any politicians in Washington.
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The Second End to Combat in Iraq Celebration Featuring VP Joe Biden

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As the carefully staged White House theatrical play of The End to Combat in Iraq continues it's road show this time the second team took center stage as Joe Biden filled in for the vacationing President Obama to declare, according to the Los Angeles Times Joe Biden update:

No 'Mission Accomplished' claim on Iraq, but no 'victory' either.
 

Andrew Malcolm went on to report:

Fortunately, Sen. Barack Obama was about as wrong as he could possibly be opposing President Bush's 2007 troop surge in this news video from the former state senator's favorite TV channel.

As one result, the vacationing president and, this week, the peripatetic vice president are busy celebrating the U.S. military's success in Iraq with the withdrawal this month of the last American combat brigade.

Of course, the Democrats are not dumb enough to repeat the notorious "Mission Accomplished" banner of the previous administration. Nor is the White House No. 2 going to repeat his notorious claim from a February "Larry King Live" show that Iraq represents one of Obama's "great achievements."

Today, in an Indianapolis speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Joe "Let's Divide Iraq Into Three Parts" Biden did not mention his opposition to the Bush troop surge either. But he was naturally effusive in his praise of American service personnel, present and past.

Two other things to note in this administration's public relations war wind-down:

A) The administration's third commander in Afghanistan in 19 months, Gen. David Petraeus, as JB so carefully put it today in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Indianapolis, "now has all the resources that the strategy calls for." (Full text below.)

B) What's missing from Biden's remarks about all the sacrifices being made as it was missing from Obama's 4,582-word West Point speech announcing his second Afghan troop surge and outlining a strategy there (including a pre-announced withdrawal starting next July), is the key word: "Victory."

Additionally, 50,000 heavily-armed American troops still remain in Iraq for....

... not always courteous counter-insurgency operations in coming months. So, "non-combat troops in Iraq" all depends on what your definition of "combat" is.

But with homefront approval of the nation's wars waning and an angry, frustrated electorate scheduled to vote in a midterm looming for Democrats on Nov. 2, we will be hearing much more on this from Obama post-Martha's Vineyard.

Now some might think after the NBC End of Iraq Combat staging last week this might be the end of the Administration efforts to capitalize on the public relations surrounding this ongoing historic event which is scheduled to really be completed August 31 but the President has now scheduled a major address for August 31 about, what else, the end of combat in Iraq in case you missed the first two events proclaiming the end of combat.

Apparently the hoopala is designed to make us overlook the fact about 50,000 combat ready troops will remain in Iraq after we have finished combat, that thousands of private contactors will be hired to fight in Iraq and that no one thinks the remaining 50,000 troops will be withdrawn by the end of next year as also promised.

I find the Administration reference to private contractors not being a combat force rather odd as long ago governments and kings hired such private contractors to fight their wars only they called them paid mercenaries and they were the fighting force.

One final note as I mentioned in my last article is that the real last remaining combat brigade in Iraq is the Stryker 2-25 brigade as reported by a soldier still in Iraq fighting after the NBC end of combat show. Perhaps Obama will acknowledge this truth as the 2-25 is from his home state of Hawaii and would make for more great theater.

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NBC Iraq Staging Drama - The Latest in News Media Reality Shows?

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Call it manufactured news, news manipulation or whatever the NBC extravaganza showing the last combat troops leaving Iraq was high in theater and low on truth. For a few hours yesterday even the Huffington Post, the liberal sanctuary, posted the Coltons Point Times article exposing the sham as nothing more than a public relations stunt by NBC and MSNBC to prop up sagging ratings.

However, the Huffington Post caters to the will of the White House and someone must have called for dropping the negative article about NBC because it disappeared soon after it appeared. However, since truth is so hard to find on the internet, here is a copy of the Google search that showed the Coltons Point Times article on the Huffington Post yesterday.

Now for more truth, the same day NBC was heralding an end to combat in Iraq Obama was speaking in Ohio and said the following:

“We are keeping the promise I made when I began my campaign for the presidency,” Obama said at a fundraiser at the Columbus Anthenaeum. “By the end of this month we will have removed 100,000 troops from Iraq and our combat mission will [end].”

No mention that all troops would be out that day and a reinforcement of his goal to be out by August 31. A military web site, Open Security contemporary conflict, reported the following in reaction to the NBC snow job:

"The last United States’ army combat brigade left Iraq early this morning, crossing the border into Kuwait in a carefully-planned, top-secret journey. The departure of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, will leave 6000 support troops in Iraq until end of August, when US combat operations will formally end.

US State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley said American involvement in Iraq is far from over, but would be less intrusive and more civilian-focused from now on. Crowley emphasised that the US remains committed to its trillion dollar investment in Iraq, and needed to honour the memory of almost 4,500 troops who lost their lives in the war. Crowley made no mention of the estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians who also lost their lives in the conflict.

Despite White House reassurances that continued unrest and a six-month old political deadlock following indecisive elections in March will not “derail democracy” in Iraq, many commentators are sceptical that the end of combat operations can be as clear cut as the Obama administration would like it to be. Although 50,000 troops will remain in support of the Iraqi army until the end of 2011, current plans would see all US forces withdrawing from Iraq by the end of 2011, leaving only a small contingent of diplomats and civilians, protected by less than a few thousand troops."

Finally a serviceman blogging from Iraq wrote that "there is still a Stryker brigade" remaining in Iraq after the departure of the Stryker 4-2 brigade on NBC. He said the Stryker 2-25 brigade, the only combat brigade left in Iraq, will be the last to leave before the end of the month.

His response to NBC was "along the way you missed out on pointing out true facts that there is still a brigade here that is just as large and has the same if not more vehicles than 4-2 does. So look deeper and remember soldiers watch the news as well and the piece as a whole was nice but I hope you come see us since we are the last Strykers here and will be turning out the lights on this show."

You will get the truth if you are open to it. As for me, I really don't like network news using our brave American troops as props for their reality shows. It is a disgrace to journalism, it trivializes war, and makes the blood of over 4,400 Americans who died in Iraq seem more like a TV script than the reality it was to the families and loved ones of those we lost.

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NBC & Obama Gang Stage "Historic" End to Iraq Combat - Then get Busted!

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It seems the Obama boys cannot stop trying to manipulate the national news media to get favorable stories and to drive unfavorable stories off the air and there is no grater co-conspirator than the White House propaganda machine at NBC and MSNBC.

Last night on NBC news and then on every MSNBC talking head program we were served a historic story of the last combat troops leaving Iraq and crossing the border to Kuwait. Lights, camera, applause and action and there you have it, Obama meeting his promise to remove combat troops as the MSNBC heads feigned tears.

The story continued this morning on Morning Joe and other MSNBC outlets to maximize the bang for the buck. This well planned and staged media extravaganza went without a hitch as reporter Richard Engel rode with the troops through the border crossing, acting as if he didn't know the scripted moment was being staged and as if he didn't know what the border crossing looked like.

There had to be a sigh of relief from the White House as they watched NBC document history and maybe knock the Moslem mosque at Ground Zero and Obama's strange flip flopping on his position out of the headlines.

But alas they failed once again to trick the American public although they did trick the left leaning media into buying into the deception. You see, after the NBC exclusive of the last combat soldier leaving Iraq we come to find out there are actually 6,000 other combat soldiers still fighting in Iraq who will not be gone until the August 31 deadline.

Does this mean any other liberal media supporting Obama will have their own staging of the historic last combat soldier leaving Iraq? Are these media manipulators insane? Do they really think the public will buy this deception while 6,000 combat troops still remain in Iraq?

Shades of Dan Rather and CBS falsifying the military records of George Bush, Jr. to smear him in the 2004 presidential election. So here we go again, more media lies, more administration lies, and more deception by the politicians and media. These people should be investigated for fraud, the NBC people perpetrating the fraud should be thrown off the air and the Obama people using the brave military combat troops in Iraq as props for campaign commercials should be thrown out of public office.

I wonder if Obama knew about and approved of this cruel deception?

Here is the truth about how the staged broadcast was assembled as reported by Brian Stelter of Media Decoder.

Inside an NBC News control room, they were also nerve-racking, as the network prepared on Wednesday night to broadcast live from a convoy that carried elements of the last United States combat brigade to leave the country. It was a high-stakes broadcast, one that the network had secretly worked for weeks to pull off.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, producers were transfixed on the monitors that showed the correspondent Richard Engel positioned inside one of the vehicles in the convoy. Every time the picture lapsed, a result of satellite hiccups, the volume in the room dropped, only to be replaced by sighs of relief when it was restored a second or two later.

“The magic of live TV,” M.L. Flynn, a producer, remarked to no one in particular.

The existence of the convoy was kept secret until 6:30 p.m. Eastern, the same time that the “NBC Nightly News” started. To transmit the images, NBC at great expense shipped its so-called Bloommobile to Iraq for the first time since the war began in 2003. The Bloommobile is a specially outfitted vehicle that allows the network to transmit live pictures via satellite while on the road.

David Verdi, a vice president at NBC News, said that before the war’s beginning in 2003, network executives asked themselves, “What do we think our audience expects from us in covering this war?”

“The unanimous answer was, our audience most likely expects to see this war live,” he said. “That was the initial idea for the Bloommobile.”

When the time came to talk about the end of the combat mission there, he added, “We came to the same conclusion — that our audience would expect to experience it live as it’s happening.”

On Wednesday night, Mr. Engel was positioned in one of the military’s armor vehicles, directly in front of the Bloommobile. The signal from his vehicle was sent via microwave to the Bloommobile, which transmitted it back to the United States.

NBC had something of a scare on Tuesday when one of its satellite transponders burnt out, a casualty of the hot weather there. A network technician was able to replace the transponder in time.

In the control room on Wednesday night, Ms. Flynn, the producer, communicated with Mr. Engel via an earpiece. As the live shot from Iraq faded a bit, the producer said, “Richard, can you tell the Bloommobile to stay closer to you?”

The images from NBC and other outlets are important for the United States as a public relations tool, as they reaffirm with color and sound that the country is winding down a widely unpopular combat mission. But they are in part a media construct. Though the media may yearn for a dramatic finish to the war, there is not likely to be one, at least not yet.

Next thing you know the war coverage will be filmed in Hollywood.


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19th Amendment gave Women Right to Vote 90 years ago Today

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[In the 1800s, women in the United States had few legal rights and did not have the right to vote. This speech was given by Susan B. Anthony after her arrest for casting an illegal vote in the presidential election of 1872. She was tried and then fined $100 but refused to pay.]

Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:


"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

 It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government - the ballot.

For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity.

To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation.

Webster, Worcester, and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.

The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes.


Susan B. Anthony - 1873


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The Roots of Country Music - Appalachia to Nashville

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Most people probably have little understanding of the roots of country music in America because it has always been taken for granted that country is one of the core genres we have always had around. It is known as the heartbeat and soul of America and been around about as long as the Europeans have been here.

Over the years we may have heard country music we liked, some even crossed over to pop and rock charts, and many stars in other genres either started as country music singers or became famous and then cut a country song or album. But do we really know from whence it came?

When English speaking America was first being colonized in the 1600's the coastal areas were settled first, Virginia, Massachusetts and Maryland, all by 1634 and it did not take long for the European immigrants to make their way to the Appalachian Mountains, the Southern Appalachians that is, which included the Blue Ridge Mountain range and Cumberland Plateau. Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee territories along with pieces of the Carolinas and Georgia made up the region which served as a barrier to westward expansion.
 

Immigrants came to the area because the coastal regions were already populated and with them came the Old World musical instruments were brought together in barn dances and celebrations by these hardy people settling the region. This was in the days before electricity, before electric guitars and synthesizers

The Irish fiddle, German dulcimer, Italian mandolin, Spanish guitar and African banjo were brought to these celebrations and played together in hillbilly jam sessions far from the operas and symphonies of the cities on the east coast. This came to be known as "Old Time" music.

In the 19th century some immigrant groups moved to the Texas area to settle and further integrated the hillbilly sound with Spanish, Mexican and Native American music and large dancehalls were built where the locals could gather and dance to the sounds. This was the final step in the evolution of the roots of Country Music.

 Then came the 20th century with cars and roads and radio which brought down the barriers of communication and people from throughout the nation could hear this unique American creation. The first country recording was in 1921 and throughout the 1920's as radio expanded so did the country music.



Country musicians were great innovators ever since mixing the instruments from five counties up in the Appalachians and electricity, recording and touring gave them more and more opportunities to do this. Hillbilly music grew in popularity driven by the Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers and in 1925 WSM-AM radio in Nashville started the first country music broadcast, on November 28, 1925, when the WSM Barn Dance was first broadcast. In time it would become the Grand Ole Opry under the guidance of people like Roy Acuff.

 By the 1930's and Great Depression people were poor and the radio became the primary source of news and entertainment. Soon a fledgling movie industry introduced the Singing cowboys while radio was expanding the barn dances with legendary country shows being broadcast from Chicago to Texas to California. In the 1940's these shows introduced singers like Roy Acuff, Bill Haley, Eddie Arnold and singing cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.



Bob Wills and his legendary Texas Playboys was among the innovators of country music when in 1935 he introduced drums to the band, a first, then became the first group with the electric guitar in 1938. Yet it was not until the early 1960's that the steel guitar and drums were fixtures in country bands.

 Hillbilly music spawned Hillbilly Boogie by 1939 and a new country genre called Bluegrass emerged with the sound of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs at the end World War II. By this time country music included Hillbilly, Boogie, Blues, Honky Tonk, Gospel and Rockabilly.



To the rest of the world country music was called Hillbilly until 1944 when the name was changed to Folk and Blues music. By 1949 it was labeled Country or Country Western, the latter referring to the singing cowboys of movies and then television. Honky Tonk saw the rise of Ernest Tubb, Floyd Tillman, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Lefty Frizell and Hank Williams.



Along came the 1950's and country music changed again as Rockabilly dominated with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins leading the way. From 1955-1960 ABC-TV became the first network with a nationwide country show called the Ozark Jubilee that showcased country stars to the nation. Elvis helped drive the cross-over between Rockabilly and Rock 'n Roll.

Late in the '50's came the Lubbock Sound of Buddy Holly and then there was a country backlash as the industry felt rock 'n roll was to dominate. Ray Price, Marty Robbins and Johnny Horton began to shift the music back to traditional country.

In the early 1960's the Nashville sound became dominant with producers like Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley and Billy Sherrill reviving the genre with legendary singers Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold. Ray Charles introduced Country Soul in 1962 with his release of I Can't Stop Loving You. A new sound in Nashville called Countrypolitan was created featuring the sounds of Tammy Wynette and Charlie Rich. But soon the Nashville sound became stale.

Out west Honky Tonk and Western Swing were merged by Bob Wills and Lefty Frizell to form the Bakersfield Sound. It would encompass the diversity of different styles from Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Tommy Collins and Wynn Stewart.



In other places like Lubbock, Tulsa and Austin the disappointment with the Nashville Sound and control of the record labels was causing an Outlaw movement. Inspired by the success of The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Rolling Stones in demanding creative control of their music and control of their songs, the Outlaws gravitated to Austin where Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson became the leaders.

 Not only did their music change but their image as well. Gone were the clean cut, clean shaven cowboys of old and in were the long haired radical Outlaws of the future. Jessie Colter, wife of Waylon, was one of the female pioneers while Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard soon joined forces.

With The Beatles astounding success blending rock and pop music Nashville was hungry to tap into the crossover sound needed to reach the mainstream markets. Others, seeking a return to the "old values" of rock 'n roll, created a new genre called Country Rock.

The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, Poco, Buffalo Springfield and Eagles exploded onto the music scene as Southern Rock and Heartland became new subgenre spin offs. Ever since there has been a tug of war between traditional country and country rock or country pop as stars like Dolly Parton, Rosanne Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Alabama, Hank Williams, Jr., Brooks and Dunn, Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakum, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and Keith Urban helped move country towards rock over the years.

By the mid 1970's Olivia Newton John and John Denver captured the Country Pop crossover market and powered their way to CMA and Grammy Awards with multi million selling hits. Soon a whole new group of country performers would take up the mantle.

George Straight, Alan Jackson, Clint Black, Toby Keith, Reba McEntire, Kenny Chesney, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill and Tim McGraw among others perform the Classic Country style today while the pop crossover comes from new artists like Carrie Underwood from American Idol fame and newest sensation Taylor Swift who have breathed new life into the country music industry.

What is next? Who knows. Still, those who understand that country music is an ever-changing genre that morphs into a variety of styles depending on the needs of the people and the innovation of the artists, must feel good as a broad range of artists currently dominate the radio airwaves and rule the concert circuit.

As the major record labels collapse, the radio stations strangle on their own automated programming and the formula music once again becomes stale we know it is the time when country music always rediscovers itself. Nashville will be a lot better as a result, all country artists will benefit, the public will reap the rewards of new and innovative country music and history will once again record that the American country sound once again became relevant in a time of need and a time of truth.

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It is FOOTBALL Season American Style so No offense to the Brits and Football Soccer Teams

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Who owns the right to call football football?  And just what is football?



Listen to this Andy Griffin classic - What it was was football!

It seems all the rest of the world is lined up against America in claiming that Soccer is really Football and Football in America should be called something else, but is the rest of the world right? Well we at the CPT make it a point to tell you the truth so here it is.

The games of football, rugby football, soccer football, American gridiron football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, Gaelic football, as well as the variations of the games in various countries all share the same history.

While it is widely assumed that the word "football" (or "foot ball") references the action of the foot kicking a ball, there is a historical explanation, which is that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot. These games were usually played by peasants, as opposed to the horse-riding sports (such as polo) often played by aristocrats. There is no conclusive evidence for either explanation, and the word football has always implied a variety of games played on foot, not just those that involved kicking a ball. In some cases, the word football has even been applied to games which have specifically outlawed kicking the ball.

For that reason all forms of football share and can claim ownership of the term for it has always applied to all of them. Now to get specific, medieval Europe was the time from 500 CE to 1,500 CE so we are talking about a name in use 500 to 1,500 years ago, long before the modern games came into existence.

In the ancient days, well before the time of Jesus, according to the Greek history, the first Olympic Games in the Greek Antiquity can be traced back to 776 BC. The Games continued through the rise of the ancient Greek empire and for almost 12 centuries, until the Roman Emperor Theodosius banned them, in 393 AD. The Games had gradually lost their importance when the Romans conquered Greece and when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. So ended a period of one thousand years during which the Olympics were to be conducted every four years thereafter.

The Olympic games were revived by the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin in the late 19 th century. The Games of the Olympiad, also known as Summer Olympics, taking place every four years since 1896 onwards, with the exception of the years during the World Wars.

As for football and the Olympics, in 1900 soccer became a demonstration sport and by 1908 medals were granted to winners. Rugby Sevens will debut as an Olympic sport at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to include the sport at the IOC Congress on 9th October 2009.

Documented evidence of an activity resembling football can be found in the Chinese military manual Zhan Guo Ce compiled between the 3rd century and 1st century BC. It describes a practice known as cuju (literally "kick ball"), which originally involved kicking a leather ball through a small hole in a piece of silk cloth which was fixed on bamboo canes and hung about 9 m above ground. During the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), cuju games were standardized and rules were established. Variations of this game later spread to Japan and Korea, known as kemari and chuk-guk respectively.   This is known to have been played within the Japanese imperial court in Kyoto from about 600 AD.

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games, played by indigenous peoples in many different parts of the world. For example, in 1586, men from a ship commanded by an English explorer named John Davis, went ashore to play a form of football with Inuit (Eskimo) people in Greenland. There are later accounts of an Inuit game played on ice, called Aqsaqtuk. Each match began with two teams facing each other in parallel lines, before attempting to kick the ball through each other team's line and then at a goal. In 1610, William Strachey of the Jamestown settlement, Virginia recorded a game played by Native Americans, called Pahsaheman. In Victoria, Australia, indigenous people played a game called Marn Grook ("ball game"). An 1878 book by Robert Brough-Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, quotes a man called Richard Thomas as saying, in about 1841, that he had witnessed Aboriginal people playing the game: "Mr Thomas describes how the foremost player will drop kick a ball made from the skin of a possum and how other players leap into the air in order to catch it." It is widely believed that Marn Grook had an influence on the development of Australian rules football

The modern rules of many football codes were formulated during the mid- or late- 19th century. This also applies to other sports such as lawn bowls, lawn tennis, etc. The major impetus for this was the patenting of the world's first lawnmower in 1830. This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc. Apart from Rugby football, the public school codes have barely been played beyond the confines of each school's playing fields. However, many of them are still played at the schools which created them.

One of the longest running football competitions is in Australia, the Cordner-Eggleston Cup, contested between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College, Melbourne every year since 1858. It is believed by many to also be the first match of Australian rules football, although it was played under experimental rules in its first year. The first football trophy tournament was the Caledonian Challenge Cup, donated by the Royal Caledonian Society of Melbourne, played in 1861 under the Melbourne Rules.

The oldest football league is a rugby football competition, the United Hospitals Challenge Cup (1874), while the oldest rugby trophy is the Yorkshire Cup, contested since 1878. The South Australian Football Association (30 April 1877) is the oldest surviving Australian rules football competition. The oldest surviving soccer trophy is the Youdan Cup (1867) and the oldest national soccer competition is the English FA Cup (1871). The Football League (1888) is recognized as the longest running Association Football league. The first ever international football match took place between sides representing England and Scotland on March 5, 1870 at the Oval under the authority of the FA. The first Rugby international took place in 1871.

Modern American football grew out of a match between McGill University of Montreal, and Harvard University in 1874. At the time, Harvard students are reported to have played the Boston Game — a running code — rather than the FA-based kicking games favored by U.S. universities. This made it easy for Harvard to adapt to the rugby-based game played by McGill and the two teams alternated between their respective sets of rules. Within a few years, however, Harvard had both adopted McGill's rugby rules and had persuaded other U.S. university teams to do the same. In 1876, at the Massasoit Convention, it was agreed by these universities to adopt most of the Rugby Football Union rules, with some variations. Princeton, Rutgers and others continued to compete using soccer-based rules for a few years before switching to the rugby-based rules of Harvard and its competitors. U.S. colleges did not generally return to soccer until the early twentieth century.

By the 1820's and '30's Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Yale were playing versions of football, often changing rules at halftime. It was so brutal it was called "mob football". On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University in a game that was played with a round ball under "Football Association" rules (i.e. soccer) and is often regarded as the first game of intercollegiate football. The game was played with 20 players per team at a Rutgers field under Rutgers rules.

Another game claiming to be first was played in November 1875 at New Haven, Connecticut between Harvard and Yale, and was part rugby and part soccer. The two teams played with 15 players on a side instead of 11 as Yale would have preferred, and Harvard won by 4 goals and 4 tries, or touchdowns, to none.

In 1880, Yale coach Walter Camp, credited with being behind many of the modern football rules, devised a number of major changes to the American game. Camp's two most important rule innovations in establishing American football as distinct from the rugby football games on which it is based are scrimmage and down-and-distance rules.

So there you are, and you can thank the Ivy League for bringing football to America. Of course it was so brutal that there were 18 deaths and many serious injuries, and was banned on most college campuses, before President Teddy Roosevelt saved the sport by revising the rules when the situation came to a head in 1905 with 19 fatalities nationwide. President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to shut the game down if drastic changes were not made. They were made and modern football was finally born in America.
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