How Teddy Roosevelt fixed football

Back in the day, football (being played only in college) was such a violent sport that 18 people died in 1905, with a significantly less number of players than today. Basically anything was legal, including slugging and gang tackling. Fans started turning away from the sport.

So in 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt called in football's version of the Big Three (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton) to try to change the way they did things. Adamantly refusing at first, they succumbed to the wishes of the cogent, table-thumping president.

Now football is the #1 watched sport in America, and it would've probably disappeared in the early 20th century had Roosevelt not forced the rules down the game's throat.