Badminton is a sport for two or four people.

The game is either one player

against one player or a team of two players against another team of two
players. The players use rackets to hit a shuttlecock over a net.

A badminton-like game was known in ancient Greece and Egypt – a game

called battledore and shuttlecock – in which two players hit a feathered
shuttlecock back and forth with tiny rackets.

The game was played in India during the 18th Century, at which time it was
called “Poona” . In the 1860s it was adopted by British Army officers
stationed in India. The officers took the game back to England, where it
became a success at a party given by the Duke of Beaufort in 1873 at his
estate called “Badminton” in Gloucestershire.

In 1877, the newly formed Bath Badminton Club arranged the first set of
written rules. In 1899, the All England Open Badminton Championships, the
first badminton competition in the world, was held. Since 1992, Badminton
has been an Olympic sport. The first was in the 1992 Summer
Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

Although badminton originated in England, it is mainly played in countries of

Asia such as China, Indonesia and the Republic of Korea that now dominates
this sport.
References:

Author: Robert Wood, First Published: 2008, Page Title: Badminton History,
Website Name: Topend Sports, Access Date (today): Thu Nov 23 2017
17:11:05 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time), Webpage URL:
http://www.topendsports.com/sport/badminton/history.htm