12 story library more to explore 12 REASONS TO LOVE SWIMMING by Joanne Mattern
1 Swimming Is as Old as the Stone Age An ancient mosaic of a swimmer in Rome People have been swimming for thousands of years Swimmers are shown in cave paintings from the Stone Age that were discovered in Libya and Egypt The great thinker Plato said that people who couldn’t swim were uneducated And swimming races were held in Japan as far back as the first century Swimming was also a skill in ancient Greece and Rome Young men were taught to swim as part of their education and military training 4 Swimming was a good skill for soldiers to have since many battles were fought in or near water So many soldiers drowned during the Napoleonic
A public swimming pool in France 1884 Wars in the early 1800s that nations began to add swimming to training classes for soldiers By 1837 there were public swimming pools in London Australia and the US followed Today most communities and many homes and schools have swimming pools The British women’s relay swim team won the gold medal at the 1912 Olympics 1896 Year the first modern Olympics was held Races were held in open water in 1896 1900 and 1904 Women did not compete in Olympic swimming until 1912 Swimming is one of only five sports to be in every summer Olympic Games 5
