-
In the 18th century swimming in the ocean was made popular by King George III
People started swimming in places other than lakes, and some people even swam in the english channel -
Europe is introduced to the front crawl by Indians
The front crawl makes the breaststroke diminish in popularity and revolutionizes the way modern people swim and makes swimming a faster and more challenging sport. -
Captain Matthew Webb was the first man to swim the English Channel (between England and France), Using breaststroke, he swam 21. 26 miles in 21 hours and 45 minutes. No other man or woman swam the channel for the next 31 years.
-
Swimming became an olympic sport as of the Athens games
-
The 2nd olympic games were hosted in Paris, The 4000 m freestyle was won by John Arthur Jarvis in under one hour, the longest Olympic swimming race until the 10k marathon swim was introduced in 2008.
-
Jack Sieg, a swimmer also from the University of Iowa developed a technique called the butterfly, this later became popular in the Olympic games
-
US ordered the reduction of fabric in swimsuits by 10% due to wartime shortages, resulting in the first two piece swimsuits. Shortly afterwards the Bikini was invented in Paris by Louis Reard (officially) or Jacques Heim (earlier, but slightly larger). This helped swimmers because it reduced drag and made them faster
-
Britain was introduced to swimming by the Romans
Back then, the main stroke was breaststroke because there were no other strokes that worked well enough.
