This Day In History — First game of basketball is played

December 21

1620
The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1891
The first basketball game, invented at Springfield College in Massachusetts by James E. Naismith, was played.

1898
Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium.

1913
The first crossword puzzle was printed in the New York World.

1937
Disney’s Snow White, the first feature-length color and sound cartoon, premiered.

1970
Elvis Presley met with president Richard Nixon in the White House.

1988
A terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pan Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.

1991
Eleven of the former Soviet republics form the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1995
Palestinians took over the control of the city of Bethlehem.

Birthdays

Joseph Stalin
1879–1953, Soviet Communist Leader.

Benjamin Disraeli

statesman (1804)

Henrietta Szold

Zionist leader (1860)

Dame Rebecca West

novelist and critic (1892)

Josh Gibson

baseball player (1911)

Jane Fonda

actress (1937)

Frank Zappa

rock musician , composer, and pianist (1940)

Michael Tilson Thomas

conductor, composer, and pianist (1944)

Samuel L. Jackson

actor (1948)

Chris Evert

tennis player (1954)

Ray Romano

comedian, actor (1957)

Florence Griffith-Joyner

sprinter (1959)

Kiefer Sutherland

actor (1966)

Julie Delpy

actor (1969)

Jackie Stiles

basketball player (1978)

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