History Of American Football.
Football historians, who have studied the game and
its origins, place the game’s beginnings in rugby, a game played
with many similarities to football. Rugby began in 1823 at the
famous Rugby Boys’ School in England. Another cousin of the game of
football is soccer; being played as early as the 1820's.
At the same time, a group of students at Princeton began playing
football (what was then known as ‘ballown’). First using their fists
to advance the ball, and then their feet, this game consisted mainly
of one goal: to advance the ball past the opposing team. There were
no hard and fast rules applied to this attempt at the game we
call football.
At Harvard, classes competed in a football-type game, played
on the first Monday of each school year; this event came to be known
as ‘Bloody Monday’ because of the roughness of the game. Pick up
games, played in the style of 'Bloody Monday’, soon became popular
on the Boston Common, catching on in popularity around 1860.
Around 1865, after the American Civil War colleges began
organizing football games. In 1867, Princeton led the way in
establishing some rudimentary rules of the game, It was also
the year football itself was patented for the very first time.
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