What event had the biggest impact on your country

[JRSCline]

What a strange, twisting thread this is!<br>
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I had always known soccer/football was big worldwide, but I didn't begin to understand it until I moved to Europe.<br>
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Then I decided to teach myself more about 'real' football and discovered this team-management game called Championship Manager. Woo...<br>
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I think I understand soccer/football well enough now, and even many of the teams have become familiar so I can follow the rivalries, but I'm not any closer to understanding all the intricacies of ChampMan! (Any other managers here?)<br>
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We Americans moan about the high salaries and greed of our own national football and baseball leagues, but our pro soccer players are a steal compared to the rest of the civilized world's best. What we suffer from is a lack of semi-pro and farm type teams. Our soccer players get a chance to play in high school and college, not very challenging levels, and then are thrown into the mix with guys who've already been on pro teams being groomed for top-flight competition since they were 16, 17 etc. No wonder there aren't many American elite players!<br>
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If you look at Australia and NZ, where the great game is rugby and Aussie rules, you can see a similar circumstance.<br>
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Soccer/football in America has a bit of a rep as a girl's game. In fact we have pro women's teams in the US and they are more avidly followed than the men's pro league. Americans, how many U.S. women's players can you name? Brandy Chastain, Mia Hamm instantly spring to mind. Now, Americans, ask yourself if you can think of any U.S. men's players. Hmm....<br>
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Any women's leagues outside the U.S.?<br>
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Jenny <p></p><i></i>

[Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus]

below should be a typical mens soccer attendence. It is the Chicago Fire in soldier field, where the horrible chicago bears also play.<br>
<img src="http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v236/kslice2k2/eurotrip1_002.jpg" style="border:0;"/> <p>THERE IS NO VICTORY WITHOUT DEFEAT, AND THERE IS NO DEFEAT WITHOUT VICTORY</p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gnaeuspompeiusmagnus>Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus</A> at: 6/17/04 5:35 am<br></i>

[Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus]

sorry picture is too big, i am technologically handicapped. If someone knows if theres a way to resize it I would most appreciate an email kslice2k2ataol.com <p>THERE IS NO VICTORY WITHOUT DEFEAT, AND THERE IS NO DEFEAT WITHOUT VICTORY</p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Point made anyway, though, Magnus!<br>
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The sports that are most popular in the US are so because they are, in fact, viewed as great spectacles and soccer/ football isn't viewed that way on this side of the pond. It's an odd disconnect between the number of people who have actually played soccer in some sort of league (surprisingly large, considering that it's probably 8th or 9th, at best, on the list of popular spectator sports over here) and the number of people who actually enjoy watching it. The term "soccer mom" has even been used to describe a certain demographic category over here!<br>
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Aaron <p></p><i></i>

[John Maddox Roberts]

Getting this back on topic, the automobile. It changed very nearly everything in American life, from the design of cities to our patterns of courtchip. Do you know that people didn't "date" before the automobile became available?<br>
In second place I would put air conditioning. It made the postwar Sunbelt phenomenon possible. People began flocking to towns like Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Albuquerque and Phoenix, where before only natives could withstand the heat of summer. <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

I'd put the invention of plastic way before air conditioning. What isn't made from plastic today...and if we didn't have plastic, what would we have? <p>Magnus/Matt<br>
Legio XXX "Ulpia Victrix"<br>
Niagara Falls, Canada</p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I knew I should have gotten in on the ground floor on that plastics thing...<br>
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Aaron <p></p><i></i>

[Caius Fabius]

The study and harnessing of electricity, which made communication easier, air-conditioning possible, computers, television, radio, the Internet, .........and the most important, we wouldn't have R.A.T. without electricity.<br>
<p>"Just before class started, I looked in the big book where all the world's history is written, and it said...." Neil J. Hackett, PhD ancient history, professor OSU, 1987</p><i></i>

[Dan Diffendale]

Electricity also allowed artificial lighting, which allowed people to work later and in large office buildings, which made a lot of the other advances mentioned possible. <p></p><i></i>

[Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus]

don't forget the biggest impact of artificial light, baseball and football night games. <p>THERE IS NO VICTORY WITHOUT DEFEAT, AND THERE IS NO DEFEAT WITHOUT VICTORY</p><i></i>