History of sports

• Most sports of today only developed in their current form in the 19th and 20th century, though many take their origins from more primitive sports and pastimes of ancient times
• First sport ever played

  Wrestling and boxing were likely the first sports ever played
• Early sports


  • Competitions using running
  • Hitting, kicking, throwing a ball-like object
  • Sports related to hunting and throwing
  • Competitions from early transportation like horse riding and canoeing
  • Military activities like archery
• First recorded ancient Olympic Games, with only a footrace event


  776 BC
• The only sport mentioned in the Bible is said to be wrestling
• Soccer (Association football)


  Originated in China, with a game called "Tsu Chu" played in the 2nd-3rd century BC (Han Dynasty)
• Egyptian sports


  • Swimming, boxing, wrestling, archery, a game involving knocking opponents off a boat
• Ancient Greek Olympic Games

  • Held in Olympia, athletes competed in boxing, wrestling, running, horse racing, chariot racing, pentathlon
• Women were not allowed to participate in the Ancient Greek Olympic Games, but had their own Heraean games dedicated to the goddess Hera
• Roman gladiators


  • Men (or sometimes women) who fought, sometimes to the death, to provide entertainment
• Gladiator


  A man who fights with a gladius (short sword)
• Munus


  A duty owed to the dead, referring to a gladiatorial fight
• Some people volunteered to be gladiators, and were given a large sum of money if they survived
• Roman chariot racing


  • Four teams (greens, blues, reds, whites), charioteers treated as heroes but it was a dangerous sport
• Sports in the Middle Ages

  • For the poor: wrestling, running races, playing dice

  For the upper class: hunting, hawking, tournaments/jousting, archery competitions

  Peasants: rough football, ice skating, cockfighting, bear baiting
• Golf


  Believed to be a corruption of the Dutch word 'kolve' meaning club, developed in Scotland in the 15th century
• The first recorded bowling green was laid out in Southampton in the 13th century
• Sports in the 16th-17th centuries

  • For the rich: tournaments, hunting, hawking, wrestling, 'casting the bar', billiards

  For the ordinary people: rough football, cockfighting, bear baiting, swimming using bulrushes as floats

  New sports: tennis, shuttlecock, pale-maille, yachting
• Sports in the 18th century

  • Horse racing became professional, cricket took modern form, fox hunting, bare knuckle boxing
• Bull baiting and cockfighting were banned in the early 19th century as many people disapproved of these cruel 'sports'
• Development of modern sports in the 19th century

  Football rules devised by London Football Association in 1863

  First international football match between England and Scotland in 1872

  Queensberry Rules for boxing devised in 1867

  Tug of war rules devised in 1879

  Amateur Athletics Association founded in 1880
• New sports invented in the 19th century

  • Lawn tennis (1873), softball (1887), basketball (1891), volleyball (1895), netball (1895), baseball (organized in 1845), American football (late 19th century)
• Sports in the 19th century

  • Ice skating, croquet, badminton, bicycling, polo
• First World Weightlifting Championships held

  1891
• Ancient Greek Olympic Games revived


  1896
• First Olympic Winter Games held


  1924
• First Tour de France held

  1903
• Roger Bannister became the first man to run a sub-4-minute mile


  1954