Magellan reaches the Pacific, William Shakespeare gets hitched, the Grand Ole Opry debuts, Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci defects, and Jeffrey Dahmer is killed in prison, all on this day.
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Public domain
1939: James Naismith, the Canadian-American sports coach who invented the game of basketball in 1891, dies at the age of 78 in Lawrence, Kan., nine days after suffering a major brain hemorrhage.