Roller skating: Roller skating is the traveling on surfaces with roller skates.

It is a form
of recreational activity as well as a sport, and can also be a form of transportation. Skates
generally come in three basic varieties: quad roller skates, inline skates or blades and triskates, though some have experimented with a single-wheeled "quintessence skate" or
other variations on the basic skate design. In America, this hobby was most popular, first
between 1935 and the early 1960s and then in the 1970s, when polyurethane wheels were
created and "Disco" oriented roller rinks were the rage and then again in the 1990s when
in-line outdoor roller skating, thanks to the improvement made to in-line roller skates in
1981 by Scott Olson, took hold.
History: 1743: First recorded use of roller skates, in a London stage performance. The
inventor of this skate is unknown.
1760: First recorded skate invention, by John Joseph Merlin, who created a primitive
inline skate with small metal wheels.
Artistic roller skating: Artistic roller skating is a sport which consists of a number of
events. These are usually accomplished on quad skates, but inline skates may be used for
some events. Various flights of events are organized by age and ability/experience. In the
US, local competitions lead to 9 regional competitions which lead to the National
Championships and World Championships.
Ice skating: Ice skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety
of reasons, including exercise, leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs
both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring
bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and rivers.
History: A study by Federico Formenti of the University of Oxford suggests that the
earliest ice skating happened in southern Finland more than 3,000 years ago. Originally,
skates were merely sharpened, flattened bone strapped to the bottom of the foot. Skaters
did not actually skate on the ice, but rather glided on top of it. True skating emerged when
a steel blade with sharpened edges was used. Skates now cut into the ice instead of
gliding on top of it. Adding edges to ice skates was invented by the Dutch in the 13th or
14th century. These ice skates were made of steel, with sharpened edges on the bottom to
aid movement. The construction of modern ice skates has stayed largely the same since
then.