History Of Bowling

            Bowling can date its origins to over 5,000 years ago, in Egypt, around the year 3200 BC. British anthropologist Sir Flinders Petrie found a collection of objects in a child's grave that could have been used for a crude form of bowling. The first written mention of bowling was in the year 1366 when King Edward III of England outlawed the game for his troops in order to keep them focused.
             Throughout the world, in the early times of bowling, there were many different forms. There is an Italian version called bocce, the "flop" method from Edinburgh, and nine-pins in England. At first, bowling was strictly an outdoor sport, but in 1455, in London, England, the first indoor game was played.
             The first mention of American bowling came from Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, when he awakens to the sound of "crashing nine-pins." When bowling was brought to America by the first Dutch settlers, it underwent changes as it became popular. In America, a tenth pin was added when, in 1841, a Connecticut law made it illegal to maintain "any nine-pin lanes" because bowling was the object of much gambling.
             Different rules and regulations varied from region to region with bowling. That all changed when Joe Thum brought together the bowling representatives from the different regions to form the American Bowling Congress in 1895. After this meeting at Beethoven Hall, in New York, standardized rules would be established and national competitions would begin to be held. .
             About this same time, bowling took another step. In 1905, the first rubber ball was introduced. It was called the "Evertrue." Again, in 1914, the bowling ball became more advanced when Brunswick Corporation introduced the Mineralite ball.
             In 1951, bowling had a major break through which brought it into the modern era. Morehead Patterson of American Machine and Foundry Company purchased the patents to an automatic pinspotter. The first installation took place in Michigan and by 1952 it was standard equipment.