Naismith Invents Basketball
December 1891. Two peach baskets and 13 rules
In the winter of 1891, James Naismith, a Canadian teacher at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, was given a tough job. His class of restless young men needed a game they could play indoors during the long New England winter, and nothing they tried was working.
Naismith nailed two peach baskets to the balcony of the gym, about 10 feet (3.05 m) above the floor, and wrote 13 rules. His class of 18 students played the first game nine against nine with a soccer ball. Only one basket was scored.
The rules were printed in January 1892 and spread fast through the YMCA network, then to schools, colleges and other countries. Within a few years the game was being played on several continents.
What changed
Naismith banned running with the ball, so the only ways to move it were passing and, later, dribbling. That one rule is why basketball is built on spacing, passing and movement instead of tackling.