Pop History Moment: Naismith Invented Basketball

For some reason all of the other contributions Canadians have made to the world - insulin, the telephone, smugness - seem to pale next to basketball; I've never really understood why, but I think it may have to do with the fact that Americans especially took to the sport with such ferocity.

All of which leaves me wondering why some of Canada's more recent contributions to the world - same-sex marriage, liberal drug laws, did I mention smugness - have yet to be more enthusiastically embraced south of the border.

A n y w a y, it was on this day in 1891 that James Naismith oversaw the first game of basketball, which was played according to 13 basic rules laid out by him; the rest, as they say, is pop culture...
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