Special Report: A Timeline of the Early History of Swimming

Stone Age (7,000 years ago) - First recordings of swimming in the form of paintings.


2000 BC - Earliest written references to swimming.


1538 - Nikolaus Wynmann writes the first book about swimming, The Swimmer, or A Dialogue of the Art of Swimming.


1800 - Competitive swimming begins in Europe, mostly using the breaststroke.


1862 - The first indoor swimming pool was built in England.


1873 - John Arthur Trudgen introduced "the trudgen," sometimes called the racing stroke, to Western swimming after copying the front crawl used by Native Americans. Trudgen used a scissor kick rather than a flutter kick because of the British disregard for splashing.


1875 - Matthew Webb is the first man to swim the English Channel.


1891 - First synchronized swimming event held in Berlin - a men's only event.


1896 - Swimming is a part of the first Olympics in Athens, and consists of only four, men's only events.


1900 - The second Olympics in Paris included three unusual swimming events. One used an obstacle course; another was a test of underwater swimming endurance; the third was a 4,000-metre event, the longest competitive swimming event ever. None of the three was ever used in the Olympics again.


1902 - Richard Cavill introduced the front crawl to the Western world.


1907 - Annette Kellerman of Australia visited the U.S. as an "Underwater Ballerina," diving into glass tanks. She was arrested for indecent exposure.


1908 - The world swimming association, Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA), was founded.


1912 - Women are allowed to swim in the Olympics in Stockholm.


1922 - Johnny Weissmuller became the first person to swim the 100 m in less than a minute. He started the golden age of swimming and was the world's most famous swimmer, winning five Olympic medals and 36 national championships and never losing a race in his ten-year career. He retired and then played the character of Tarzan in film.


1928 - Start of the scientific study of swimming at the University of Iowa.

1930's - The butterfly was developed as a variant of the breaststroke (it ain't the Tootsie Roll).

1943 - The U.S. ordered the reduction of fabric in swimsuits by 10% due to wartime shortages, resulting in the first two piece swimsuits.


1956 - The flip turn was introduced at the Olympic Games in Melbourne.