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The history of Billiards is rather vague and obscure. Many sources point to the 15th and 16th century, where the game was already played.
Some claim that the game originated in China and made it's way to Europe, where it was mostly played in France and Britain. Both Louis XI and Louis XIV were allegedly avid players. Hence the game was reserved for the rich, mostly due to the costs of the equipment needed.
Looking at the game itself, one does notice certain smiliarities to various other games that utilise some sort of cue-ball (or other device) in order to hit other objects. It is likely that the game was some sort of indoor version of Cricket, or perhaps Boule both popular games in Britain and France.
If it evolved from a different game, then it was likely a lawn game similar to the croquet played sometime during the 15th century in Northern Europe and probably in France. The game was moved indoors, with the green cloth representing the lawn. There is still some dispute about other games like bowling, which allegedly had croquet as a common ancestor.
The balls were shoved, rather than struck, with wooden sticks called maces, which looked much like wooden hammers with a long shaft; The term billiard is likely derived from French, either from the word billart, one of the wooden sticks, or bille, a ball.
The game was originally played with two balls on a six-pocket table with a hoop similar to a croquet wicket and an upright stick used as a target. During the 18th century, the hoop and target gradually disappeared, leaving only the balls and pockets. The number of balls also increased from the original 3 to the 22 in Snooker - the Britman's Baseball, as some call it.
The information we do posess derives from accounts of nobles and aristocrats, even though the game was played by commoners aswell, hence the expression "The Noble game of Billards".
In 1600, the game was familiar enough to the public that Shakespeare mentioned it in Antony and Cleopatra. Seventy-five years later, the first book of billiard rules remarked of England that there were "few Towns of note therein which hath not a publick Billiard-Table."
The cue stick was developed in the late 1600's, maybe some time later. When the ball lay near a rail, the mace was very inconvenient to use because of its large head. In such a case, the players would turn the mace around and use its handle to strike the ball. The handle was called a 'queue' -meaning 'tail' -from which we get the word 'cue'. Mostly for reasons of convenience the technique of hitting the ball with the cueue was adopted and the head of the mace was preplaced by an ornate handle, later vanished completely. For a long time only men were allowed to use the cue; women were forced to use the mace because it was felt they were more likely to rip the cloth with the sharper cue.
In former times the balls were made of ivory and for a whole set of balls up to 12 elephants had to be killed in order to obtain the needed ivory. In modern times the balls are usually made out of sturdy plastic (phenolic resin) and 80% are manufactured by one single company in Belgium.
1735 the billiard cue is invented.
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