ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY

On Oct. 19, 1873, sporting enthusiasts from Rutgers, Princeton, Yale and Columbia gathered at a hotel in Manhattan to agree upon rules for a rough-and-tumble new game they called football.

The game -- rooted in rugby, soccer and the brutal sports of ancient Greece and Rome -- dated to 1869 in New Brunswick, where students from Queen's College, now Rutgers University, challenged their counterparts from the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton.

Some 200 spectators watched the players knock each other to the turf. No one wore a helmet. Rutgers won, six to four.

The game became popular on several college campuses, but each school developed its own set of rules. The meeting in Manhattan established some order. Their 12 rules included decreeing that a pre-game coin toss would determine which team got the ball first.

The instant replay came about 125 years later.