History

    Back in the old days people played games with stones that were like modern bowling. Bowling started by rolling stones to hit something. A bowling game was discovered by Sir Flinders Petrie in an Egyptian tomb from around 3200 B.C.
    Boccie was first played around 50 B.C in the area of northern Italy. Boccie is like bowling. Lawn Bowling takes place in a grassy area and a ball on other objects, usually another ball.
    Bowling at pins actually originated in a religious ceremony in Germany around 300 AD.

    The pins represented heathens and hitting the pins meant that you were living a clean life. Successful people who hit the pins were called Keglers. Keglers were honored and toasted at a dinner.
    The first indoor bowling lanes were in England during the Middle Ages. Back then the minimum pins were three and the maximum pins were seventeen.
    Soon, most countries had developed a bowling type game and when the United States was settled the game came with the new immigrants.
    Even though some early religious groups in America thought bowling was a sinful waste of time, the game became throughout the early colonies. By the 1840's there were indoor bowling lanes in almost every block in New York.
    In 1895 the American Bowling Congress (ABC) was formed to standardize the rules and the equipment. They worked hard to promote bowling as a sport. It is now one of the most popular sports in the world.

Did you know?: That the Olympic games started to offer bowling as a competition in 1936 in Berlin Germany?