The History Of Bowling : One Of The Worlds First Sports
The act of trying to knock over a series of pins by rolling a round object towards them would possibly not be new, but this great activity is as challenging and engaging today as it ever was in the past. Archaeologists have found proof of bowling-type games from so long as 5,000 years back. This makes bowling one of the oldest sports on record, dating all the way back to the civilization of the ancient Egyptians.
Each time you pull on your rental shoes and head for your fave lane to try to hit a few strikes, you are participating in a ritual that has amused and challenged humans since the year 3200 BC. Though bowling’s unique pedigree hardly sounds like a recipe for one of modern America’s favourite family hobbies, the truth remains the game is approximately 90 percent derived from ancient Egypt and 10 percent derived from nineteenth century law dodgers. Add a dash of turn of the century technology, and you have the modern game of bowling.
From what historians have been able to piece together, the basic game of bowling didn’t change really much between its inception at the morning of human culture and the middle of the nineteenth century. At that time, the ancient game of ninepin bowling had caught on all over Europe and had made its way to the united states, where it definitely was a very popular sport in the underworld community and turned into a favourite target for gamblers. This led the govt. of the state of Connecticut passing an 1841 law that restricted owning a ninepin bowling alley in a plan to fragment the gambling community by making it difficult for them to meet in the bowling alleys where they often gathered.
To get around this law, the gamblers in the area simply changed the rules of the game. They added an extra pin to the bowling set up, thereby making their alleys into tenpin bowling alleys, which were still technically legal to own and operate simply because they hadn’t existed when Connecticut banned the game of ninepins. The game of tenpins proved to be more fun than its predecessor, and ten is the amount of pins that we still play with today.
Once 10 pins became the standard for the game, the only aspect of bowling that remained traditional by today’s point of view was the ball. The first modern bowling ball wasn’t introduced until 1905. Before that time, most bowling balls were made from a wood called’lignum vitae,’ which was cherished both for its light weight and its sturdiness. However, wooden bowling balls didn’t have as much spring or bounce as the materials that we use today.
The first rubber bowling ball hit the market in 1905, and it got so immediately popular that by 1914 a new rubberized plastic compound was created particularly for use in bowling balls. This compound was known as Mineralite, and its use transformed the game, enabling quicker rolling speeds and bigger precision. This made whole new styles of bowling techniques, lots of which are still in use both by today’s top bowlers and by today’s young children who are just starting out in the lanes.
