History of Bowling

Although we have a propensity to think of bowling as a reasonably modern sport, the fact is, the history of bowling is rather varied and it appears to have developed independently in places all around the globe.

The people playing did not speak our modern language or wear our clothes, but when it came to the use of a ball being rolled to tip over upright pins, that is something that they would definitely have recognized.

Among the first places that bowling can be traced to is ancient Egypt. A very crude version of a bowling ball and pins all sized for a child, were found with some artifacts that could be deliberately dated back to 3200 BC, something which makes them over 5000 years old.

This isn't the only suggestion that bowling is quite ancient though. Other people claimed that the pins and ball constituted a different game all in all and said that the game started in Germany a mere 2000 thousand years ago.

One of the first mentions of bowling that we see involves an English king outlawing it due to the fact that his military personnel were playing it and disregarding their archery practice.

This puts it in England during the 1300s, but we can tell due to its portrayals in art and literature that it was popular and legal again just a short time afterwards. There were variations on this same basic theme, and the from country to country, the size of the balls and the number of pins would vary.

When the first European settlers came to America, they brought bowling with them. The very first reference of bowling in America is associated iwith the famous Washington Carver story, Rip Van Winkle, which was published in 1812. In this story, the main character meets oddly dressed men who are enjoying a game of ninepins.

This differs from our own modern game, which utilizes ten pins, and the story of the addition of the tenth bowling pin is a fascinating one. The game of bowling endured something of a suspicious reputation due to the fact that it was very popular with outlaws and gamblers and laws were passed in many places which prohibited the owning of bowling establishments.

To get around this many establishments simply added another bowling pin to the set and claimed they were playing a different game altogether! The rules of the game that we play today were standardized in 1895, and that was also when national competitions started to be formed.

In 1914, the first Mineralite bowling ball was produced and in 1952, pin setting machines came into play. Bowling saw a huge surge in popularity when it was televised in the 1950s, and as we can see, that popularity carries on to this day!