On September 9, 1895, at Beethoven Hall in New York City, the American Bowling Congress was born. The congress was only for men; however, women had been bowling since the late nineteenth century. The women of bowling formed their own congress called the Women’s National Bowling Association in 1917.
Today, the sport of bowling is enjoyed by 95 million people in more than 90 countries worldwide. The lack of official rules and regulations lead to each region creating its own details for how the game should be played. Variations included ball weight and pin dimensions.
A British anthropologist, Sir Flinders Petrie, discovered in the 1930's a collection of objects in a child's grave in Egypt that appeared to him to be used for a crude form of bowling. Bowling is one of the oldest and most popular games in the world. Bowling is a sport that can be dated back to circa 3200 BC.
The game had its ups and downs in America. An 1841 Connecticut law made it illegal to maintain "any ninepin lanes,", probably because bowling was the object of much gambling. Nine pin lanes mean they only had nine pins instead of ten pins. We now use tens pins on every lane.
Credits:
Created with images by Steve Snodgrass - "Bowling Balls" • Hobbies on a Budget - "bowling lane - Copy" • Pexels - "blur bowling bowling alley" • Luis Miguel Bastardo - "(33/52) Bowling"