Basketball. Image: wikimedia commons.

December is the birthday month of one of America’s most popular sports. Stormy New England winters confined college athletes in Springfield, Massachusetts, indoors. Using two peach baskets affixed to the railing of a balcony, Dr. James Naismith invented, and named, the game of basketball to keep athletes in shape throughout the winter of 1891. The game of hoops proved to be a rapid success. The first international match was played in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1909 (the American team lost); by 1936, basketball entered the Olympics (the American team won).

For more: www.hoophall.com.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.