Timeline of Quizbowl History
1953
- October 10: College Bowl debuts on the NBC radio network.
1970
- June 14: Final televised episode of College Bowl airs on NBC.
- Fall: Independent quizbowl circuit founded with the holding of the first Southeastern Invitational at Berry College.
1977
- Fall: College Bowl recruits writers from the Atlanta-area quizbowl circuit to begin its campus program.
1978
- Spring: The first College Bowl NCT is held. Stanford defeats Yale in the finals behind the play of Jon Reider and Ted Gioia.
1983
- Spring: 34 teams travel to Dallas for the inaugural National Academic Championship, the first school-based high school national. Walt Whitman defeats Upper Arlington in the finals match.
1988
- June 12-18: The sixth NAC is held in New Orleans, LA. This is the first of seven years in which the NAC is televised under the sponsorship of Texaco.
- June 19-25: The Texaco Star National Academic Championship airs on The Discovery Channel.
1990
- Fall: ACF founded by Carol Guthrie, Ramesh Kannappan, and John Nam.
1991
- Spring: First ACF Regionals and ACF Nationals held. Tennessee defeats Georgia Tech to claim the championship.
1994
- June 11-17: The twelfth NAC is held in Houston, TX. The televised rounds are hosted by Mark L. Wahlberg as part of a syndication deal which turned out to be the final season of the televised show.
- Summer: The seventh and final season of The Texaco Star National Academic Championship airs nationwide on various local PBS and commercial stations.
1996
- Spring: NAQT founded by Patrick Mathews, David Frazee, and others.
- Spring: PACE founded.
- November 22: First NAQT SCT tournament held.
1997
- January 24-25: First NAQT ICT held at Penn. Chicago defeats Harvard in the final by powering the last tossup of an overtime tiebreaker.
- April 20: Virginia defeats Harvard in a controversial College Bowl NCT final. Incidents during the game itself as well as the revocation of the promised winners' prize afterwards spur Virginia to immediately announce that it will not be participating in College Bowl in the future.
1998
- June 19-20: First PACE NSC held at Case Western. State College defeats Henry Ford II to claim the first high school quizbowl national title of the "modern era."
1999
- April 24: Chicago wins ACF Nationals, completing the first Triple Crown season in history and finishing with an 88-0 record for their regular A team in non-College Bowl formats.
- June 5-6: First HSNCT held at the University of Oklahoma, ending with Detroit Catholic Central defeating Walton for the title.
2000
- June: hsquizbowl.org founded.
2001
- November 3: First ACF Fall held, now the most widely played college set of the year.
2005
- June 12: Thomas Jefferson defeats State College in the PACE NSC final, completing what is still the only double-undefeated performance at HSNCT and NSC and an undefeated year in pyramidal formats.
2008
- April 29: The last NCT is held; Rochester wins.
- June 3: College Bowl Company announces suspension of College Bowl operations; the HCASC continues nonetheless.
- June 14: HSAPQ founded.
- September 27: The first HSAPQ tournament is hosted at North Carolina.
2009
- April 26: Chicago defeats Brown in the finals of ACF Nationals following Brown's victory over Stanford in a play-in game, unifying the ICT and Nationals championships for the last time to date.
- June: The last Panasonic NTAE is held without Panasonic's financial backing; the tournament collapses soon after.
2010
- June 5-6: The 2010 NSC is held, abandoning the old three-quarter NSC format in favor of 20/20 rounds.
- June 12-13: The inaugural NASAT is hosted at Vanderbilt.
2013
- March 20: NAQT announces that a website security review has found evidence of Andy Watkins accessing question material prior to three ICTs in which he participated. Four Harvard titles are revoked and Watkins is suspended from NAQT membership, resigning soon after.
- May 25-26: LASA defeats Ladue to win the 2013 HSNCT. At 256 teams, it is by far the largest quizbowl tournament ever held yet.