Harry Truman holds up an edition of the '' Chicago Tribune '' prematurely declaring his defeat in the 1948 Presidential Election .]]
is a term used when referring to a Competition , frequently in Electoral Politics or Sports . When an upset occurs, the party popularly expected to win (the favorite) the competition is defeated by an Underdog the majority expects to lose, defying the Conventional Wisdom .
- 1948 - Unpopular Democratic President Harry Truman defeats the highly favored Republican candidate Thomas Dewey .
- 1969 - Football - Super Bowl III - The New York Jets shocking the Baltimore Colts to win 16-7 when they were the heavy Underdog , as was the AFC .
- 1976 Little-known Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter defeats incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford , although by a very narrow margin.
- 2002 - Football - Super Bowl XXXVI - The New England Patriots shocking the St. Louis Rams to win 20-17 when they were a 14-point Underdog . The Patriots did so by successfully shutting down the high octane offense of Kurt Warner and the Rams, and causing the Rams to turn over the ball. With the game tied with over a minute left in regulation, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady drove his team down the field quickly, and allowed Adam Vinatieri a chance to win the game with a fairly long Field Goal as time expired.
- 1990 - Baseball - 1990 World Series - The 91-71 Cincinnati Reds sweep the 103-59 Oakland A's in 4 games
- 1990 - Boxing - James Douglas knocking out then-undefeated Mike Tyson in 10 rounds.
- 2001 - Basketball - 1985 NCAA Men's Tournament - Villanova , an 8 seed, upset Georgetown , the defending champion and consensus #1 team in America.
- 1980 - Ice Hockey - Miracle On Ice , U.S. beats the Soviets in the semifinals at the 1980 Olympics.
- 2004 - Baseball - 2004 American League Championship Series , The Boston Red Sox , down 3-0 against the New York Yankees in the best of 7 series, come back and win the next 4 games straight to defeat the Yankees on their way to the club's first World Series title since 1918 .
1919 - Horse Racing - The derivation of the term "upset" comes from a horse of the same name. In the 1919 Sanford Memorial Stakes, 100-1 longshot Upset handed racing hegemon Man O' War the only loss of the stallion's career. Man O' War had suffered an uncharacterisric poor start - he was still circling behind the starting line when the race began.
2002 - George Thompson, a lexicographic researcher, used the full-text online search capabilities of the New York Times databases to disprove the classic 1919 horse race. The verb ''to upset'' and the noun ''upset'', were traced to the years 1865 and 1877, respectively.
in Underdog
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