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- The oldest form of stroke used is the breaststroke.
- Ancient drawings and paintings found in Egypt depicting people swimming date back to 2500 BCE.
- Swim fins were invented by Benjamin Franklin.
- Swimming became an amateur sport in the late part of the nineteenth century.
- Swimming first became an Olympic event in 1896.
- Swim Fins Benjamin Franklin
- Swimming in the Olympics started as a men’s event only but women were able to participate starting in 1912.
- The Deep Eddy Swimming Pool, built in 1915, is the oldest known concrete swimming pool and was built in Texas.
- After World War I and the departure of “Long John” style swimming costumes, interest in competitive swimming grew. Standards improved and training became essential.
- The first woman to swim the English Channel is Gertrude Ederle, who was actually just a teenager at that time in 1926.
- Home swimming pools became popular in the USA after World War II and the publicity given to swimming sports by Hollywood films like Esther Williams’ Million Dollar Mermaid made a home pool a desirable status symbol.
- Actress Esther Williams popularized synchronized swimming when she starred in movies known as “aqua musicals” produced by MGM in the forties and fifties. Aqua musicals were about synchronized swimming.
- In 1956, the US National Swimming Pool Institute was founded. It was later renamed to the Association of Pool & Spa Professionals, and now develops pool construction standards and provides training to pool builders and service technicians.
- President Gerald Ford had the outdoor swimming pool built at the White House in 1975. In 1976, a pool house was added — with a secret, underground passage that lets the First Family and their guests to get from the White House to the pool without going outside.
- Synchronized swimming first appeared in the Olympics during the 1984 games.
