A human endurance contest is an event in which people complete mentally or physically grueling tasks for an extended period of time.
[citation needed] Almost any activity could be transformed into some type of endurance contest, as long as it was done for an extended period of time.
[2] Endurance contests gained popularity during the Great Depression in large part because of the hard financial times.
[3][page needed] In the early 1930s, the public began to grow weary of the endurance contests that had devolved into unimaginative, and sometimes bizarre annoyances.
In April of 1935, San Bernardino County passed an ordinance regulating endurance contests of all types, and placed onerous rules on the events.