880 B.C.

- Soldiers propel themselves through the water

- Prehistoric people learned to swim by watching and imitating the actions of the animals in the water
and logged cut tress floating

36 B.C.

- Competitions took place in Japan, and it was the first country to take to the sport in a major way with
an imperial edict by an Emperor decreeing its introduction in schools

Middle Ages

- In Europe, recreational swimming was discouraged because of the plagues

1837

- Swimming was introduced as a competitive sport in England

- The English was the first people of modern times to complete swimming as a sport rather using it
primarily as a skill of survival

1845

- North America Indians traveled to England to swim competitively

- The Indians swimmers used an overhand stroke or similar to a windmill action that form a crawl stroke
and shocked the English swimmers when they won most of the contest

1869

- England’s Amateur Swimming Association first established formal rules for swimming meets

1878

- E.T. Jones set the first world swimming record, who swam 100 yards in 68 and half seconds

- "Australian Crawl" stroke was developed when Frederick Cavill, an English man and his family
immigrate to Australia and observed the swimming style of the local native’s kicking action, combined
with double overhand stroke as resulted in an exceptional speed

late 1800s

- "Trudgen Crawl", a double overhand stroke using the scissor kick was introduced by J. Arthur Trudgen
who is an English swimming instructor

- This stroke has recently restored to competitive swimming and some modern distance swimmer have
set new records using it
1900s

- Cavill’s family helped spread the Australian Crawl to England and United States and it eventually
evolved into the American Crawl and into the Freestyle swimming techniques used today