1000 A.D. • Around this time, Scandinavians perfected the art of skating by strapping blades made of deer or elk bones to their boots.

1250 • The Dutch replaced bone skates with iron blades, leading to the discovery of the Dutch Roll—a simple skating step still used today.

1572 • The Battle of Ijsselmeer takes place in Amsterdam. The Dutch surprise the more powerful Spaniards by skating the frozen canals for combat.

1696 • Wilson Blades was founded in Sheffield, England after King Charles II requested that Wilson, a noted tool maker, make a pair of skate blades for him. Today the company is still the leading manufacturer of skate blades.

1742 • The first known skating club is established in Edinburgh, Scotland.

1830 • The First figure skating organization—The Skating Club—is founded in London.

1841 • Queen Victoria instructs Wilson Skates to make her and Prince Albert a pair of ice skates.

1848 • The strapless skate with the blades clipped right to the boot is invented in Philadelphia. This revolutionizes skating because for the first time skaters can twist, turn, spin, and leap without losing their blades.

1849 • On December 21, the first American figure skating club is founded in Philadelphia. Today there are more than 535 skating clubs across the U.S. and Canada.

1876 • The first refrigerated sheet of artificial ice is laid in London’s Glaciarium. Today, there are more than 1800 indoor rinks across North America.

1908 • Figure Skating is designated as an Olympic sport.

1927 • Sonia Henie wins the first of her record ten consecutive World Championship titles. She also wins three Olympic gold medals.

1945 • Paul Riedell founds Riedell Shoes Inc. in Red Wing, Minnesota, offering high-quality, comfortable and affordable ice skates across the continent.

1955 • Synchro (or Precision) skating was first developed in the Midwest. Today it has attracted new participants and now involves more than 10,000 skaters nationwide.

1960 • The first televised Olympic figure skating event.

1961 • On February 15, an airplane carrying the entire U.S. World Championship team crashes and kills all on board. The subsequent World Championships are canceled.

1988 • Four-time World Champion Kurt Browning is the first athlete to successfully complete a quadruple jump at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

1994 • Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan bring skating into mainstream media, adding real-life drama to the Olympics.

1998 • The 1998 World Championships are held just 60 miles from the Riedell factory in Minneapolis, where Riedell sponsors a unique public skating plaza that attracts Kurt Browning, Katerina Gordeeva and Michelle Kwan.

1999 • Riedell launches the new www.riedellskates.com as the ultimate skating resource. The site provides product information, skating tips and skater spotlights to visitors worldwide—an amazing change from the first use of skates 1000 years ago.

The oldest pair of skates known date back to about 3000 B.C., found at the bottom of a lake in Switzerland. The skates were made from the leg bones of large animals, holes were bored at each end of the bone and leather straps were used to tie the skates on. An old Dutch word for skate is “schenkel” which means “leg bone”.

Around the 14th Century, the Dutch started using wooden platform skates with flat iron bottom runners. The skates were attached to the skater’s shoes with leather straps. Poles were used to propel the skater. Around 1500, the Dutch added a narrow metal double edged blade, making the poles a thing of the past, as the skater could now push and glide with his feet (called the “Dutch Roll”).

In 1848, E. V. Bushnell of Philadelphia, PA invented the first all steel clamp for skates.

In 1865, Jackson Haines, a famous American skater, developed the two plate all metal blade. The blade was attached directly to Haines’ boots. The skater became famous for his new dance moves, jumps and spins. Haines added the first toe pick to skates in the 1870’s, making toe pick jumps possible.

The first artificial ice rink (mechanically-refrigerated) was built in 1876, at Chelsea, London, England and was named the Glaciarium. It was built near the King’s Road in London by John Gamgee.

In 1914, John E. Strauss, a blade maker from St. Paul, Minnesota, invented the first closed toe blade made from one piece of steel, making skates lighter and stronger.

The largest outdoor ice rink is the Fujikyu Highland Promenade Rink in Japan, built in 1967 and boasts an ice area of 165,750 square feet– equal to 3.8 acres.

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PETROLGY/Ice%20Structure.HTM