FOOTBALL SHOES

I want to share about charateristic and type of some football shoes.For you who like play football and want to buy a football shoes,these are i recommend to you fellas.check this out!

1.Nike Mercurial

   The Mercurial is a football bootmanufactured by Nike. The boot is known for being lightweight. Because of this, the boot is favoured by many players for whom speed is a very important part of their game, notably wingers or strikers. The boot is now in its seventh version the Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly 3, currently available in two colourways: Red Plum/Volt, and Blue/Platinum/Orange.

The boot is available in either Soft Ground (SG) or Firm Ground (FG) versions. The SG version's sole plate is fitted with six NikeSnap removable studs, which can be purchased in different lengths, for the first and second models, and traditional screw-in aluminium studs for versions 3 to 7; the FG version has twelve moulded blades.

2.Nike Tiempo

   Nike Tiempo is a brand of football (or soccer in the US) boots and gear. It's sportswear established by Nike. It consists of football cleats, indoor shoes, shorts, warm up gear, and shinguards, but they're most known for the football cleats. This brand over time has become famous and its gear can be bought in stores and/or online.

3.Nike CTR 360

  The Nike CTR360 Maestri II football boot gives you that defence-splitting pass and that split-second advantage with its exceptional first touch on the ball.

4.Adidas F50

   The Adidas F50 range of football boots is Adidas's signature line of customisable, lightweight boots. First released in 2004, in the build-up toUEFA Euro 2004, the range was released as a successor of the X-Line range and as a direct competitor to Nike's Mercurial Vapor range, which had been released two years earlier. The name F50 (Football 50) is a reference to the year 1954 when the West German national teamwon the World Cup in revolutionary Adidas boots with exchangeable studs. Adidas decided to mark this occasion with another revolutionary boot exactly 50 years after the event in 2004.

5.Specs

   This  one is special made in Indonesia.The shoes is not to expensive but the quality almost same as nike or adidas.Many football player from Indonesia wear this shoes such as Yongki Kurniawan,Ferdinand Sinaga,and Christian 'El Loco' Gonzales.

Those are the recommended shoes for all of you who like to play soccer.I hope those shoes can sattisfied you.Thanks guys

THE ILLUMINATI

History

The movement was founded on May 1, 1776, in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria) as the Order of the Illuminati, with an initial membership of five,^[1] by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt (d. 1830),^[2] who was the first lay professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt.^[3] It was made up of freethinkers as an offshoot of the Enlightenment and seems to have been modeled on the Freemasons.^[4] The Illuminati's members took a vow of secrecy and pledged obedience to their superiors. Members were divided into three main classes, each with several degrees, and many Illuminati chapters drew membership from existing Masonic lodges.

Originally Weishaupt had planned the order to be named the "Perfectibilists".^[1] The group has also been called the Bavarian Illuminati and its ideology has been called "Illuminism". Many influential intellectuals and progressive politicians counted themselves as members, including Ferdinand of Brunswick and the diplomat Xavier von Zwack, the second-in-command of the order.^[5] The order had branches in most European countries: it reportedly had around 2,000 members over the span of ten years.^[3] It attracted literary men such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Gottfried Herderand the reigning dukes of Gotha and Weimar.

In 1777 Karl Theodor became ruler of Bavaria. He was a proponent of Enlightened Despotism and his government banned all secret societies including the Illuminati. Internal rupture and panic over succession preceded its downfall, which was affected by the Secular Edict made by the Bavarian government.^[3] The March 2, 1785 edict "seems to have been deathblow to the Illuminati in Bavaria." Weishaupt had fled and documents and internal correspondences, seized in 1786 and 1787, were subsequently published by the government in 1787.^[6] Von Zwack's home was searched to disclose much of the group's literature.^[5]

Another reorganisation took place in 1780 after the Lower Saxon noble Adolph Freiherr Knigge joined the Illuminati. In 1782 he gave a structure similar to the Freemason lodges to the order that had until that point, as Weishaupt himself conceded, not actually existed anywhere but in Weishaupt's head. Leadership of the order was given to a so-called Areopagus that consisted of Weishaupt, Knigge and others.^{[citation needed]}

This new organisation allowed the Illuminati to recruit numerous Freemasons and infiltrate entire lodges against the backdrop of a crisis that the higher grades of the German Freemasonry were going through after the collapse of the Order of Strict Observance in 1776.^{[citation needed]} This relatively apolitical and romanticising movement claimed succession from the Knights Templars and had enabled Karl Gotthelf von Hund to get the German lodges under his leadership. For years he had been claiming to be in contact with "Unknown Superiors" who had let him in on the deepest secret of Freemasonry. However, after no such "Secret Superiors" contacted the lodges after Hund's death in 1776, the lodge members were perplexed. At the great Freemasons' Convent of the Strict Observance, that was held in Wilhelmsbad from July 16 to September 1, 1782, Knigge and Franz Dietrich von Ditfurth, the second Illuminati representative and a most radical proponent of the Enlightenment, could claim the opinion leadership for their order. The templar system was given up and the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross, itself trying to succeed the Order of Strict Observance, remained in the minority. The two Illuminati even succeeded in winning over Johann Christoph Bode, one of the leading representatives of the Strict Observance.^{[citation needed]}

As a result, the disagreement between Weishaupt and Knigge intensified so much that it threatened to break the Order apart. Therefore an arbitral tribunal called a “Congress“ was convened in Weimar in February 1784. It came as a surprise for Knigge that the "Congress", in which among others Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder and Duke Ernst of Saxe-Gotha participated, judged that a completely new Areopagus should be created. Both heads of the Order were supposed to resign from their positions of power. This seemed to be an acceptable compromise. It meant an obvious defeat for Knigge, as the founder of the order would probably still have the same influence even without the formal chairmanship of the Aeropagus. Silence and the return of all papers was agreed upon and Knigge left the Illuminati on the first of July 1784. From this point on he turned away from the "fashionable foolishness" of trying to improve the world with secret societies. Weishaupt for his part handed over the leadership of the Order to Johann Martin Count of Stolberg-Roßla.^{[citation needed]}

While members of societies were quarrelling amongst themselves, secret societies had attracted the attention of the Bavarian authorities. They deemed the objectives of progressive-minded secret societies suspicious because they concentrated on changing the traditional order and on establishing a "rational state" by infiltrating public offices. On June 22, 1784, the Bavarian electoral Prince Charles Theodore consequently prohibited any "communities, societies and associations", which had been founded without his approval as a sovereign ruler. With the insistence of Father Frank, the chancellor Baron of Krettmayr, the Rosicrucian Baron of Törring and other people at court, another edict was released on March 2, 1785, which explicitely mentioned the names Illuminati and Freemason. It banned them for reason of treason and heresy. During house searches various documents of the order that showed further circumstantial evidence for their radical objectives were confiscated. Documents which were found with a deceased courier gave away information about names of several members. In two letters to the bishop of Freising, sent within the same year (June 18 and November 12), Pope Pius VI declared membership of the order to be incompatible with the Catholic faith.^{[citation needed]}

Organisation

The most valuable secret of the Illuminati was their own moral system of authority, which was already practiced inside the order, but was now supposed to be applied on the outside world. The deceit and patronizing of the lower-positioned members soon provoked disagreements within the order. This was caused by Weishaupt's aim to perfect the individual by encouraging it to practice more self-discipline and covert leadership. He assumed that for the improvement of the individual the first necessary step was to know its secrets. Probably, he adopted this concept from his arch-enemy, the Jesuits, which were known for their slavish obedience and their gentle but still effective leadership by means of confession. Actually, according to Illuminati-expert Agethen, the order stayed in a dialectic entanglement with its opponents: they used Jesuit methods of investigating the conscience in order to emancipate the individual from the intellectual and spiritual domination of the church; they also used a ranking system and mystical fuss, similar to the enthusiastic irrationality of the Rosicrucians, to further the success of Enlightenment and rationality. They subjected their members to an utterly totalitarian monitoring and psychological techniques in order to ultimately free mankind of the despotism of princes and kings.

Members

This temporary success cannot hide the fact that the Illuminati order mainly consisted of quite subordinate academics who maybe joined the order especially in the hope of more career opportunities. Indeed their hope correlated with Weishaupt’s concept of infiltration. Of course new members were ignorant about those intentions. The order hardly achieved its actual aim, namely to form the intellectual and political elite of society. Apart from the mentioned exceptions (Goethe, Herder, Knigge), all the really important representatives of the German "Spätaufklärung" either completely absented themselves from the order (as Schiller, Kant, Lessing, but also Lavater whom Knigge unsuccessfully tried to convince of joining for a long time) or shortly afterwards quit, just as Friedrich Nicolai did, out of disappointment about the rigid structures within the order. “Bookworm Weishaupt and his companions, utopists in a good and a ridiculous way” were never considered a real threat for the state of Bavaria but “the challenge for the old regimes was of course still too strong, even in this moderate form.”

Barruel and Robison

Between 1797 and 1798 Augustin Barruel's Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism and John Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy both publicized the theory that the Illuminati had survived and represented an ongoing international conspiracy, including the claim that it was behind the French Revolution. Both books proved to be very popular, spurring reprints and paraphrases by others^[7] (a prime example is Proofs of the Real Existence, and Dangerous Tendency, Of Illuminism by Reverend Seth Payson, published in 1802).^[8] Some response was critical, such as Jean-Joseph Mounier'sOn the Influence Attributed to Philosophers, Free-Masons, and to the Illuminati on the Revolution of France.^{[citation needed]}

Robison and Barruel's works made their way to the United States. Across New England, Reverend Jedidiah Morse and others sermonized against the Illuminati, their sermons were printed, and the matter followed in newspapers. The concern died down in the first decade of the 1800s, though had some revival during the Anti-Masonic movement of the 1820s and 30s.^[1]

Modern conspiracy theory

Main articles: Conspiracy theory and New World Order (conspiracy theory)

Writers such as Mark Dice,^[9] David Icke, Texe Marrs, Ryan Burke, Jüri Lina and Morgan Gricar have argued that the Bavarian Illuminati survived, possibly to this day. Many of these theories propose that world events are being controlled and manipulated by a secret society calling itself the Illuminati.^[10][11] Conspiracy theorists have claimed that many notable people were or are members of the Illuminati. Presidents of the United States are a common target for such claims.^[12][13]

A key figure in the conspiracy theory movement, Myron Fagan, devoted his latter years to finding evidence that a variety of historical events from Waterloo, The French Revolution, President John F. Kennedy's assassination and an alleged communist plot to hasten the New World Order by infiltrating the Hollywood film industry, were all orchestrated by the Illuminati.^[14][15]

Modern Illuminati

In addition to the supposed shadowy and secret organization, several modern fraternal groups claim to be the "heirs" of the Bavarian Illuminati and have openly used the name "Illuminati" in founding their own rites. Some, such as the multiple groups that call themselves by some variation on "The Illuminati Order",^[16][17] use the name directly in the name of their organization, while others, such as the Ordo Templi Orientis, use the name as a grade of initiation within their organization.

Popular culture

Main article: Illuminati in popular culture

The Illuminati in novels

The Illuminati are often illustrated in famous novels, for example in the “Illiminatus” trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, in Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco or in Angels and Demonsby Dan Brown. The authors mentioned above do not rely on serious sources which provide well proven historic information about the order, but rather on conspiracy theories which are in circulation about the order. This is why they are described as evil villains as well as mysterious and diabolic conspirators. However this speculative information about the Illuminati is often mistaken as the truth. Neither Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) nor Bernini (1598-1680) was a member of the Illuminati, which they are said to be in Brown's novel, and they also did not follow the thousand year old tradition of Celtic druids, assassins and Templers, who had the intention to find the "umbilicus telluris" (lat. hub of the world).

The assumption that the Illuminati had owned certain symbols which they used to prove their existence to insiders and clever symbologists, can be widely found in novels. The following symbols are supposed to belong to those used by the Illuminati.

• the all-seeing eye
• the all-seeing eye as pyramidion (Great Seal of the United States)
• the number 23
• ambigrams

None of these symbols are historically related to the Illuminati. It is also highly implausible that an internationally operating conspiracy, as which the Illuminati are often labeled, would leave their symbols everywhere. The Illuminati only used one symbol for their "Secret School of Wisdom", the owl of Minerva.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

ROMANTIC LITERATURE

In literature, Romanticism found recurrent themes in the evocation or criticism of the past, the cult of "sensibility" with its emphasis on women and children, the heroic isolation of the artist or narrator, and respect for a new, wilder, untrammeled and "pure" nature. Furthermore, several romantic authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, based their writings on the supernatural/occultand human psychology. Romanticism also helped in the emergence of new ideas and in the process led to the emergence of positive voices that were beneficial for the marginalized sections of the society.

The roots of romanticism in poetry go back to the time of Alexander Pope (1688–1744).^[25] Early pioneers include Joseph Warton (headmaster at Winchester College) and his brother Thomas Warton, professor of Poetry at Oxford University.^[25] Joseph maintained that invention and imagination were the chief qualities of a poet. The "poet's poet" Thomas Chatterton is generally considered to be the first Romantic poet in English.^[26] The Scottish poet James Macpherson influenced the early development of Romanticism with the international success of his Ossian cycle of poems published in 1762, inspiring both Goethe and the young Walter Scott.

Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), the first Romantic poet in the English language^[26]

An early German influence came from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whose 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther had young men throughout Europe emulating its protagonist, a young artist with a very sensitive and passionate temperament. At that time Germany was a multitude of small separate states, and Goethe's works would have a seminal influence in developing a unifying sense of nationalism. Another philosophic influence came from the German idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling, making Jena (where Fichte lived, as well as Schelling, Hegel, Schiller and the brothers Schlegel) a center for early German romanticism ("Jenaer Romantik"). Important writers were Ludwig Tieck, Novalis (Heinrich von Ofterdingen, 1799), Heinrich von Kleistand Friedrich Hölderlin. Heidelberg later became a center of German romanticism, where writers and poets such as Clemens Brentano, Achim von Arnim, andJoseph Freiherr von Eichendorff met regularly in literary circles.

Important motifs in German Romanticism are travelling, nature, and ancient myths. The later German Romanticism of, for example, E. T. A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann (The Sandman), 1817, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff's Das Marmorbild (The Marble Statue), 1819, was darker in its motifs and has gothicelements.

Early Russian Romanticism is associated with the writers Konstantin Batyushkov (A Vision on the Shores of the Lethe, 1809), Vasily Zhukovsky (The Bard, 1811; Svetlana, 1813) and Nikolay Karamzin (Poor Liza, 1792; Julia, 1796; Martha the Mayoress, 1802; The Sensitive and the Cold, 1803). However the principal exponent of Romanticism in Russia is Alexander Pushkin (The Prisoner of the Caucasus, 1820–1821; The Robber Brothers, 1822; Ruslan and Ludmila, 1820; Eugene Onegin, 1825–1832). Pushkin's work influenced many writers in the 19th century and led to his eventual recognition as Russia's greatest poet.^[27] Other Russian poets include Mikhail Lermontov (A Hero of Our Time, 1839),Fyodor Tyutchev (Silentium!, 1830), Yevgeny Baratynsky's (Eda, 1826), Anton Delvig, and Wilhelm Küchelbecker.

Influenced heavily by Lord Byron, the foremost British Romantic poet of the time period, Lermontov sought to explore the Romantic emphasis on metaphysical discontent with society and self, while Tyutchev's poems often described scenes of nature or passions of love. Tyutchev commonly operated with such categories as night and day, north and south, dream and reality, cosmos and chaos, and the still world of winter and spring teeming with life. Baratynsky's style was fairly classical in nature, dwelling on the models of the previous century.

Konstantin Batyushkov (1787-1855)-one of the notable poets of Russian Romantism

In Spain, the Romantic movement developed a well-known literature with a huge variety of poets and playwrights. The most important Spanish poet during this movement was José de Espronceda. After him there were other poets like Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Mariano José de Larra and the dramatist José Zorrilla, author ofDon Juan Tenorio. Before them may be mentioned the pre-romantics José Cadalso and Manuel José Quintana.

Spanish Romanticism also influenced regional literatures. For example, in Catalonia and in Galicia there was a national boom of writers in the local languages, like the Catalan Jacint Verdaguer and the Galician Rosalía de Castro, the main figures of the national revivalist movements Renaixença and Rexurdimento, respectively.

Brazilian Romanticism is characterized and divided in three different periods. The first one is basically focused in the creation of a sense of national identity, using the ideal of the heroic Indian. Some examples include José de Alencar, who wrote "Iracema" and "O Guarani", and Gonçalves Dias, renowned by the poem "Canção do Exílio" (Song of the Exile). The second period is marked by a profound influence of European themes and traditions, involving the melancholy, sadness and despair related to unobtainable love. Goethe and Lord Byron are commonly quoted in these works. The third cycle is marked by social poetry, especially the abolitionist movement; the greatest writer of this period is Castro Alves.

Romanticism in British literature developed in a different form slightly later, mostly associated with the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose co-authored book Lyrical Ballads (1798) sought to reject Augustan poetry in favour of more direct speech derived from folk traditions. Both poets were also involved inutopian social thought in the wake of the French Revolution. The poet and painter William Blake is the most extreme example of the Romantic sensibility in Britain, epitomised by his claim “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's.” Blake's artistic work is also strongly influenced by Medieval illuminated books. The painters J. M. W. Turner and John Constable are also generally associated with Romanticism. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, John Keats and John Clare constitute another phase of Romanticism in Britain.

In predominantly Roman Catholic countries Romanticism was less pronounced than in Germany and Britain, and tended to develop later, after the rise of Napoleon. François-René de Chateaubriand is often called the "Father of French Romanticism". In France, the movement is associated with the 19th century, particularly in the paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix, the plays, poems and novels of Victor Hugo (such as Les Misérables and Ninety-Three)(also, Victor Hugo, in the preface to "Cromwell" states that " there are no rules, or models" in Romanticism), and the novels of Alexandre Dumas and Stendhal.

Modern Portuguese poetry definitely develops its outstanding character from the work of its Romantic epitome, Almeida Garrett, a very prolific writer who helped shape the genre with the masterpieceFolhas Caídas (1853). This late arrival of a truly personal Romantic style would linger on to the beginning of the 20th century, notably through the works of poets such as Cesário Verde and António Nobre, segueing seamlessly to Modernism. However, an early Portuguese expression of Romanticism is found already in the genius of Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, especially in his sonnets dated at the end of the 18th century.

In the United States, romantic Gothic literature made an early appearance with Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) and Rip Van Winkle (1819), followed from 1823 onwards by theLeatherstocking Tales of James Fenimore Cooper, with their emphasis on heroic simplicity and their fervent landscape descriptions of an already-exotic mythicized frontier peopled by "noble savages", similar to the philosophical theory of Rousseau, exemplified by Uncas, from The Last of the Mohicans. There are picturesque "local color" elements in Washington Irving's essays and especially his travel books. Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the macabre and his balladic poetry were more influential in France than at home, but the romantic American novel developed fully in Nathaniel Hawthorne's atmosphere and melodrama. Later Transcendentalist writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson still show elements of its influence and imagination, as does the romantic realism of Walt Whitman. The poetry of Emily Dickinson—nearly unread in her own time—and Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick can be taken as epitomes of American Romantic literature. By the 1880s, however, psychological and social realism was competing with romanticism in the novel.

]

Influence of European Romanticism on American writers

The European Romantic movement reached America in the early 19th century. American Romanticism was just as multifaceted and individualistic as it was in Europe. Like the Europeans, the American Romantics demonstrated a high level of moral enthusiasm, commitment to individualism and the unfolding of the self, an emphasis on intuitive perception, and the assumption that the natural world was inherently good, while human society was filled with corruption.^[28]

Romanticism became popular in American politics, philosophy and art. The movement appealed to the revolutionary spirit of America as well as to those longing to break free of the strict religious traditions of early settlement. The Romantics rejected rationalism and religious intellect. It appealed to those in opposition of Calvinism, which includes the belief that the destiny of each individual is preordained. The Romantic movement gave rise to New England Transcendentalism which portrayed a less restrictive relationship between God and Universe. The new religion presented the individual with a more personal relationship with God. Transcendentalism and Romanticism appealed to Americans in a similar fashion, for both privileged feeling over reason, individual freedom of expression over the restraints of tradition and custom. It often involved a rapturous response to nature. It encouraged the rejection of harsh, rigid Calvinism, and promised a new blossoming of American culture.^[28][29]

American Romanticism embraced the individual and rebelled against the confinement of neoclassicism and religious tradition. The Romantic movement in America created a new literary genre that continues to influence American writers. Novels, short stories, and poems replaced the sermons and manifestos of yore. Romantic literature was personal, intense, and portrayed more emotion than ever seen in neoclassical literature. America's preoccupation with freedom became a great source of motivation for Romantic writers as many were delighted in free expression and emotion without so much fear of ridicule and controversy. They also put more effort into the psychological development of their characters, and the main characters typically displayed extremes of sensitivity and excitement.^[30]

[edit]

Influence of war on Romantic writings

The Romantic Era is a time in history that was surrounded by war. The Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the French and Indian War (1754–1763), and the American Revolution (1775–1783)—which directly preceded the French Revolution (1789–1799)—are all examples.

These wars, along with the political and social turmoil that went along with them, served as the background for Romanticism. The strong feelings that wartime produces served as a catalyst for an outpouring of art and literature, the likes of which had never been seen before. The writing was so different in fact, that it sparked its own new "era": The Romantic Era^[31]

The works of the Romantic Era are a vast and unique collection of literary works. However, they can all be said to have at least these characteristics: A love of nature, a sense of nationalism, and a sense of exoticism/the supernatural. These simple characteristics can be linked back to the fact that these works were being written in time of political turmoil. For example, the nationalism seen in Romantic works may be attributed to the fact that the authors of the time took pride in their country, their people, and their “cause”. It was the writers’ way of contributing to the fight.^[31]

The works of the Romantic Era also differed from preceding works in that they spoke to the “common” people. Romantics strove towards literature and arts that were for everyone, not just wealthy aristocracy. Much of the writing predating the Romantic Era was written for, and in the style of, only the wealthy upper classes. Romantics had a hand in changing this around—and it may have been because they were trying to connect with the commoners. In a time of war and political uneasiness, the writers were reaching out for a connection with their equals, not to those above them, the ones fueling the wars.^[31]

During the Romantic period there was an increase in female authors as well. This can be attributed to the fact that this period was submerged in wartime. The women were at home, without a way to express their feelings, fight for the cause, or even connect to those around them. The writings of female Romantic writers, such as Mary Favret, are infused with feeling, and sometime even reference the war itself, e.g. Favret's War in the Air.^[31]

source: wikipedia

NBA

National Basketball Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada. It is an active member of USA Basketball(USAB),^[1] which is recognized by the International Basketball Federation as the National Governing Body (NGB) for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major North American professional sports leagues.

The league was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946 as the Basketball Association of America (BAA).^[2] The league adopted the name National Basketball Association in 1949 after merging with the rival National Basketball League (NBL). The league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York City. NBA Entertainmentand NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in Secaucus, New Jersey.

The Basketball Association of America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada. On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, which the NBA now regards as the first game played in the league's history.^[3] Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play primarily in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not significantly better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, and the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title.

On August 3, 1949, the BAA agreed to merge with the NBL, creating the new National Basketball Association.^[4] The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities,^[4] as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises, all of which are still in the league (the Knicks, Celtics, Warriors, Lakers, Royals/Kings, Pistons, Hawks, and Nationals/76ers). The process of contraction saw the league's smaller-city franchises move to larger cities. The Hawks shifted from "Tri-Cities" (the area now known as the Quad Cities) to Milwaukee (in 1951) and then to St. Louis (in 1955); the Royalsfrom Rochester to Cincinnati (in 1957); and the Pistons from Fort Wayne to Detroit (in 1957).

Although Japanese-American Wataru Misaka technically broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he played for the New York Knicks, 1950 is recognized as the year the NBA integrated. This year witnessed the addition of African American players by several teams, including Chuck Cooper with the Boston Celtics, Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton with the New York Knicks, and Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by center George Mikan, won five NBA Championships and established themselves as the league's first dynasty.^[5]To encourage shooting and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954.^[6] If a team does not attempt to score a field goal (or the ball fails to make contact with the rim) within 24 seconds of obtaining the ball, play is stopped and the ball given to its opponent.

The current league organization divides thirty teams into two conferences of three divisions with five teams each. The current divisional alignment was introduced in the 2004–05 season.

source : wikipedia