The first inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame are announced.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame includes players, coaches, and contributors (e.g., owners, general managers and team or league officials) who have "made outstanding contributions to professional football". The charter class of seventeen was selected in 1963.Enshrinees are selected by a 48-person selection committee which meets each year at the time and location of the Super Bowl. Current rules of the committee stipulate that between four and eight individuals are selected each year. Any person may nominate an individual to the hall, provided the nominee has been retired for at least five years. Not including the charter class, 76 players have been inducted in their first year of eligibility.In addition to the regular selection committee, which primarily focuses on contributions made over the past approximately thirty seasons, a nine-member seniors committee (which is a subset of the larger committee) submits two nominees each year whose contributions came prior to 1985. These nominees are referred as "seniors nominees" (formerly "old-timer" nominees).In 2020, a special Blue-Ribbon Panel selected an additional 15 new members, known as the "Centennial Slate", to be inducted into the Hall of Fame to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Football League (NFL).