Basketball was invented in 1891 to keep a gym class busy during a New England winter

sportsWikipedia1891 · Springfield, Massachusetts, USA

Basketball was invented in 1891 to keep a gym class busy during a New England winter

the gist

In December 1891, James Naismith, a physical education instructor at a YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts, needed an indoor game to keep students fit during long winters. He rejected rough or unsuitable ideas and built a game around passing a ball and shooting it into a basket on a wall. The first baskets were peach baskets with the bottoms left in, so the ball had to be retrieved by hand until someone removed them. The first official game in Albany, New York, in January 1892 ended 1–0. Women's basketball developed quickly through Senda Berenson at Smith College, and backboards and metal hoops came in later.

so what

Basketball was a practical solution to an indoor fitness problem, and its early rules, peach baskets and soccer balls show how much the modern game was shaped by improvisation. Its speedy spread through schools helped it become one of the world's major sports.

fun fact

The first basketball games were played with soccer balls, which had laces that made passes unpredictable.

Hampi was once one of the world's largest cities, until its Vijayanagara capital was destroyed in 1565

the gist

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.

how it works

The city was built around a fortified core with temples, markets and water structures along the river, supplied by an extensive network of roads and waterworks. When the empire fell, the city was not rebuilt, so its stone monuments were left standing.

so what

Hampi shows how quickly a great city can vanish after a military defeat, and how a ruined capital can remain sacred. Its ruins give historians a view of medieval South Asia that few other sites can match.

fun fact

The name Hampi comes from Pampa, an old name for the Tungabhadra River.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

2 min

politicsshortCNA2:01

False allegations about Singapore’s hand in Indonesia’s markets and a made-up meeting

from CNA

CNA Verify has found close to 400 posts pushing falsehoods tying Singapore to Indonesia’s stock market rout and to a secret meeting that never took place. Together, they drew nearly 12 million views, and some were circulated by accounts that appeared to be working in concert, across multiple social media platforms.

Here’s how the disinformation campaign targeting Singapore was uncovered.

on YouTube: CNA ↗