The history of billiards (also known as Cue Sports) goes back a long way.
This Pool game has been played over many centuries by Kings as well as commoners and gentlemen.
The game Billiards came into being from the evolution of the game croquet, which was played in the 15th century in France and Northern Europe.
Slowly and gradually the game was shifted to indoors, played on a wooden table with a green cloth to give a grass like effect.
Moreover the balls were shoved with wooden sticks called maces rather than being struck. The word billiards was taken from a French word "billart" meaning one of the wooden sticks or "bille" meaning a ball.
Originally this game was played by the royals and the nobles and therefore was known as "Noble Game of Billiards" in the 1800's, but at many places in history it has been mentioned that people other than royals and nobles also used to play the game.
Furthermore in the 1600 the game had gained immense popularity and therefore was also mentioned by Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra.
The first rule book of billiards was then published 75 years later after it came into existence.
As mentioned above that the game had evolved from croquet, which was played by a mace which has a very large head at the end. But this large head tool was very inconvenient for playing billiards and therefore in the 15th century a cue stick was developed.
The name "Cue" came from the word 'queue' which means a "tail". People would use the tail to strike the ball and therefore it came to be known as 'Cue'.
In the beginning a restriction was imposed on the women that they could only use a mace while men were free to use the cue, as it was feared that with the sharp cue the women would tear off the green cloth, but was later removed.
Moving on, tables in the beginning had flat walls which prevented the ball from falling off the table.
They were called banks because they resembled the river banks. Later on it was discovered that the ball could bounce of the rail and that's when the "bank shot" came into existence which consisted of a cushion that rebounded the ball and prevented it from falling off the table.
In the 1800 billiards grew popular in England, its equipment were improved rapidly mainly because of the industrial revolution which took place at that time. Furthermore even before the cue had tips, chalks were used to increase the fiction between the ball and the cue stick.
By 1823 the leather tips were perfected which enabled the players to side - spin the ball. This move (side - spin) was invented by the British which were then taught to the Americans, due to this the move is called "English", although the British calls this move "Side".
The two piece cue introduced in 1829. Slate gained popularity in the 1835 as a material for table beds. The vulcanization of rubber was discovered by Goodyear in 1839 and later in 1845 it was used to make billiard cushions.
Before the 18th century the dimension of the table was not fixed, there were billiard tables in different dimensions. But later in the 18th century the two-to-one ratio of length to width was made the standard dimension.
By the year 1850 the game's table had evolved into the table which we see now in the present days. Billiards was the leading game in Britain from 1770 and later on the 1920's it was changed to "English Billiard" which was played with 3 balls and 6 pockets on a large rectangular table.
The traditional British Billiard is now in the form of Snooker, a colorful game, played with the same equipment as the English Billiards but with 22 Balls instead of 3.
Furthermore the Popular American billiard game until the 1870's was American Four - Ball Billiards, played on a large 11 or 12 foot with four pocket table and four balls (two white and two red).
Points in the American billiards was scored either by putting the balls in the pockets, by scratching the cue ball or by making caroms on two or three balls, which means hitting two balls with the cue ball in one shot.
It was possible to score 13 points on a single shot if there were many balls on the table. The American Four Ball was split into two. One being the Straight Rail played with three balls on a pocket less table and the other one being the American Fifteen Ball pool game which is now the modern pocket billiards.
The term billiards generally refers to all the games played on a billiard table it could be with or without a pocket, although some people take billiards to mean carom games only, while they use pool games for pocket games.
Still through the 1930's both pool games and billiards remained in the limelight together.
Pool games and billiards tournament was usually held every year from 1878 until 1956. It's even amazing to know that at times of war billiards match result received wider coverage than war news.
The players of this game got so famous that cigarettes boxes were issued featuring them. But during the World War II the game had difficulties maintaining its fame and was almost lost into the abyss.
It was not until 1961 and 1986 that billiards was brought back into the people life again when it was featured in two movies "The Hustle" and later in the "Color of Money".
Until recent year's billiards was dominated by men, but since the game was brought up in the 15th century women have remained keen players in the game and have kept up the tradition of billiards.
