Ping pong was first played in england in the 1880's. People would play ping pong after dinner. Middle and upper class families would turn there dinner tables into miniature versions of tennis. Many different objects where used to play such as books for the net and lids of cigar boxes for paddles and either a rubber string or champagne cork. On april 6th, 1971, the US table tennis team was invited to an all epenses paid trip to play in china. Four days later, nine players , four officials and two spouses crossed the boreder from hong kong to the chinese main land. They were the first group of Americans to be allowed into the country since the communist take-over in 1949.One of the first signs during the Cold war of improved relations between the United States and China, Time magazine called it "the pong heard throughout the world." It was then followed with a visit to China by President Nixon.
Also around this time, the sport spread to other European countries and to the United States. Asian countries like China, Korea and Japan are understood to have learned about it from British Army officers who held posts in those places. There was an unofficial world championship held in 1901, but the first official world championship was held in London in 1927 by the International Table Tennis Federation. The ITTF was founded in Berlin in 1926 by England, Sweden, Hungary, India, Denmark, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Wales.
Although it may seem today that the sport, in the professional realm, is dominated by Asian countries like China and Korea, it wasn’t always that way. Before the late 1950’s and early 60’s, European players from Hungary especially, but also from France and Sweden seemed without competition. But in 1952, Japanese player Horoi Satoh introduced the foam rubber paddle. The paddle made the game faster and spinning the ball became an even greater factor. Japan became the main winner in the world competitions in 1960, and by the mid 1960's China took over the reigns through to the early 1980's. Their absolute domination of the sport was finally subdued with the entering of table tennis into the Olympic Games in 1988 and the participation of players from Korea and Sweden.
