Timeline Of Women's Sports

This is a timeline of women's sports, spanning from ancient history up to the 21st century. It includes both competitive sports and notable physical feats.

Early history

2134–2000 BCE – Illustrations on Egyptian temple walls from the Eleventh Dynasty showed women exercising and playing ball games.

6th century BCE – The Heraean Games were the first recorded women's athletic competition, held in the stadium at Olympia.

368 BCE – Spartan charioteer Euryleonis won the two-horse chariot races in that year's Olympic games. A bronze statue was erected in Sparta in her honour.

2nd century CE – Contemporary writers and historians described female gladiators fighting in Rome.

25–220 – Han Dynasty-era frescoes depict women playing the ancient game of Tsu Chu. There are a number of opinions about the dates of the frescoes with the earliest estimates around 5000 BCE.

1296 – At a Christmas feast for Edward I of England, an acrobat named either Maud or Matilda Makejoy performed acrobatic feats as part of the entertainment.

Pre-Columbian era – In the Americas, women from many indigenous tribes participated in sports such as foot races, swimming, stick and ball games, and wrestling contests. Starting in the 16th century, however, European settlers and colonial influence gradually began limiting athletic opportunities for indigenous women, particularly as Europeans tried to forcibly assimilate indigenous people into Western culture.

1493 – When Italian noblewoman Beatrice d'Este visited Venice, a regatta was held in which fifty peasant women competed.

1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots became the first recorded woman to play golf in Scotland at Musselburgh Links.

18th century

1722 – English champion boxer Elizabeth Wilkinson won her first public bout, after challenging a local woman to a fight.

1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match took place in Surrey, England. By the second half of the eighteenth century, women's cricket matches played between local teams became common in the South East of England.

1768 – A French woman named Madame Bunel played a highly publicized tennis match against the English Mr. Tomkins. After three sets, she defeated him 2–1, subsequently winning again in a rematch 11 days later.

1780 – At the American horse racing track of Hempstead Plains, Long Island, a three-day equestrian event included a competition for women riders.

1781 – As archery became a popular sport for aristocracy in England, upper-class women and men competed in archery contests and created archery societies such as the Toxophilite Society.

1784 – Elizabeth Thible of France was the first women to fly in a hot air ballon.

1790s – An annual women's association football competition was held in Mid-Lothian, Scotland.

19th century

1811 – The first women's golf tournament is held at the Royal Musselburgh Golf Club, Scotland.

1816 – French tightrope walker Madame Saqui performed in England to celebrate the opening of Vauxhall Bridge. After ascending a 300-ft inclined rope to the top of a tower, she completed one of her signature tricks, running back down along the rope while fireworks exploded in the background.

1819 – In a New York City exhibition, a Mrs. Adolphe became the first woman to publicly walk on a tightrope.

1825 – Madame Johnson ascended from New York in a hot air balloon in New York, later landing in a swamp in the neighboring state of New Jersey.

1842 – English rower Ann Glanville achieved national celebrity becoming known as the champion female rower of the world; her all-women crew often winning against the best male teams.

1856 – The Swedish swimmer and bath house director Nancy Edberg arranged her first public Swimming exhibitions with female swimmers.

1858 – On August 5, the American Julia Archibald Holmes became the first woman to climb to the summit of Pike's Peak in Colorado.

1863 – Association football governing bodies introduced standardized rules to prohibit violence on the pitch, making it more socially acceptable for women to play.

1864 – A group of 25 founding members form the Park Place Croquet Club of Brooklyn. Croquet is believed to be the first game played by both sexes in the United States.

1866 – Two baseball teams with female players were formed at Vassar College in New York.

1867 – The first ladies golf club was formed at St. Andrew's in Scotland. It gained 500 members by 1886.

1867 – The Dolly Vardens from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an all African-American baseball team, became the first women's professional sports team.

1870 – An image of a women's double scull race made the cover of Harper's Weekly in 1870.

1874 – Tennis was introduced to the United States by Mary Ewing Outerbridge of Staten Island. She brought the needed equipment to the United States from Bermuda and set up the first American court at Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club.

1875 – The first game of baseball played by women in front of a paying audience took place in Springfield, Illinois on September 11.

1875 – Wellesley College, an all women institution, opened a gymnasium for students to exercise and sponsored the first women's rowing program in the U.S. They also opened up a lake for ice skating.

1876 – In the first women's boxing match held in the United States, Nell Saunders defeated Rose Harland. Her prize was a silver butter dish.

1882 – The YWCA of Boston sponsored the first ever athletic games for women.

1884 – Maud Watson, of England, won the first Ladies' Singles title at Wimbledon.

1887 – Ellen Hansell, an American, became the first women's singles tennis champion. She won the title at the U.S. Open.

1888 – Cyclists competed in the world's first women's bicycle race in New South Wales, Australia. The competitors raced on a course that was two miles (3.2 kilometers) long.

1889 – Bertha Townsend and Margarette Ballard, both of the United States, won the first women's doubles at the U.S. Open.

1890s – Cricket was taught as a sport in several girls' public schools in England including the Roedean School, Wycombe Abbey, the Royal School, and Clifton Ladies.

1890 – Nellie Bly, a reporter for the New York World newspaper, became the first woman to travel around the world alone. She completed the journey on January 25 after 72 days of travel.

1892 – The first women's football match recorded by the Scottish Football Association took place in Glasgow, Scotland.

1892 – Four young women started what became ZLAC Rowing Club in San Diego, California, which is thought today to be the world's oldest continuously existing all-women's rowing club.

1893 – Newnham College Boat Club was formed in Cambridge, England.

1893 – The Ladies' Golf Union, the governing body for women's and girls' amateur golf in Great Britain and Ireland, was founded in St Andrews, Scotland and the first British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship was won by Lady Margaret Scott at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club.

1894 – The most well-documented early European association fool women's team was founded by activist Nettie Honeyball in England and named the British Ladies' Football Club.

1894 – The first golf tournament for women in the United States was won by Hollard A. Ford. Held on a 7-hole course in Morristown, New Jersey, Ford easily won with a score of 97 on the double-7. She was 14 strokes under the 2nd place golfer.

1895 – In England, the first recorded game of association football between women took place.

1895 – The American Annie Smith Peck climbed the Matterhorn, becoming the first woman to reach the summit.

1895 – At the Meadow Brook Club in Hempstead, New York, 13 women competed in the first women's amateur golf championship in the United States. Mrs. Charles S. Brown won the tournament with a score of 132 and Nellie Sargent came in second place.

1895 – A group of "nimble, supple and vivacious girls" competed in what is considered the first organized athletics meeting in the United States. Hosted by Vassar College and known as a "Field Day," there were running and jumping events.

1895 – Chicago's West Division High School formed the first women's softball team, but they went without a coach four four years until 1899.

1896 – A six day bicycle race for women, the first of its kind, began at New York City's Madison Square Garden on January 6.

1896 – Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley faced off on April 4 in the first women's intercollegiate basketball championship before a crowd of 700 women. Stanford won, 2–1.

1896 – Stamata Revithi, of Greece, ran the 40-kilometer marathon during the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

1897 – Adine Masson, of France, became the first winner of the ladies singles at the French Open.

1898 – Lizzie Arlington pitched for the Philadelphia Reserves. She was the first woman to sign a professional baseball contract.

20th century

1900s

1900 – The 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris introduces women's events, offering golf, tennis, and croquet. Hélène de Pourtalès of Switzerland was the first woman to win a gold medal as part of a mixed sailing crew. Charlotte Cooper of Great Britain becomes the first individual female winner in an Olympic event. American Margaret Abbott won a gold medal in golf.

1901 – The game of field hockey was introduced to the United States by Constance M.K. at Harvard University.

1904 – The first public match of the women's sport camogie was played in Meath, Ireland. Camogie was developed as a women's variation of the men's sport hurling, with similar rules and equipment.

1905 – The Camogie Association is founded in Dublin, Ireland to organise and promote the women's sport of camogie in Ireland and across the world.

1905 – Women from Britain and America first play an international golf match, with the British winning 6 matches to 1.

1907 – Adine Masson and Yvonne de Pfoeffel, both of France, won the first women's doubles at the French Open.

1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey became the first woman to drive across the United States, her home country.

1910s

1911 – Having inherited the St. Louis Cardinals from her father in 1911, Helene Britton became the first woman to own a major league baseball team. She was the head director of the Cardinals until 1917.

1912 – Fanny Durack, from Australia, became the first female Olympic swimming champion at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, when she won the women's 100 m freestyle event. Compatriot, Mina Wylie finished second, becoming the first female swimming silver medallist. This was also the first olympics to include women's diving.

1913 – Winifred McNair and Dora Boothby, both of Great Britain, won the first Wimbledon Championships ladies' doubles tournament.

1914 – The rules for women's basketball in the United States were altered to permit half-court play.

1917 – Women's association football became popular on a large scale in the United Kingdom during the First World War, when employment in heavy industry spurred the growth of the game, much as it had done for men fifty years earlier. A team from England played a team from Ireland on Boxing Day 1917 in front of a crowd of 20,000 spectators. The following year, a knock-out competition called the Munitionettes Cup was held which attracted 30 teams. The final was played in front of a crowd of 22,000.

1918 – Marie-Louise Ledru, a French athlete, has been credited as the first woman to race the now-defined marathon distance of 42.195 km. On September 29, 1918, Ledru reportedly completed the Tour de Paris Marathon in a time of 5 hours and 40 minutes and finished in 38th place. The International Association of Athletics Federations, the international governing body for the sport of athletics, however, recognizes Violet Piercy from England as having set the first women's world best in the marathon on October 3, 1926 with a time of 3:40:22.

1919 – Afghanistan became independent from British control and began working to "modernize the country" by introducing new sports and physical fitness opportunities for girls and women. Basketball and volleyball teams were created in all girls' high schools.

1920s

1920 – Dick, Kerr's Ladies association football team played in the first women's international matches in 1920, against a team from Paris, France, and also made up most of the England team against a Scottish Ladies XI in the same year, winning 22–0.

1920 – The All-Philadelphia team, the first American women's field hockey team, was denied entry to the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. They played, however,in an English tournament but did not win either game.

1921 – The 1921 Women's Olympiad, held in Monaco, was the first international women's sports event.

1921 – Following the Football Association ban on women's teams on 5 December, the English Ladies' Football Association was formed. A total of 24 teams entered the first competition in the spring of 1922.

1922 – Field hockey had grown enough in the United States that a national governing body, the U.S. Field Hockey Association, was established.

1922 – 1922 Women's World Games, held in Paris, included the first regular track and field competitions for women.

1922 – 1922 Women's Olympiad, of Australia, won the first Ladies Singles at the Australian Open. Esna Boyd Robertson and Marjorie Mountain, both of Australia, won the first women's doubles.

1923 – 1923 Women's Olympiad, held in Monaco.

1923 – First British track and field Championships Championships, followed shortly thereafter by the first American track and field Championships.

1924 – 1924 Women's Olympiad, held at Stamford Bridge, London.

1926 – The Amateur Athletic Union sponsored the first-ever American national women's basketball championship.

1926 – Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel. The first woman to do so, she completed the swim in fourteen hours, thirty-one minutes, setting a new record.

1926 – Violet Piercy, an English long-distance runner, was recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations as having set the first women's world best in the marathon on 3 October with a time of 3:40:22. Piercy was reported to have run unofficially, and her mark was set on the Polytechnic Marathon course between Windsor and London.

1926 – 1926 Women's World Games, held in Gothenburg, Sweden

1927 – The first Women's Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge was held on The Isis in Oxford, England.

1927 – Women's Eights Head of the River Races began in London, England, one year after the first men's race.

1928 – Women competed in the Olympic games for the first time at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

1930s

1930 – Frenchwomen Marguerite Mareuse and Odette Siko became the first women to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing 7th overall.

1930 – 1930 Women's World Games, held in Prague, Czechoslovakia

1931 – Women were banned from playing professional baseball by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Landis was upset that a girl, 17-year-old Jackie Mitchell, had struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig during exhibition play.

1932 – The first All-Ireland Senior Camogie Championship is won by Dublin

1932 – Brazilian swimmer Maria Lenk became the first South American woman to participate in the Olympic Games, competing in events for breaststroke, freestyle, and backstroke. She went on to break two world records in breaststroke events.

1932 – Odette Siko became the first woman to achieve a class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

1932 – The Associated Press named American Babe Didrikson as the Woman Athlete of the Year for track and field. Didrickson had earlier driven her team to the Amateur Athletic Union national meet championship. She scored thirty points by herself at the meet. The whole second place team collectively only scored 22.

1934 – The inaugural international Women's Test cricket match took place between the England national women's cricket team and the Australia national women's cricket team in December. The following year, the New Zealand national women's cricket team played them.

1934 – 1934 Women's World Games, held in London, United Kingdom

1936 – The first professional basketball team for women, the All American Red Heads Team, was formed. It was a barnstorming troupe.

1936 – The first American to win a world singles table tennis championship was a woman, Ruth Hughes Aarons.

1937 – Grace Hudowalski was the ninth person and first woman to climb all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks.

1937 – The first association football "Championship of Great Britain and the World" was played between Dick, Kerr's Ladies F.C. and Edinburgh City Girls.

1940s

1941 – It was illegal for women to play soccer in Brazil from 1941 to 1979.

1943 – Chicago White Sox owner Philip Wrigley founded the All-American Girls Softball League, the precursor to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

1949 – Marcenia Lyle Alberga was the first woman to play a full season of professional baseball.

1949 – Sara Christian became the first female NASCAR driver, racing in the inaugural race at Charlotte Speedway, even though she had Bob Flock finish the race. In the second official race at Daytona Beach and Road Course, also in 1949, Christian was joined by Ethel Mobley and Louise Smith, with Mobley finishing ahead of the 3, at 11th.

1949 – The inaugural women's Volleyball World Championship is held in the Soviet Union, three years after the inaugural men's event. It becomes the oldest and most important of all the international volleyball events organised by the FIVB.

1950s

1950 – There not being a rule against it, 12-year-old Kathryn Johnston of Corning, New York became the first girl to play Little League Baseball

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