Honors Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, who was born on this date in 1861 in Almonte, Ontario, Canada. In December 1891, Naismith was teaching at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, when he was challenged by his supervisor to create an indoor winter sport to keep students active during the harsh winter months. He invented basketball by attaching fruit baskets to ten-foot-high balconies and having students in two teams of nine players throw a soccer ball into them. The rest is history.
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