Feb. 2

1876 — The National League forms, consisting of teams in Philadelphia, Hartford, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and New York.

1954 — Bevo Francis of Rio Grande College scores 113 points in a 134-91 victory over Hillsdale. Francis breaks his own record for small colleges (84), set two weeks earlier against Alliance College.

1962 — Using a fiberglass pole, John Uelses becomes the first man to vault more than 16 feet, indoors or out. Uelses, a Marine Corps corporal, clears 16¼ during the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden in New York.

1967 — The American Basketball Association begins operation with George Mikan as commissioner. The league has 10 teams in two divisions, with franchises in New York, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Oakland and Anaheim.

1977 — Toronto's Ian Turnbull scores five goals to set an NHL record for defensemen as the Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings 9-1.

1991 — New Hampshire's men's basketball team snaps its 32-game losing streak at home with a 72-56 win over Holy Cross. The NCAA-record streak started on Feb. 9, 1988.

1994 — Lenny Wilkens gets his 900th NBA victory as the Atlanta Hawks beat the Orlando Magic 118-99. Wilkens runs his regular-season mark to 900-760, trailing only Red Auerbach's 938 in NBA regular-season victories.

1999 — Austria's Hermann Maier and Norway's Lasse Kjus ski to an unprecedented tie in the men's super-G as the World Alpine Ski Championships get off to a roaring start.

2001 — Stacy Dragila takes center stage at the Millrose Games in New York, breaking her world indoor pole vault record by half-an-inch with a 15-2¼ vault.

2003 — Atlanta Thrashers star Dany Heatley joins hockey greats such as Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux by scoring a record-tying four goals in the NHL's All-Star game. However, his Eastern Conference team loses the first All-Star game shootout, 6-5.

2009 — Kobe Bryant breaks the current Madison Square Garden record with 61 points to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a 126-117 victory over New York. Bryant is 19-for-31 from the field, including 3-of-6 from beyond the arc, and hits all 20 of his free throw attempts to eclipse the previous visitor record of 55 held by Michael Jordan and the overall record of 60 set by Bernard King.