Bowling

Five main variations are found in North America, with tenpin being the most common but others being practiced in the eastern U.S. and in parts of Canada:[3] Target bowling is usually played outdoors on a specially prepared lawn or natural terrain, including bare earth or sand.

Remnants of bowling balls were found among artifacts in ancient Egypt going back to the Egyptian protodynastic period in 3200 BC.

Other balls made of porcelain have also been found, indicating that these were rolled along the ground rather than thrown due to their size and weight.

[8] Around AD 400, bowling began in Germany as a religious ritual to cleanse oneself from sin by rolling a rock into a club (kegel) representing the heathen, resulting in bowlers being called keglers.

[9] In 1366, the first official mention of bowling in England was made, when King Edward III banned it as a distraction to archery practice.

[11] In the 15th–17th centuries, lawn bowling spread from Germany into Austria, Switzerland, and the Low Countries, with playing surfaces made of cinders or baked clay.

In 1530, he acquired Whitehall Palace in central London as his new residence, having it extensively rebuilt complete with outdoor bowling lanes, indoor tennis court, jousting tiltyard, and cockfighting pit.

[9] On 29 July 1588, English Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Drake allegedly was playing bowls at Plymouth Hoe when the arrival of the Spanish Armada was announced; he replied, "We have time enough to finish the game and beat the Spaniards too.

A circa 1810 painting of Ipswich, England shows a man bowling with a triangular formation of ten pins, before that variant of the sport is believed to have appeared in the United States.

[21] In 1819, New York writer Washington Irving made the first mention of ninepin bowling in American literature in his story "Rip Van Winkle".

[14][26] In 1846, the oldest surviving bowling lanes in the United States were built as part of Roseland Cottage, the summer estate of Henry Chandler Bowen (1831–1896) in Woodstock, Connecticut.

The lanes, now part of Historic New England's Roseland Cottage House Museum contain Gothic Revival architectural elements in keeping with the style of the entire estate.

[30] In 1927 Mrs. Floretta "Doty" McCutcheon (1888–1967) defeated Smith in an exhibition match, founding a school that taught 500,000 women how to bowl.

In 1908, the now-oldest surviving bowling alley for the tenpin sport was opened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the basement of the Holler House tavern, containing the oldest sanctioned lanes in the United States.

[40] In 1926, the International Bowling Association (IBA) was formed by the United States, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, and Finland, holding four world championships by 1936.

[42] About 1950, the Golden Age of Tenpin Bowling began, in which professional bowlers made salaries rivaling those of baseball, football, and hockey players; this ended in the late 1970s.

In 1952, the Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ) was founded in Hamburg, West Germany, to coordinate international amateur competition in nine-pin and tenpin bowling.

In 1958, the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) was founded in Akron, Ohio by 33 prominent bowlers (including Don Carter, Dick Weber, Dick Hoover, Buzz Fazio, Billy Welu, Carmen Salvino and Glenn Allison) after they listened to a presentation by sports agent Eddie Elias.

It attracted name players such as Billy Welu and Buzz Fazio, but failed to sign top star Don Carter.

[52] On 28 June 1963, The first British made tenpin was by H Massil and sons who received the permit no.1 from the British Tenpin Bowling Association (BTBA)[53] Between 3 and 10 November 1963, the Fifth FIQ World Bowling Championships in Mexico City, Mexico, were attended by 132 men and 45 women (first time) from 19 nations.

[54] On 25 November 1963, Sports Illustrated published the article "A Guy Named Smith Is Striking It Rich", revealing that PBA stars made more money than other professional sports stars, for "with more than $1 million in prizes to shoot for, the nation's top professional bowlers are rolling in money.

Bowling" Don Carter became the first athlete to sign a $1 million endorsement contract: a multi-year deal with Ebonite International.

In 1964, Marion Ladewig, a nine-time winner of the Bowling Writers Association of America's Female Bowler of the Year Award, became the first Superior Performance inductee into the WIBC Hall of Fame.

In 1978, National Negro Bowling Association pioneer J. Elmer Reed (1903–1983) became the first African-American to be inducted into the ABC Hall of Fame.

[58] On 27 February 1982, Earl Anthony won the Toledo Trust PBA National Championship, becoming the first bowler to reach $1 million in career earnings.

On 1 July 1982, former PBA pro Glenn Allison rolled the first 900 series (three consecutive 300 games in a three-game set) to ever be submitted to the ABC for award consideration.

[60] On 22 November 1986, George Branham III (born 1962) became the first African-American to win a PBA national touring event: the Brunswick Memorial World Open in Chicago, Illinois.

On 2 August 1991, in Havana, Cuba, tenpin bowling became an international medal-level sport for the first time at the 1991 Pan American Games, and continues to this day.

On 2 February 1997, Jeremy Sonnenfeld (born 1975) bowled the first officially sanctioned 900 series of three straight perfect 300 games at Sun Valley Lanes in Lincoln, Nebraska, becoming known as "Mr.

Bowling pins are constructed by gluing blocks of rock maple wood into the approximate shape, and then turning on a lathe.