The winter of 1891, in Springfield, Massachusetts, the YMCA had a problem. It was too cold for football or baseball, and the athletes were bored with the same indoor games. Dr. James Naismith, a gym instructor, invented the game of basketball.
He borrowed the idea of having goals at the end of the playing area from football, but his goals had to be smaller. He decided to use a large, round ball that could be shot into the goals.
	Naismith made a list of thirteen rules. For the first, he used a soccer ball, and for the basket he used some empty peach baskets that he hung, high on the walls, at each end of the gym. That's how the game came to be known as basketball.
Naismiths' students loved the game, even though there were some problems at first. Naismith left the bottoms in the baskets, so every time a player made a goal, someone had to climb the ladder to get the ball.
	Basketball became a big hit in Springfield. YMCA's all across the the country adopted the game. Basketball soon spread to other countries. By 1913, the rules were printed in thirty different languages.
Basketball has been an Olympic event for men since 1936 and for women since 1972. Basketball became a nationally recognized sport in 1949 when the NBA was formed.
	As the game got popular, some of the old rules were taken out and new one's were added. The three-point play was introduced for both professionals and amateurs and the shot clock was put in at professional and collegiate levels to speed up the game and to provide more scoring.
Today basketball is one of the most popular and entertaining sports in the world, especially in the United States.
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