Today in History: Basketball


Today in History–January 16–the Library of Congress features basketball. The first unofficial college basketball game was played on this date in 1896 when the University of Chicago beat the University of Iowa by a score of 15-12. Learn more about this sport by visiting the Today in History section, then click the links below to access more basketball primary sources. Sports lovers will want to check out our many other sports primary source sets. Check out the Olympics sets too.

First College Basketball Game from America’s Library

Basketball books

Topics in Chronicling America – Basketball (1893-1915)

More basketball historical newspaper coverage

Trending: March Madness Library of Congress blog 

Women Hoopsters Picture This blog March 23, 2016

KU professor discovers only known audio recording of James Naismith, inventor of basketball Lawrence Journal-World December 15, 2015

Basketball images

Basketball films

Basketball radio interviews

Basketball legislation

More curated collections of sports resources