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- The first recorded swimming races were held in Japan in 36 B.C.
- The first man to cross the English Channel swimming from England to France is Englishman Captain Matthew Webb in 1875.
- The first swimming pool to go to sea on an ocean liner was installed on the White Star Line’s Adriatic in 1907.
- In the USA, the Racquet Club of Philadelphia clubhouse (1907) boasts one of the world’s first modern above-ground swimming pools.
- The oldest known concrete swimming pool — the Deep Eddy Swimming Pool — was built in Texas in 1915.
- The Titanic was the first ocean liner to have a swimming pool and a gym.
- Mark Spitz was the first Olympic swimmer to win seven gold medals in a single Olympiad in the 1972 games.
- The largest swimming pool ever built was reputedly created in Moscow after the Palace of Soviets remained uncompleted. The foundations were converted into an open air swimming pool after the process of de-Stalinisation after the fall of communism, Christ the Saviour Cathedral was re-built (it had originally been on the site) between 1995 and 2000.
- In the 21st century, there seem to be many contenders for “the largest swimming pool on earth”, reputedly at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; at Club Med Camarina, Sicily; Sunlite Pool, Coney Island, Cincinnati; and Garden City, Kansas with their 220 foot by 330 foot pool (67m x 100m) that holds 26,000,000 gallons (100 million litres) of water. A recent construction in Tokyo, Japan may top them all.
