Swimming has been recorded since prehistoric times; the earliest recording of swimming dates back to Stone Age paintings from around 7,000 years ago. In 1578, Nikolaus Wynmann, a German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book. Swimming was part of the first modern Olympic games in 1896 in Athens.

Archaeological and other evidence shows swimming to have been practiced as early as 2500 bce in Egypt and thereafter in Assyrian, Greek, and Roman civilizations. In Greece and Rome swimming was a part of martial training and was, with the alphabet, also part of elementary education for males.

The first swimming goggles were made from tortoise shells. Swimming was first introduced at the Olympics in 1896. The first known record of people swimming dates back to Egyptian drawings from 2500 BC, with stone age paintings in the Cave of Swimmers dating back even further.

Early swimming competition saw athletes mainly use the breaststroke until 1902. Australian Richmond Cavill was the first to swim with a modern freestyle technique. The early swimming competitions were a male dominated affair until the inclusion of women's 100 metre freestyle and the 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay in the 1912 Olympics.

01 Swimming is a competitive or recreational activity where a person uses their entire body to move through water. 02 There are 4 recognized swimming strokes. 03 The “stroke” is the style or the way a person maneuvers through the water. 04 People swam as early as 10,000 years ago.