Today is Saturday, Dec. 21, the 356th day of 2024. There are 10 days left in the year.

On Dec. 21, 1988, 270 people were killed when a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pan Am Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, sending wreckage crashing to the ground.

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

In 1891, the first basketball game, devised by James Naismith, is believed to have been played at the International YMCA Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts.

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

In 1976, the oil tanker Argo Merchant broke apart near Nantucket Island off Massachusetts almost a week after running aground, spilling 7.7 million gallons of oil into the North Atlantic.

In 1991, eleven of the 12 former Soviet republics formally proclaimed the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

In 2020, President-elect Joe Biden received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations were safe.