Swimming

Swimming is the movement by humans or animals through water, usually without artificial assistance. Swimming is an activity that is both useful and recreational for many species. Its primary uses are bathing, cooling, travel, fishing, escape, and sport. more...

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An individual's ability to swim can be judged by speed or stamina.

Animals with lungs have an easier time floating than those without. Almost all mammals can swim by instinct. Bats, kangaroos, moles and sloths can swim. The few exceptions include apes and possibly giraffes. Land birds can swim or float for at least some time. Ostriches, cassowaries and tortoises can swim.

History

Drawings from the Stone Age were found in \"the cave of swimmers\" near Sura, dating back to 2000 B.C. There is evidence that swimming was also a very popular sport in Greece and Italy in the original Olympic games. Athletes would compete in competitions that usually involved many nations competing in water sports in order to gain a prize. In 1538, Nicolas Wynman, German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book. Competitive swimming in Europe started around 1800, mostly using breaststroke. The front crawl, then called the trudgen (now known predominantly as the \"front crawl\" or \"freestyle\") was introduced in 1873 by John Arthur Trudgen, copying it from Native Americans.

Swimming was part of the first modern 1896 Summer Olympics games in Athens. In 1900, backstroke was included as an Olympic Event. In 1908, the world swimming association Federation Internationale de Natation was formed. Butterfly was first a variant of breaststroke, until it was accepted as a separate style in the 1952 Olympics. At present, there are the four recognized strokes of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle; while the IM (\"Individual Medley\") is a combination of all four of the strokes in a specific order. Butterfly is done first, followed by backstroke, breaststroke, and then finishing with freestyle.

Freestyle is actually a choice of stroke in a race. However, most swimmers choose to swim front crawl because it is faster.

Non-aquatic animals

Gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, giraffes, and at least some gibbons are among the few mammals which lack the instinctive ability to swim, although they can wade upright in water. There are reports that the siamang can swim. There are reports of apes in zoos falling and drowning in water moats without any struggle. Humans, similarly, do not swim instinctively, but can learn. In contrast, many monkeys can naturally swim and some, like the proboscis monkey, crab-eating macaque, and Rhesus macaque swim regularly.

Read more at Wikipedia.org