"The first public game of basketball was played the same week and less than 100 miles away from the last American vampire hunt. 

On March 11, 1892, James Naismith debuted his new game in front of a crowd of 200 spectators at the Armory Hill YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, on March 17, 1892, in Exeter, Rhode Island, a crowd of concerned villagers dug up the grave of 19 year old Mercy Brown. She had died two months earlier and locals had become convinced that her vampire was feeding on her sickly brother. In an effort to stop the undead Mercy, the crowd exhumed her corpse, burned her heart and liver, and gave the ashes to her brother in a tonic."