Can anyone give me the origins of the sport of "pelota" aka Jai-alai?
359911
Pilota in Basque and Catalan, pelota in Spanish, or pelote in French (from Latin pila) is a name for a variety of court sports played with a ball using one's hand, a racket, a wooden bat (pala), or a basket propulsor, against a wall (frontón in Spanish, frontoi in Basque, frontó in Catalan) or, more traditionally, with two teams face to face separated by a line on the ground or a net. Their roots can be traced to the Greek and other ancient cultures, but in Europe they all derive from real tennis (see Jeu de Paume). Today, pelota is widely played in several countries: in the Basque Country and their neighbours; in Valencia where it is considered the national sport; and in rural areas of Ireland, Belgium, North of Italy, Mexico, Argentina and other American countries.\n\nRecently, some initiatives have organised pelota championships trying to unify the different modalities played all around the world, in order to standardise them into two or three simpler modalities, with fixed ball weights, rules and court sizes. There are, of course, criticisms on this, since the original traits of each particular modality would be lost. The matches between Basque and Valencian teams have always been the most leveled ones, due to the quality and versatility of their players.\nBasque pelota\nThe most characteristic trait of Basque pelota is that it is played against a wall (frontón in Spanish, frontoi in Basque). There are modalities played with the bare hand (pelota a mano in Spanish or eskupilota in Basque) or with a wooden bat (pala), or a basket propulsor (cesta, xistera), the latter being very famous in Florida as the jai alai modality, and also played in Macao.\n\nTo foreign spectators, it may appear as squash in a larger court. Nevertheless it has only side wall in the left flank, while the right limit of the court is just marked on the floor.\n\nBasque pelota has been an exhibition olympic sport in Mexico '68 and Barcelona '92 and could be an exhibition sport in London 2012. International competitions are dominated by Basques playing in either the Spanish or the French national teams. Professional games are open to betting on the results.\n\n[edit]\nValencian pilota\n \n"Joc de pilota", painted by Josep Bru i Albinyana. Costumer picture in year 1881.The most characteristic trait of Valencian pilota is that it is always played with the bare hand (with some minimal protections) and it is not generally played against a wall. Instead, as the ancient Greeks played it and modern tennis is played, two individuals or teams are placed face to face separated by a line on the ground or a net. Another relevant and funny trait of Valencian pilota is that the spectators can be seated in several parts of the playing ground and they frequently suffer from impacts as the match develops.\n\nValencian pilota can be played in the streets or in special courts, known as trinquete (trinquet in Catalan), which can be quite different in size and form. There are many different modalities, the most frequently played are escala i corda, raspall, galotxa and llargues.\n\nSpectators of Valencian pilota can also bet on one of the two sides, and the trinquets and the marxador get a commission of these bets.
438340
''The history of surfing is well documented, and due to commercialization and media in the United States, it has become, world-wide, the most popular water sport and lifestyle.\n\nSurfing is an old sport. Its actual beginning is unknown because it is so old. It is, however, known that it began in Polynesia. Most people are under the impression that surfing originated in Hawaii. The truth is that the Hawaiians were people who, based on the similarities of cultures, are believed to have crossed the ocean in old outrigger canoes to Hawaii from Tahiti and Bora Bora. Since the early Polynesians had no written language it hard to know exactly what their history is. We can only come to our conclusions of their origin by the evidence that we have. (Dixon 20)\n\nSurfing was the Polynesians most popular sport. Long before white men discovered the sport, competitions were held and much gambling was done. In the ancient Hawaiian and Polynesian way of life, nakedness, adultery, sexual freedom and all kinds of sports and games were loved.\n\nCaptain James Cook, a British explorer, discovered Hawaii in 1778. He and his crew were the first westerners to witness surfing. In his log, Captain Cook gave a description of the scene. After describing the scene of men an women riding the face of great waves on planks of wood, and the skill in which they did it, Cook wrote, "The boldness and address with which we saw them perform these difficult and dangerous maneuvers was astonishing and is scarce to be credited." (22)\n\nCook's discovery lead to the arrival of Christian missionaries to Hawaii. They believed that the Hawaiians way of life was evil and surfing was included. The missionaries traveled all over the islands teaching the Hawaiian people about western ideas and beliefs. They succeeded in the conversion of many Hawaiians.\n\nProbably one of the biggest successes of the missionaries was the conversion of Queen Kaahumanu by Hiram Bingham.\n\nIn 1810, Kamehameha I took over all the Hawaiian Islands and declared his kingdom which lasted until 1893 when Queen Liloukalani was dethroned. (Compton's 58-61) King Kamehameha and his wife Kaahumanu were incredible surfers. The king had private beaches. Violation of these beaches was forbidden on pain of death. Kamehameha and his queen ignored the missionaries. After the kings death, Kaahumanu took over as the kingdoms ruler. (Compton's 26)\n\nThe new queen came under the influence of a man named Hiram Bingham, who was a missionary. The Queen and Bingham became close friends. She even had a house built for him next to hers. They were seen together often and eventually Kaahumanu was converted to Christianity.\n\nAs was mentioned earlier, the cultures and traditions which the Hawaiians held so dearly, including surfing, were considered evil and an abomination to the Christians. As a result of Kaahumanu now holding Christian beliefs, all the Hawaiian cultures and traditions were banned. The hula was done away with, surfing banned, nakedness illegal, and adulterers were banished. Hawaiian hearts were literally broken and many deaths resulted. (27)\n\nSurfing was almost destroyed forever. The young king Kamehameha III made a short attempt at reviving the Hawaiian way of life. He was unsuccessful. ( 28) He did, however, grant a constitution for the kingdom of Hawaii in 1840. (Compton's 91)\n\nNearly 50 years after Kamehameha III's attempt to revive the Hawaiian culture, the new king, David Kalakaua, succeeded in restoring the hula and then all of the other traditions and cultures of his Hawaiian forefathers. In a short while Kalakaua succeeded in getting rid of all the bans on their culture. Unfortunately, after Kalakaua's death in 1891, his wife, Liliukalani took over the rule of the kingdom. (Dixon 28-30) She tried to abolish the constitution granted by Kamehameha III. In 1893 Liliukalani was dethroned. A new government took over. (Compton's 58-59) Surfing again
992218
It actually is an olympic sport.\nIt's just under a different multi-sport event called the \n                 World Games\nfor more info:\nhttp://www.worldgames-iwga.org/\n                      or\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Games
323154
A version of soccer was infact invented by the Mayas.  The actual formal game we are now used to was invented in England.
443880
The Romans played a game called "harpastum" which was probably the origin of modern soccer.\nSource-SAMM
274850
wahaika \nshort striking club The short striking club was used in a famous battle.
878428
Selon la légende, au cours d'une partie de football (soccer) à la mi 1823, William Webb Ellis, élève de ce collège (la Rugby School) et futur pasteur, porta dans ses bras le ballon derrière la ligne de but adverse alors que la tradition était de le pousser au pied. En réalité, les origines du rugby seraient beaucoup plus anciennes\n+ de détails : ici ===>http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby
926172
The game is Jai Alai.  The glove/launcher is a fronton.
121660
It is a fascinating sport!
1109040
The very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence was an exercise dating back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C. in China. A military manual dating from the period of the Han Dynasty includes among the physical education exercises, the "Tsu'Chu". This consisted of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair through an opening, measuring only 30 - 40 cm in width, into a small net fixed onto long bamboo canes - a feat which obviously demanded great skill and excellent technique. A variation of this exercise also existed, whereby the player was not permitted to aim at his target unimpeded, but had to use his feet, chest, back and shoulders whilst trying to withstand the attacks of his opponents. Use of the hands was not permitted. The ball artistry of today's top players is therefore not quite as new as some people may assume.\n\nThe contemporary history of football spans more than 100 years. It all began in 1863 in England, when rugby football and association football branched off on their different courses and the world's first football association was founded - The Football Association in England. Both forms of football stemmed from a common root and both have a long and intricately branched ancestral tree. Their early history reveals at least half a dozen different games, varying to different degrees and to which the historical development of football is related and has actually been traced back. Whether this can be justified in some instances is disputable. Nevertheless, the fact remains that playing a ball with the feet has been going on for thousands of years and there is absolutely no reason to believe that it is an aberration of the more "natural" form of playing a ball with the hands.\n\nMore on the history off the game, check:\nhttp://www.fifa.com/en/history/history/0,1283,1,00.html
821625
Paddle tennis is a racquet sport invented in 1898 by Frank Beal. It is similar to tennis, but uses smaller paddles and a spongy ball. Like tennis, Paddle tennis is played in both singles and doubles, but each player is allowed only one serve. The game is best of three sets (first player or team to win two sets). Scoring is the same as in tennis.\n\nA somewhat similar game with the same name is played widely in the Spanish-speaking world, particularly Argentina. It is also called Padel.
1156107
Origins\n \nBullfighting may trace its roots to Minoan Crete, where the bull-leaping ritual practiced by youths of both sexes is memorialized in the famous wall-frescos at Knossos. The wall murals show male and female acrobats confronting the bull, grabbing its horns as it charges towards them, and volt themselves over its back. This is known as "bull leaping". However, the frescos offer no hint of struggle or violence, and the Lunar Bull was a sacred animal commemorated in ritual and legends such as that of the Minotaur. Modern archaeologists tend to emphasize the danger involved in this athletic skill and may underestimate the extent to which the bull cooperated. A more likely explanation is found in the worship of Mithras in the pre-Christian Roman Empire. The killing of the sacred bull (tauromachy) is the essential central iconic act of Mithras, which was commemorated in the mithraeum wherever Roman soldiers were stationed. Many of the oldest bullrings in Spain are located on the sites of, or adjacent to the locations of temples to Mithras.\n\nBullfighting is often linked to ancient Rome, when many human-versus-animal events were held as a warm-up for gladiatorial sports. Alternatively, it may have been introduced into Hispania by the Moors in the 11th century, although there are theories that it was introduced into Hispania a millennium earlier by the Emperor Claudius when he instituted a short-lived ban on gladiatorial games as a substitute for those combats. The latter theory was supported by Robert Graves. In its original Moorish and early Iberian form, the bull was fought from horseback using a javelin. (Picadors are the remnants of this tradition, but their role in the contest is now a relatively minor one limited to "preparing" the bull for the matador.) Bullfighting spread from Spain to its Central and South American colonies, and also in the 19th century to France, where it developed into a distinctive form in its own right.\n\nAnother belief is that bullfighting as is in present times has its roots based largely in wars that occurred between Iberians and Moors. As history has it, a common war strategy of the Moors was to set fire to the tails of bulls which would cause the herd to stampede into opposing armies in a frenzy. This tactic on the part of the Moors created a need to devise a way of overcoming the oncoming stampede on the part of the Iberian peninsula's previous inhabitants. What we see today in modern bullfighting, from swords, horses, Spanish style, muletas, facing the bull without weapons as is seen in Portugal's forcados, etc., was born from the necessity of survival in battles against the Moors.\n\nFrench ethnologist Dominique Aubier considers according to an espistemological study that there is no relationship between the Greek sacrifice which is an agricultural ritualistic celebration or the Roman Gladiators and the bullfight which is in Spain of pure paleontological hunting origins.Dominique Aubier explains that the corrida is a 20 000 year old primitive tradition, and that the theory of a so-called Arabic introduction of the corrida in Spain is an extravancy. In the 18th century, the Spanish introduced the practice of fighting on foot, Francisco Romero generally being regarded as having been the first to do this, about 1726. The modern style of Spanish bullfighting is credited to Juan Belmonte, generally considered the greatest matador of all time, who introduced a daring and revolutionary style which kept him almost constantly within a few inches of the bull. Although extremely dangerous (Belmonte himself was gored on many occasions), his style is still seen by most matadors as the ideal to be emulated. As bullfighting devolped, men on foot started using capes to aide the horsemen in positioning the bulls. This type of fighting drew more attention from the crowds, thus the modern corrida, or fight, started to take form. Today, bullfighting is now like it was since 1
135179
It was an Exhibition Sport in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. In 1992 and 1996, a modern bowling facility was installed in the Athletes' Village at Barcelona and Atlanta where champion bowlers conducted exhibitions, competed, and offered instructional sessions for the benefit of Olympic athletes.\n\nhttp://www.ten-pinbowling.com/about_TenPinBowling.htm
280467
It was an official sport in 1924. Was demoted to a demonstration sport until 1998, when it made it's official debut.
396949
The CHINESE, then the GREEKS and the ROMANS (and some other civilizations all over). Then the modern Football with the ENGLISH and then THE WORLD.\n\nHistory info:\nAssociation football, soccer or simply football. The Laws of the Game are based on efforts made in the mid-19th century to standardise the rules of the widely varying games of football played at the independent schools of England.\n\nDocumented evidence of what is possibly the oldest organized activity resembling football can be found in a Chinese military manual written during the Han Dynasty in about 2nd century BC.\n\nIt describes a practice known as tsu chu (Traditional Chinese:蹴鞠 or 蹴踘 ; Pinyin: cù jū) which involved kicking a leather ball through a hole in a piece of silk cloth strung between two 30 foot poles. It was not a game as such but more of a spectacle for the amusement of the Emperor and it may have been performed as long as 3000 years ago.\n\nThe Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games some of which involved the use of the feet.\n\nEvidence from many ancient societies Chinese, Greek, Mayan, and Egyptian reveals that kicking games like soccer was played in those cultures. The modern game of soccer began in the 19th century in England, where a variety of football games developed, all of which involved both handling and kicking.\n\nMany different cultures have played a sport similar to the modern game of soccer but no one can really say with any certainty when or where soccer began but it is known that the earlier variations of what later became soccer were played almost 3000 years ago. \n\nOne of the earliest forms of soccer in which players kicked a ball around on a small field has been traced as far back to 1004 B.C. in Japan. The Munich Ethnological Museum in Germany has a Chinese text from approximately 50 B.C. that mentions games very similar to soccer that were played between teams from Japan and China. The Chinese kicked a leather ball ( hair-filled ) and it is known with certainty that a soccer game was played in 611 A.D. in the then Japanese capital, Kyoto. \n\nThe Romans played a game that somewhat resembled modern soccer. The early Olympic games in  Rome featured twenty-seven men on a side who completed so vigorously that two-thirds of them had to be hospitalized after a fifty-minute game. \n\nWhile historians kept records of events such as wars and religious movements they had very little interest in preserving the various origins of soccer or many other sports, so no one can say how soccer seems to have spread from Asia to Europe.
391304
The origins of soccer go back way further than 1620, most ancient cultures had some sort of ball game played by it's population. The Mayans for instance were playing a ball game over 3000 years ago!\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame\nOfficially though, FIFA credit the invention to the Chinese. That version however was undoubtly was very different to the modern game, which as noted above, was properly formalised into Association Football in England during the 19th Century
877546
Sport whipcracking.\nIt's a respected competitive sport in Australia. In fact, during the opening ceremonies at Sydney, 2000, they had a big contingent of whip champions all doing double-handed, two whip cracking in unison.\n\nEither that, or Amish Rake Fights.