TODAY IN HISTORY

1620: Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass.

1864: During the Civil War, Union forces led by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman concluded their “March to the Sea” as they captured Savannah, Ga.

1891: The first basketball game, devised by James Naismith, is believed to have been played at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass. (The final score of this experimental game: 1-0.)

1913: The first newspaper crossword puzzle, billed as a “Word-Cross Puzzle,” was published in the New York World.

1914: The U.S. government began requiring passport applicants to provide photographs of themselves.

1945: U.S. Army Gen. George S. Patton, 60, died in Heidelberg, Germany, 12 days after being seriously injured in a car accident.

1976: The Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant broke apart near Nantucket Island off Massachusetts almost a week after running aground, spilling 7.5 million gallons of oil into the North Atlantic.

1988: 270 people were killed when a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pam Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, sending wreckage crashing to the ground.

1991: Eleven of the 12 former Soviet republics proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the death of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

1995: The city of Bethlehem passed from Israeli to Palestinian control.

2009: The Obama administration imposed a three-hour limit on how long airlines can keep passengers waiting inside planes delayed on the ground.

2012: The National Rifle Association said guns and police officers were needed in all American schools to stop the next killer “waiting in the wings,” taking a no-retreat stance in the face of growing calls for gun control after the Newtown, Conn., shootings that claimed the lives of 26 children and school staff. President Barack Obama nominated Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of state.