Competitive swimming first emerged in the 1800s in England when the first swimming organization (the National Swimming Society) was founded in 1837 which hosted many competitions in pools around London.
In 1846 the first swimming championship was held in Australia, following the success of the competition it became an annual event. The sport began to gain popularity in the 1870s-1880s when the first national governing body was formed (Amateur Swimming Association.
By 1896 things took a big turn and swimming became part of the Olympics. It is one of the only 4 disciplines to appear in every summer Olympics since it was introduced. During its first few Olympics, swimming was a male-only sport, however, during the 1912 games in Stockholm they introduced 2 female events, the 100m freestyle and the 4x100m freestyle relay.
History of different strokes
Today there are 18 Individual events (only 14 in the Olympics) and 4 strokes however this wasnt always the case, the first official stroke was Breastroke, which was discovered in 1696.
The second official stroke was Freestyle (Front Crawl), it was discovered back in 1844 when 2 native Americans travelled to London to compete in a swim race, to everyones surprise, they swam a different style completely new to Europeans today that stroke is known as Front Crawl.
The first time Backstroke was ever raced was in the 1900 Olympic Games (1924 for women).
The last stroke to ever be officially recognized was Butterfly, it was discovered in the 1930s when coaches and swimmers were implementing a new technique for their breaststroke races, and finally, in 1956 World Aquatics made Butterfly an official stroke.
