The first known form of bowling traced back to ancient Egyptian, around 5.000 BC. That time, ancient Egyptians rolled stones at various objects to knock them over.
British anthropologist Sir Flinders Petrie with his team in 1930, discovered various primitive bowling balls and bowling pins along with collection of objects in the grave of an Egyptian boy dating back to 3.200 BC, before the reign of Narmer.

Many historians argue about who and when modern bowling was invented. In the 5th century AD, the game started to develop like the shape of bowling we know today within German borders area. The earliest form of bowling in Europe is a bowling green in Southampton dates back around in 1299. It was common to have three pins to 17 pins at the time.

The first official record of bowling has been found to be connected to the England King, Henry III. He banned the game in the country in 1366 as it was a distraction from archery practice for soldiers. But the law was removed by the 1400’s mainly because it was hard to stop people from rolling balls at pins.

Bowling was imported to America around the 1670’s by British, German and Dutch settlers. It was a game with nine pins at that time, instead of the standard ten pins like today. By 1800’s the game was common in cities throughout New York, Ohio and Illinois and had evolved to using ten pins. In 1895, the American Bowling Congress was formed and unified standards for bowling.