By: HISTORY.com Editors

1975

Dallas Cowboys win playoff game on “Hail Mary” pass

Published: November 23, 2021Last Updated: May 27, 2025

On December 28, 1975, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach throws a 50-yard touchdown pass to Drew Pearson in the waning seconds to beat the Minnesota Vikings in a playoff game, 17-14. Afterward, Staubach calls the miraculous touchdown a "Hail Mary," thus cementing the term for a desperation pass in the sports lexicon.

"It was a play you hit one in a hundred times if you're lucky,'' Staubach told reporters after the game in Bloomington, Minnesota. "I guess it's a Hail Mary pass. You throw it up and pray he catches it."

Said Dallas coach Tom Landry: "Our only hope was to throw and hope for a miracle."

The play was controversial. Minnesota contended Pearson pushed off against defensive back Nate Wright and should have been called for pass interference.

"It was just as clear as day and night," Minnesota coach Bud Grant said.

But Pearson said Wright was the one who pushed. "... I might have put my hands on him," he said. "The ball hit my hands and then something hit my arm. The ball slid down and stuck between my elbow and my hip. That's all there was to it. It was a lucky catch."

In 1963, after a victory by his Navy team over Michigan, Staubach described a touchdown as “a Hail Mary play.” But the term didn't become widespread until after his miraculous completion against the Vikings.

7 of the Greatest Hail Mary Passes of All Time

Colorado's Kordell Stewart called his 64-yard, game-winning touchdown pass against Michigan in 1994 'a gift from God.'

By: Chris Mueller

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on December 28th

1793

Writer Thomas Paine is arrested in France

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1832

John C. Calhoun resigns vice presidency

Citing political differences with President Andrew Jackson and a desire to fill a vacant Senate seat in South Carolina, John C. Calhoun becomes the first vice president in U.S. history to resign the office. Born near Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1782, Calhoun was an advocate of states’ rights and a defender of the agrarian South […]

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1856

Woodrow Wilson born in Staunton, Virginia

Future President Woodrow Wilson is born in Staunton, Virginia on December 28, 1856. He attended private schools and graduated from Princeton University in 1879 before studying law at the University of Virginia and earning his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He was hired by Princeton as a professor of political science in 1899 and went on […]

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1895

First commercial movie screened

The world’s first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris. The film was made by Louis and Auguste Lumiere, two French brothers. The brief film showed workers leaving the Lumiere factory.

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1908

Worst European earthquake ever recorded

At dawn, the most destructive earthquake in recorded European history strikes the Straits of Messina in southern Italy, leveling the cities of Messina in Sicily and Reggio di Calabria on the Italian mainland. The earthquake and tsunami it caused killed an estimated 100,000 people. Sicily and Calabria are known as la terra ballerina–“the dancing land”–for […]

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1938

Silent-film star and inventor Florence Lawrence dies

On December 28, 1938, the silent-film star Florence Lawrence dies by suicide in Beverly Hills. She was 52 years old. Though she was best known for her roles in nearly 250 films, Lawrence was also an inventor: She designed the first “auto signaling arm,” a mechanical turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. […]

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1944

Hungary declares war on Germany

The provisional government of Hungary officially declares war on Germany, bringing an end to Hungary’s cooperation—sometimes free, sometimes coerced—with the Axis power. Miklos Horthy, the anticommunist regent and virtual dictator of Hungary, who had once hoped to keep his country a nonbelligerent in the war, had reluctantly aligned Hungary with Hitler in November 1940. While […]

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1958

Colts win NFL title in “Greatest Game Ever Played”

On December 28, 1958, the Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants, 23-17, in overtime in the NFL Championship Game—a back-and-forth thriller that later is billed as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” The nationally televised championship—the league’s first overtime contest—is watched by 45 million viewers and fuels the NFL’s meteroric rise in popularity. “Never has there been a […]

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1964

Battle of Binh Gia begins

The Viet Cong launch a major offensive in the early morning hours of December 28, 1964 in the the village of Binh Gia, 40 miles southeast of Saigon. The bloody battle lasted until January 1, 1965, when Viet Cong forces abandoned the town. Losses included an estimated 200 South Vietnamese and five U.S. advisors, plus […]

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1973

“The Gulag Archipelago” is published

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “literary investigation” of the police-state system in the Soviet Union, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956, is published in the original Russian in Paris. The book was the first of the three-volume work. The brutal and uncompromising description of political repression and terror was quickly translated into many languages and was published in the United […]

1973

Endangered Species Act signed into law

On December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signs the Endangered Species Act into law. The act, which Nixon called for the previous year, is considered one of the most significant and influential environmental laws in American history. The government started taking action to protect endangered species in the early 1900s, as it became apparent that […]

1981

First American “test-tube baby” is born

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1991

Nine killed in a stampede outside a hip-hop celebrity basketball game

Nine young people die in a crowd stampede in New York City on December 28, 1991. The event was a charity basketball gamed headlined by hip-hop stars Heavy D. and Puff Daddy (now known as P.Diddy). Shortly after 6:00 p.m., according to eyewitness accounts, the crowd outside the City University of New York broke at least […]

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