TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, DEC. 21,

the 356th day of 2016. There are 10 days left in the year. Winter arrives at 5:44 a.m. Eastern time.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On this date in 1891, the first basketball game is believed to have been played at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass.; devised by James Naismith, “Basket Ball” involved the use of a soccer ball and two peach baskets, with nine players on each team. (The final score of this experimental game: 1-0.)

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

In 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.

In 1879, the Henrik Ibsen play “A Doll’s House” premiered at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen.

In 1937, Walt Disney’s first animated feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” had its world premiere in Los Angeles.

In 1940, author F. Scott Fitzgerald died in Hollywood, Calif., at age 44.

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

In 1958, Charles de Gaulle was elected to a seven-year term as the first president of the Fifth Republic of France.

In 1968, Apollo 8 was launched on a mission to orbit the moon.

In 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.

In 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.

In 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.