Marked The Freemasons’ Tavern, London

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

Modern sport

The Football Association wrote its first rules in 1863. Within a few decades, codified sports, professional clubs, the modern Olympics in 1896 and the first football World Cup in 1930 had spread around the world.

Place
The Freemasons’ Tavern, London · Preston · Athens · MontevideoThe whole world
Laid out as
A theme across timeOne idea followed through the eras it crosses.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IThe rules of 1863
  2. IIFootball and the factory towns
  3. IIIThe modern Olympics
  4. IVThe first World Cup
  5. VWomen’s football and the ban of 1921
  6. VISport and protest

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Ebenezer Morley
  • Arthur Wharton
  • Pierre de Coubertin
  • Lily Parr
  • Jesse Owens

Objects

  • The 1863 rule book
  • Early match balls

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1863 to now. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?