Basketball as a game appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. It (1) _____ by James Naismith, a college coach during the winter of 1891-1892. He wanted (2) _____ his students between the end of the football season and the beginning of the baseball season. He (3) _____ fruit baskets on the walls at the opposite ends of the gymnasium and organiized (4) _____ teams who played with a ball used for football. Each team tried to throw the ball into the other (5) _____ basket and at the same time (6) _____ to keep that team from throwing the ball into their basket. The students had a lot of exercise, they moved a lot about the gymnasium, jumped and ran. They liked the and called (7) _____ basketball. Nowadays the game itself is the same but there are (8) _____ changes in it. For example, now there (9) _____ five players in a team. This game is very popular in Europe, where it (10) _____ during the World War I. It is interesting that at first basketball was an indoor game, and in America it (11) _____ still indoors. But almost in all (12) _____ countries it is an outdoor game.
Sometimes regarded as the German J. K. Rowling, Cornelia Funke finished the University of Hamburg and after graduation studied book illustration at a design college. She began a career as a book illustrator and game designer, but lost interest in the work after a few years.
As a young girl, Funkehad been a lover of fantasy - the works of J.R.R.Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, and J.M.Barrie - and decide, at the age of 28, to write her own books. During the 1980s and esrly 1990s, she became a rather well-known author of children's books in her native Germany, but her success came in 1997 when "Dragonrider" and later "The Thief Lord", both huge successes in Germany, were met with international attention. In fact, as soon as "The Thief Lord" reached the United States, it hit the "New York Times" bestseller list and remained there for 25 weeks.
Christopher Paolini wrote a wonderful book for teens "Eragon", and his family self-published the book. In summer 2002, author Carl Hiaasen, (1) _____ , showed it to the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf contacted Christopher Paolini and his family, (2) _____. The answer was yes, (3) _____. In 2004, Christopher returned to writng his second book, "Eldest", (4) _____. "Eldest" was published in August 2005, and was followed by Christopher's book tour (5) _____. In December 2006, Fox 2000 released their movie adaption of "Eragon" (6) _____.