Swimming is one of the oldest sports. A lot of notices that were inherited from ancient civilizations prove centuries-old swimming history. Some pieces of art come from ancient Egypt show some swimming events. These archeological findings are dated around 2000 B.C. The same information about swimming is kept in stone carvings made by ancient Assyrians. And these cases are not only examples. Even the most ancient of all books ? the Bible contains information about swimming competitions.
The earliest written book on swimming art was published in 1538 in Germany by linguistic professor. It was devoted to breaststroke history and its development. In 1696 Frenchman Thevenot's book became reference for standard swimming. According to his issue breaststroke was the most popular swimming stroke for centuries. Today it is considered that England was the country that gave birth to swimming as a sport.
The first swimming competition of the modern time was held in London, 1837. It turned out to be a predecessor of world swimming championships. At the moment there even existed some indoor swimming pools that developed swimming as a sport significantly. The end of the century developed new stroke called sidestroke. In 1844 the history of world swimming championships got a start during the meeting of English and American sportsmen. Americans showed new style ? very similar with future crawl. Their method had a success and brought them a victory although conservative Englishmen kept tradition of breaststroke preference.
But world swimming championships for human and human were not the only variant of swimming competitions. From the immemorial time it is common for human to compete with nature. This tendency found embodiment in crossing the English Channel.
At the moment swimming started great development as a result a lot of new strokes were invented by the sportsmen: overarm sidestroke, hand-over-hand stroke (trudgen), etc that found later their steady place in world swimming championships. But real effective improvement of swimming technique was gained in the 20th century when new technological possibilities gave a chance to film swimming process and investigate it in details.
Swimming championships review tells also about world swimming championships for disabled people. This not traditional championships swimming sports experience was opened with competition for deaf swimmers in 1924. Such kind of World Games spread for cognitive disable people.
Swimming for pleasant spending time got its popularity in the 19th century. The first available swimming pool was opened in the U.S.A. in 1887, Brookline. 1920 is called to be swimming pools boom. Today swimming pools are available to everyone. swimming is popular in both variants: professional and amateur. Recently swimming is included in school program as it is not only a sport or perfect time spending it provides salutary influence on human's health, has unique innovation and refreshing effects.