User: Please give me a summary of the text on the origins of skateboarding.
Assistant: Sidewalk surfing, known today as skateboarding, originated in the late 1940s out of the desire of California surfers hoping to still ride when waves were flat. By the 1960s, a small number of surfing manufacturers began selling skateboards hoping to bring more attention to the sport. Skateboarding began to rapidly increase in popularity in the 1970s due to improvements to the design elements and materials used on the boards.