History


Swimming has been around since prehistoric times. There have been drawings in caves from the Stone Age in Egypt. It's so amazing that this sport is still around after all of it's changes it's been through.
	At first, the Greeks practiced swimming, but they didn't include it in the Olympic Games. Swimming was a noble skill of the Samurai in Japan, and in Germany it was used in wars against the Romans.
There's also been many books written about swimming. The first book was written in 1538 by Nicholas Wynman. Around that time, a second book was written by E. Digby. In 1696, Thevenot wrote another book. Lastly, in 1794, Kanonikus Oronzio de Bernardi wrote a two volume book about swimming.
	There were a lot of things accomplished in the history of swimming. The first thing that was accomplished was that in 1603, the first national swimming organization was formed. Secondly, in 1862, the first indoor swimming pool was built. Then, in 1908, the world swimming association Federation Internationale de Natation was formed. In 1913, the first elastic swimsuit was made. These are just some of the changes that were made in the swimming world.
Besides some of the building and creating accomplishments, there are some swimming accomplishments. For example, the first gold medal was won by Alfred Hajos, who was from Hungary. Also, the longest swim race ever was won by John Arthur Jarvis, who swam the 4000m freestyle. In 1922, John Weissmuller was the first to swim the 100m freestyle in less than a minute. He also started the golden age of swimming, and was the world's most famous swimmer. Also, Sybil Bauer was the first woman to break a men's record, and later Kristin Otto had won 6 gold medals, which is the most a woman had ever won. Two people who swam huge bodies of water, were Captin Matthew Webb, who was the first to swim the English Channel, and Benoît, who swam the Atlantic Ocean in 72 days.

	Lastly, there are the Olympics in history. There's been a ton of Olympic Games. The first Olympic Games where swimming was included was in 1896 in Athens. The second Olympic Games was in Paris in 1900. After Paris, the Olympics were held in St. Louis in 1904. After that, the Olympic Games were held in Stockholm in 1912. For the first time in this Olympic Game event, women were allowed to swim. Then, after that, there were more Olympic Games that many participated in, up until this present day.