History of juggling

__NOTOC__
*21st century BChttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baqet_III — The earliest known record of jugglinghttps://sites.google.com/bc.edu/arthur-lewbel/history-of-juggling is a painting on the wall of the 15th Beni Hasan tomb in Egypt, depicting three womenhttps://www.facebook.com/sean.gandini/posts/pfbid0BzdCwb2dNpEi898vDhwsMzfnm4rT3cCvcyTxiaXKoSJWP2FTjG9Y2FBuW8C9MGzjl?comment_id=10158084946660410&reply_comment_id=10158087067490410 juggling balls.
*c. 603 BC — Chinese warrior Xiong Yiliao is one of the earliest known individual jugglers. He is said to have helped win a battle by distracting the enemy with 9 ball juggling.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggling_in_ancient_China
* 6th century BC — The earliest known record of juggling with club-like objects is in the Liezi, possibly written in the 5th century BC. It describes a man called Lanzi (possibly a general term for traveling performers) juggling 7 swords for a ruler who reigned 531-517 BC in China.https://www.juggle.org/pre-club-juggling-with-linear-props/
*5th-3rd centuries BC — Performing jugglers are commonly mentioned and depicted in ancient Greek writings and art.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_juggling#Ancient_Greece Xenophon's Symposium, set in 422 BC and written in the 360s BC, describes a (probably fictional) girl juggling 12 hoops while dancing.https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1181
*10 BC - 70 AD — The life of Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel. The Talmud mentions him juggling 8 torches,https://www.sefaria.org/Sukkah.53a?lang=enhttps://www.juggler.co.il/jews/Raphael.htm which is the earliest known record of torch juggling.
*1st-5th centuries AD — Juggling is featured in ancient Roman writings and art.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_juggling#Roman_Empire Sidonius Apollinaris entertained troops with juggling in the 5th century.http://www.juggling.org/books/alvarez/part1.html
*12th-14th centuries AD — The English words "juggler" and "juggling" (and older forms of those words) were originally used much more broadly than today. Some other languages also lacked a specific word for what we would now call a juggler, since performers didn't tend to specialize until the invention of the modern circus. The Middle English noun iugulere (which became "juggler") was first used around 1100, referring to performers and entertainers in general.https://web.archive.org/web/20180823190418/http://objectepisodes.com/t/the-definition-of-juggling/407?page=18 #349https://www.juggle.org/object-episodes-2/ (1:07:45) It was derived primarily from an Old English word for a magician or conjurer, and also from a French word for a performer, and a Latin word for a joker.https://www.etymonline.com/word/juggler#etymonline_v_6535 The Middle English verb jogelen (which became "juggle") wasn't used until the late 14th century. Doing magic tricks was one of the main things that were called "juggling"https://www.etymonline.com/word/juggle#etymonline_v_35241 until the late 19th century.
*Pre-Columbian era — Several Indigenous tribes in the Americas have been known to juggle recreationally, and seem to have been doing so since before Europeans came there. Juggling in the Americas was traditionally mostly done by women. They juggled in both the cascade and the shower patterns, with up to 5 stones, as well as having joggling contests.http://www.juggling.org/museum/ethnography/inuit.htmlhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/533102?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contentshttp://www.juggling.org/museum/ethnography/native-american.html
*1770 — Philip Astley hires the first circus jugglers.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/2929565.stm Astley was an English equestrian, and was the creator of the first circus (besides ancient Roman “circuses”, which were more focused on fights and other competitive events).
*1773 — The earliest recorded mention of Hiko,https://archive.org/details/b30413849_0001/page/472/mode/2uphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_juggling#Other_Cultures a traditional game for girlshttps://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-06-14-tr-7125-story.html in Tonga that involves juggling fruits or nuts in the shower pattern.https://www.juggle.org/polynesian-juggling-goddesses-of-tonga/ Showering 5 or 6 objects was commonplace in Tonga in the past.https://web.archive.org/web/20151223235530/http://www.kaskade.de/fileadmin/downloadarchiv/45-112/Kaskade_051_1998_3.pdf There is video evidence of Tongan women showering 7, and reports of even higher numbers.https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/1VUFylltK_U/m/IlnUThIGKEEJ Similar activities exist elsewhere in the Pacific Islands.
==19th century==
* 1830s-1880s — The rise of live variety shows, featuring a series of short unrelated acts. These were one of the most popular forms of entertainment for decades, beginning with music hall entertainment in England.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_hall Vaudeville, a family-friendly form of variety theater, was developed in the 1860s. Vaudeville became very popular in North America in the early 1880s,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaudeville around the time it adopted a format where the same series of acts were repeated continuously throughout the day, so people could start watching the show at any time they wanted and leave when they had seen it all.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin_Keithhttp://www.juggling.org/jw/87/2/vaudeville.html By the end of the 19th century, most jugglers were working in either circuses or variety theaters, which made it easier for them to specialize since they didn't have to perform a whole show on their own.http://www.juggling.org/books/artists/history.html
*1870s — American club swinger James DeWitt Cookhttps://www.juggle.org/the-history-of-6-club-juggling/ is the first person to juggle 3 clubs. (Jugglers had been using other linear props such as sticks, torches, and knives for thousands of years before this, but not clubs.) The first club juggling was done with wooden Indian clubs, which were normally used as exercise equipment, and were generally very heavy.https://www.juggle.org/the-development-of-the-juggling-club-part-1/
*1876-1912https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/juggling-genius-paul-cinquevalli-180964874/https://web.archive.org/web/20121009174020/http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/people-pages/paul-cinquevalli — Paul Cinquevalli's juggling career. Born in Prussia, Cinquevalli was an international celebrity, the most famous juggler of all time.https://www.juggle.org/juggling-tricks-with-coins/https://www.juggle.org/common-juggling-misconceptions/https://www.juggle.org/object-episodes-2/ (1:15:16) He performed tricks using ordinary household items, which would later become associated with the "gentleman juggler" genre, though Cinquevalli isn't always considered a gentleman juggler himself, since he was also known for performing strongman juggling tricks using other kinds of props,https://www.juggle.org/juggling-firsts-part-three-rings-hoops-and-miscellaneous/ and he didn't wear the formal attire that later gentleman jugglers would wear.https://vaudeville.sites.arizona.edu/2023/03/28/juggling-and-jugglers-by-emilio-rodriguez-alvarez/ Before Cinquevalli, magic tricks were included in what people called "juggling", but Cinquevalli considered juggling to be distinct from conjuring,http://www.juggling.org/fame/cinquevalli/https://web.archive.org/web/20180823190418/http://objectepisodes.com/t/the-definition-of-juggling/407?page=18 #349 and he was famous enough that his definition of juggling caught on.https://www.juggle.org/object-episodes-2/ (1:12:59)https://www.facebook.com/arthur.lewbel/posts/pfbid0hSMRRstgmL12fDGEo2qJxptnFVBatSp8p9fMvZpKCysFy2BRXVfsYxEAqSLq4RzXl
*c. 1880https://indianclubs.com.au/indian-clubs/indian-clubs-history/indian-clubs-v-juggling-pins/ — American club swinger Charles Hoey is the first person to juggle 4 Indian clubs.http://www.juggling.org/jb/jb20.html
*c. 1886 — The Devine Brothers and Rogers and Rourke (both from Massachusetts, USA) are the first duos to pass 6 clubs.https://www.juggle.org/ask-david-february-2021/
*1887-1888 — The first known bounce jugglers were American juggler William Everhart, who is believed to have first performed bounce juggling in 1887, and Russian juggler L. A. Street, who is believed to have first performed bounce juggling in 1888.https://www.juggle.org/updates-of-david-cains-past-articles/ Street could force bounce 7 rubber balls off a horizontal platform.https://www.juggle.org/the-origins-of-ball-bounce-juggling/
*1892 — German juggler Michael "Kara" Steiner creates the "gentleman juggler" performance genre,https://www.juggle.org/the-salerno-candle-the-journey-of-a-single-amazing-juggling-prop/ where a formally dressed juggler does tricks primarily using ordinary objects that would commonly be found in a Victorian gentleman's home.http://www.juggling.org/books/alvarez/part4.htmlhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/JugglingHome/permalink/2935335466691050/
*1895 — The first known film of juggling shows Sylvester Schäffer from Austria (also known as Paul Petras) juggling two balls and a hat.https://www.juggle.org/oldest-known-films-juggling-1896-1925/https://web.archive.org/web/20161025100421/http://objectepisodes.com/t/regarding-the-film-of-paul-petras/227https://tangiblemediacollection.com/artifacts/skladanowsky-bioscop.htmlhttps://www.juggle.org/sylvester-george-schaffer-the-most-virtuous-icarian-juggler/
*1895 — American juggler Edward Van Wyck is the first person to manufacture and sell clubs made specifically for juggling. Van Wyck clubs were made of wood, but their hollow three-piece designhttps://historicaljugglingprops.com/innovative-and-rare-juggling-clubs-1895-1969/ made them lighter than any kind of Indian club, including hollow "exhibition clubs". They were also more consistently well-balanced and sturdy than Indian clubs.https://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/39-2/39-2,p54.htm
*1890s — American juggler Morris Cronin is the first person to do body throws between the legs.https://www.juggle.org/juggling-trivia-contest-1-the-answers-and-results/ He did both the front-to-back and the back-to-front version of these throws with clubs,http://www.juggling.org/jb/jb38.html but it's not known whether he did them continuously with both hands. The first person definitely known to have done continuous body throws is Rudy Horn.
==20th century==
===1900s===
*1901 — Scottish juggler Will Hanvarr is the first person known to have juggled 5 clubs. (There are a few other people who may have done it a few years earlier, but the reports of those are ambiguous or unlikely.)https://www.juggle.org/who-was-the-first-five-club-juggler/
* 1901 — The earliest known use of the term "shower" to mean juggling in a circle is in the booklet New Juggling Tricks by English magician Ellis Stanyon.https://www.juggle.org/ask-david-january-2021/
*1903 — Severus Schaffer from Austria is the first known 6 plate juggler.https://www.juggle.org/numbers-juggling-with-plates-and-discs/
*1904 — The latest possible date for the writing of The Art Of Modern Juggling by Australian juggler Thomas "Anglo" Horton. This was the first full-length book about juggling,https://www.juggle.org/anglo-juggler-author-and-murderer/ and it includes the earliest known record of jugglers using flat rings, as opposed to round-gripped rings, hoops, or plates.https://www.juggle.org/unanswered-juggling-history-questions-part-1/ Flat rings are easier to control and to hold several in one hand.https://www.juggle.org/the-history-development-and-innovation-of-juggling-rings-updated-and-revised/
*1905 — Frenchhttps://www.bergamodascoprire.it/2019/09/24/enrico-rastelli-bergamasco-il-piu-grande-giocoliere-del-mondo/https://overthinkingdesign.com/2015/05/juggler-pierre-amoros/Historical Dictionary of Vaudeville juggler Pierre Amoros is the first person known to have juggled 9 balls.https://www.juggle.org/juggling-firsts-part-one-balls-and-ball-bouncing/
*1905-1907 — French engineer Gustave Phillippart and English athlete C. B. Fry design, name, and popularize the modern diabolo.https://www.juggle.org/c-b-fry-gustave-philippart-and-the-origins-of-modern-diabolo/ The diabolo is derived from the Chinese yo-yo, which has existed at least since the 17th century.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabolo
*1906 — American juggler Frank Le Denthttps://www.juggle.org/frank-le-dent-the-almost-forgotten-juggling-legend/ is the first person known to have flashed 10 balls.
*1907 — Frank Le Dent is the first person to flash 11 balls, according to newspaper advertisements and reports from other jugglers who saw him flash (or possibly even qualify) 11 in his act.
*c. 1904-1908 — American juggler Pat McBann is the first person to juggle 6 clubs.
*1908 — Frank Le Dent is the first to juggle 7, 8, and 9 plates.
===1910s-1930s===
*c. 1910 — American juggler John Breen is the first person known to have juggled 7 clubs. He could do about 70 catches.https://www.juggle.org/juggling-firsts-part-two-clubs-sticks-rackets/ (John P. Thomas is reported to have done 7 clubs around 1904, but it's unclear whether he did enough catches.)https://www.juggle.org/the-history-of-7-club-juggling/
*c. 1910 — German juggler Anita Bartling is the first person known to have done 360s while juggling.https://www.juggle.org/ask-david-march-2021/
*1915-1931 — The solo careerhttp://www.juggling.org/books/artists/bios.html of the world-famoushttp://www.juggling.org/fame/rastelli/ Russian-born Italian jugglerhttps://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-enrico-rastelli Enrico Rastelli. Unlike the "gentleman jugglers" who were popular at the time, Rastelli mostly used just three simple types of props: balls, plates/discs, and sticks.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Rastelli His influence led to toss juggling with balls, rings, and clubs being thought of as the central form of juggling (though those weren't the exact types of props Rastelli used, and toss juggling wasn't the only thing he did with his three props).https://www.juggle.org/object-episodes-2/ (1:23:40) Rastelli is reported to have mastered 8 ball and 6 stick juggling,http://www.juggling.org/papers/history-2/index.html#Rastelli and to have flashed 10 balls, 8 or 10 plates, and 8 sticks.http://www.juggling.org/jw/86/4/yesterdays.html
*1920 — German juggler Kathi Gultini is the first person to bounce juggle 8 balls.https://www.juggle.org/kathi-gultini-the-lady-juggler/
*1921 — The first known use of the term "cascade" for the basic asynchronous crossing pattern is in the book Juggling by British juggler Rupert Ingalese. Other names previously used for this pattern included "the shuffle" and "mixing".
*c. 1930 — Bobby May from the US and Béla Kremo from Germany are some of the first jugglers to perform long sequences of different tricks with the same number and type of objects.https://web.archive.org/web/20131113062949/http://www.circopedia.org/B%C3%A9la_Kremo Before this, jugglers would just do the basic pattern with a given number of objects, or maybe do one to three tricks, then move on to the next prop.https://www.juggle.org/object-episodes-2/ (54:58, 1:26:51)
===1940s===
*During and after World War II — Otedama, a traditional game for girls, reaches the peak of its popularity in Japan.http://www.juggling.org/jw/91/4/otedama.html Otedama is a beanbag game that originated elsewhere in Asia.https://www.juggle.org/otedama-japanese-childrens-juggling-game/ There are two different activities that are considered to be forms of Otedama: yosedama, which is similar to jacks, and nagedama, which involves juggling, usually either in a shower pattern or in one hand,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otedama sometimes with as many as 4 or 5 balls.
*1944-1955 — American juggler Roger Montandon publishes the first juggling magazine, the Juggler's Bulletin,http://www.juggling.org/jb/ establishing the beginnings of the juggling community by providing a central platform for jugglers to communicate.https://www.juggle.org/roger-montandon-obituary/http://www.juggling.org/jw/87/2/bulletin.html
*1945 — German juggler Rudy Horn is the first juggler known to have used plastic rings. Most jugglers at the time were using wooden rings, and before that, jugglers had used round-gripped metal rings. Most jugglers started using plastic rings by the 1970s.
*1947 — German juggler Francis Brunn is generally considered the first person to flash 10 rings (though there is one report of another German juggler, Freddy Zay, having juggled 10 rings on a unicycle earlier, in the 1930s).https://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/34-2/34-2,p14.htmhttp://www.juggling.org/help/numbers/records/rings-10.htmlhttps://www.juggle.org/the-greatest-juggling-tricks-of-all-time-part-1/
*1947 — The first known use of the term "fountain" for the basic non-crossing pattern is in the Manual of Juggling by Scottish-born American magician Max Holden. Like the cascade, this pattern was previously sometimes called "the shuffle",https://www.facebook.com/davidcainjuggler/posts/pfbid0fbZoNC72xQGGXMk2D2EKgRZou6huba22iJ92UJ3oHaCTVoK5599PeoQKd9Cf1c4bl?comment_id=10228644686401208 which is now the name of a different pattern.
*1947 — The International Jugglers' Association is founded by Art Jennings and other American jugglers at a magic convention held by the International Brotherhood of Magicians.https://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/39-2/39-2,p5.htmhttps://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/39-2/39-2,p6.htmhttps://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/39-2/39-2,p11.htm The IJA held the first juggling convention the following year.https://dev.juggle.org/history/conventions.phphttps://www.juggle.org/history/
*1949 — American juggler Harry Moll creates the first mass-marketed learn-to-juggle kit, consisting of a set of six rubber balls and an instruction book,https://www.juggle.org/vintage-learn-to-juggle-sets-1949-1976/ popularizing juggling as a hobby.https://www.jugglingedge.com/forum.php?ThreadID=870#Small5950
* 1940s — Bob Dupont is the first juggler known to have done slapbacks.(video)
=== 1950s-1960s ===
*1910s-1950s — The decline of live variety shows. Their audience, as well as many of the performers, switched to new forms of entertainment like cinema, radio, and television.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaudeville#Declinehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_hall#Decline Jugglers were still able to perform on television variety shows, but by the 1970s those disappeared too.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_show#1970s
*c. 1950 — Rudy Horn is the first person known to have done 5 ball backcrosses.
*1950s — Russian juggler Alexander Kiss is the first to do 5 club backcrosses.
*1950s — American circus educator Hovey Burgess is the first person known to have done a 7 ball lift bounce.https://issuu.com/joshbisker/docs/hovey_program_hardcopy_layout_spreahttps://historicaljugglingprops.com/hovey-burgess/
*1962 — The first international juggling competition is held at the Festival Internazionale Dei Giocolieri, based in Italy. The Rastelli Trophy was awarded to the winner of this annual event for several years in the 1960s and 1970s.https://www.juggle.org/obituary-edoardo-raspini/https://www.juggle.org/more-juggling-statues-and-sculptures/
*1963 — Soviet juggler Albert Petrowski is the first person to flash 11 rings, which he performed onstage for several years.
*1964 — American juggler Jay Green creates the now-standard design for juggling clubs, consisting of a wooden dowel, a plastic shell, a cushioned handle, and a foam knob and end cap.https://www.juggle.org/the-development-of-the-juggling-club-part-3/ Some other jugglers were already making similar clubs out of plastic toy bowling pins earlier in the 1960s, but without the cushioned handles and end caps.https://www.juggle.org/a-history-of-the-plastic-toy-bowling-pin-juggling-club/
*1969 — The IJA holds its first competitions.https://web.archive.org/web/20210724043950/https://dev.juggle.org/ija/championships/
===1970s===
*c. 1966-1972 — German-born Russian juggler Sergei Ignatov invents pancake throws.http://www.circopedia.org/Sergei_Ignatovhttps://juggling.tv/581
*1972 — Sergei Ignatov is the first person to do a qualifying run of 9 rings on video. He started by running 7 rings, then taking two more from holsters.
* 1975 — The IJA convention is attended by over a hundred people for the first time. This was also the first IJA convention held in a high-ceilinged gym.https://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/39-2/39-2,p18.htm
*1976 — The United States Twirling Association holds the first competition for 3 batons.http://www.tmhaltom.com/uploads/4/5/3/7/45377649/baton_twirling_timeline.pdfhttps://ustwirling.com/about-usta/past-grand-national-champions/index.htmlhttps://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/39-1/39-1,p14.htm
*1976 — American juggler Dave Finnigan founds Jugglebug, a company that sold low-cost, high-quality, mass-produced juggling equipment as well as his instructional books and videos, and he also establishes the Juggling Institute, a organization that taught millions of people to juggle through school programs.https://renegadesescapades.com/2022/01/29/bellyacres-interns/#comment-381https://www.jugglingedge.com/profile.php?UserID=959https://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/39-2/39-2,p58.htmhttps://www.dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/36-1/36-1,p26.htm
*1978 — The European Juggling Convention is held for the first time. The first EJC was a gathering of eleven IJA members in Europe, organized by English juggler Lynn Thomas as an alternative to traveling to America for the IJA convention.https://web.archive.org/web/20060506081535/http://www.eja.net/en/handbook/Thoughts%2C%20Philosophy%2C%20History/Toby%20Philpott%20on%20Conventions.htmlhttps://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/30-4/30-4,p6.htmhttps://web.archive.org/web/20150626124002/http://www.juggle.org/festival/IJA-EJC-Brighton.shtml Since 1987, the EJC has been the world's largest juggling convention, with attendance in the thousands each year.https://www.eja.net/ejc/list-of-ejcs/
*1978 — Atari releases Super Breakout, the first video game where the player can juggle multiple balls.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakout_(video_game)(video)
*1970s — American mathematician Claude Shannon builds the first juggling machine. It could bounce juggle 3 balls off a drum.http://www.juggling.org/papers/science-1/http://www.juggling.org/help/misc/robots.html(video)
===1980s===
*c. 1980 — The juggling game "Combat" is invented in California,https://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/37-3/37-3,p20.htm possibly by American juggler Edward Jackman.https://www.juggle.org/the-history-of-combat-juggling/
*1981 — Paul Klimek and Don Hatch (both from California, USA) independently invent the juggling notation system now known as siteswap.https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/SHYhB9OYOuM/m/uAxYuqFaqGsJhttps://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/SHYhB9OYOuM/m/c3w0TFo5LKoJ Later in the 1980s, a few other people also independently came up with similar notation systems and/or methods for generating siteswap patterns, including American juggler Bruce Tiemann, who was the first to use the term "siteswap".https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/SHYhB9OYOuM/m/FbhmLpNnhKsJ
*1984 — The IJA holds numbers juggling competitions in the current format for the first time,https://web.archive.org/web/20160407233622/http://dev.juggle.org/ija/championships/1984-las-vegas-nv/https://web.archive.org/web/20230324021941/http://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/36-1/36-1,p6.htm where there are separate competitions for balls, rings, and clubs, and within each of those divisions anyone who successfully juggles a higher number of objects beats everyone who doesn't qualify with that number or higher. These competitions are where the concept of "qualifying" a number of objects comes from.http://www.juggling.org/help/faqs/glossary.htmlhttps://www.facebook.com/arthur.lewbel/posts/10160254604506414?comment_id=10160255694461414
* 1985 — American astronaut Donald E. Williams is the first person to juggle in space.https://dev.juggle.org/history/archives/jugmags/37-2/37-2,p4.htm He juggled 3 fruits in a halfshower using horizontal throws, while in orbit on the Space Shuttle Discovery.(video)
*1986 — The first qualifying run of 7 clubs recorded on video.https://www.facebook.com/groups/1078504258887475/permalink/1603635836374312/?comment_id=1604315599639669https://www.facebook.com/groups/JugglingHome/posts/3676371959254060/?comment_id=3676376985920224&reply_comment_id=3676378239253432 American juggler Anthony Gatto, at the age of 13, juggles 7 clubs for 44 catches in the IJA's numbers juggling competition.https://web.archive.org/web/20171003191029/http://dev.juggle.org/ija/championships/1986-san-jose-ca/
*1988 — American mathematician Allen Knutson writes the first computer program for animating siteswap patterns.http://www.juggling.org/programs/ibm-pc/JugglePro/history.htmlhttps://www.cs.unc.edu/~helser/juggler-0.81/histrefs.html
*1988 — American juggler Tim Nolan is the first person to do a flash of 10 ball bounce juggling.https://books.google.com/books?ei=ji8aU7aZCsTn2wWIpoHoBw&id=lPb45rGVTDEC&dq=guinness+records+1988&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=tim+nolan
*1989 — Anthony Gatto is the first person to juggle 7 clubs for 100 catches or more,(video) and the first to do 8 rings for at least 100 catches on video. This was the year he set the 8 ring world record (over 300 catches) that still stands today.
*1989 — Anthony Gatto is the first person to flash 8 clubs,http://www.juggling.org/jw/90/1/guinness.html(video, video) and the first to flash 11 rings on video.https://web.archive.org/web/19970613223149/http://www.juggling.org/records/records.html
===Early 1990s===
*1991 — Bob Archer from England is the first person to juggle in virtual reality. While working for the VR company W Industries, he made a low-gravity juggling simulation so he could see what it would be like to juggle on the moon.https://web.archive.org/web/20160409074425/http://www.kaskade.de/fileadmin/downloadarchiv/1-44e/028%20e%20Kaskade%201992%20December.pdfhttps://web.archive.org/web/20150820021336/http://www.randomprogramming.com/2015/08/juggling-on-the-moon
*1991 — Scott Huddleston launches rec.juggling, a discussion forum on Usenet (a part of the internet that already existed for about a decade before the World Wide Web was invented). Rec.juggling was the longest-running online juggling forum (active for over 20 years), and was the successor to an email list that had been run by Phil Paxton starting in 1990.http://www.juggling.org/news/http://www.juggling.org/jw/90/4/news.html#network
*1993 — Anthony Gatto is the first person to flash 12 rings on video. (The earliest publicly available video of 12 rings is of Gatto in 2000. The 1993 video is not public, but was verified by JISCON. Albert Lucas may have already done 12 rings back in 1984, but he didn't record it on video until 1996.)
*1994 — American juggler Bruce Sarafian is the first person to qualify 10 balls on video, and the first to flash 11 balls on video. (He may have recorded a flash on video as early as 1992,https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/fTqoOke1rzM/m/dIi-MVfEBAMJhttps://archive.org/details/guinnessbookofre00matt/page/536/mode/2up?q=juggling but the earliest 11 ball record verified by JISCON was in 1994. The earliest publicly available video of 11 balls is from 1995.)
*1994 — American juggler Barry Bakalor creates the Juggling Information Service (JIS) website at www.juggling.org,http://www.juggling.org/jis/https://web.archive.org/web/19990508222014/http://www.hijinks.com/~barry/ providing a central place to find juggling-related information on the internet.
*1994 — Bruce Tiemann names the basic synchronous crossing pattern "the wimpy pattern".https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/wJAP5dPv0d8/m/owErBedueo0J?pli=1https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/M_gKxmmtDIg/m/o42z1wjo1zQJhttps://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/u-1L9MlU4BU/m/XXjhGM-QlF4J
===Late 1990s===
*1996 — Bruce Sarafian is the first person to juggle 8 balls for 100 catches on video,https://www.juggling-records.com/world_record_progression?i=8bo and the first to flash 12 balls.(video)
*1996 — Bruce Tiemann is the first person to flash 9 sticks.(video)
*1996 — English-born American juggler Albert Lucas is the first person to qualify 10 rings on video,https://www.juggling-records.com/world_record_progression?i=10ro which he did during the IJA numbers juggling competition.https://web.archive.org/web/20171003182515/http://dev.juggle.org/ija/championships/1996-rapid-city-sd/
*1997 — The JIS Committee on Numbers Juggling (known as JISCON) starts keeping an online list of official juggling world records on the Juggling Information Service website. They continued to update the record list until 2012. JISCON listed records in terms of catches or time, for each of various numbers of objects, only accepting records with video evidence.http://www.juggling.org/records/press-release.html Previously the only organizations tracking juggling world records were the IJA, which only listed records set in competition, and Guinness World Records, which only listed records in terms of the number of objects juggled without specifying the number of catches, and which didn't always strictly require video evidence.http://www.juggling.org/records/FAQ.html
*1999 — American juggler David Critchfield creates The Bounce Page, a website that provided information about bounce juggling, including an official world record list, until the site went offline in 2013.
===2000=== 
*April — Anthony Gatto is the first person to juggle 9 balls for 100 catches.https://www.juggling-records.com/world_record_progression?i=9bo(video)
==21st century==
===Early aughts===
*2001 — British juggler Colin Eberhardt creates the Internet Juggling Database (IJDb) website at jugglingdb.com,https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/4J6FpF7v5iU/m/pv7mEsFNQUAJ another online resource for juggling-related information. The site included a web interface to the rec.juggling Usenet forum, and it became the most common way to access that forum until the IJDb shut down in 2012,https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/jQRnfLe5hvc/m/CHSP94-SiV4J after which people mostly stopped using rec.juggling. The IJDb also included the original JuggleWiki, which was started by Scott Dossey in 2001,https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/k133VrSLl2U/m/o5HpPP7cDN4Jhttps://web.archive.org/web/20060822122336/http://www.jugglingdb.com/compendium/geek/ijdboneyear.html and was later moved to a separate site that was run by Jack Boyce from 2008 to 2011. 
*2001 — Anthony Gatto is the first person to juggle 9 rings for 100 catches on video.https://www.juggling-records.com/world_record_progression?i=9ro
*2001 — Tim Nolan is the first person to flash an 8 ball force bounce on video.https://web.archive.org/web/20040806064923/http://www.bouncepage.com:80/records.htm (The video was downloadable from The Bounce Page at the time, but is no longer available.) He is also the first known person to flash a 9 ball force bounce, but not on video.https://web.archive.org/web/20021211041242/http://www.bouncepage.com/records.htm
*2002 — Albert Lucas is the first person to flash 13 rings. The video was verified by JISCONhttp://www.juggling.org/records/records.html and shown to jugglers at the IJA festival that year,https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/MkUy-vnrioI but was not made available to the general public until 2024, after Ukrainian juggler Daniel Lysenko posted a video of his own 13 ring flash.https://www.juggle.org/the-first-public-video-of-albert-lucas-historic-13-ring-flash/
*2003 — Steve Healey creates the Juggling Records Database (JRDb) at bogleg.com,https://web.archive.org/web/20060712004153/http://bogleg.com/jag/new.htmlhttps://web.archive.org/web/20060829190121/http://www.jugglingdb.com/records/index.php the first website that allowed users to publicly list and compare their personal juggling records. (Benjamin Schoenberg had made a section of the JIS website that listed people's personal numbers juggling records in 1995,https://web.archive.org/web/20210513154152/https://www.juggling.org/help/numbers/records/ but visitors to the site couldn't directly contribute to it, and it never got updated.) When the original JRDb site went down in 2006, Colin Eberhardt took over the records database project and moved it to the IJDb website.https://web.archive.org/web/20071014020414/http://www.bogleg.com:80/records/index.phphttps://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/3IYc0k67-2Y/m/4IjPQymVFLkJhttps://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/JRjJfu_yvBo/m/VRU4itiO7sQJhttps://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/3pdwwH7hvT8/m/Jn-NcCm8_HMJhttps://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/9C6BlbZhmRA/m/7i9yW_pi4dIJ The Juggling Edge records section and Juggling-Records.com were made to replace the IJDb record database when the IJDb shut down in 2012.https://web.archive.org/web/20120606201030/http://www.jugglingdb.com/index.phphttps://web.archive.org/web/20120629063612/http://www.jugglingedge.com/records.phphttps://web.archive.org/web/20121026015650/http://juggling-records.com/
*2003 — Japanese juggler Ryo Yabe is the first person to do 4 diabolos for 100 catches.https://www.diabolofocus.com/record-history?number=4+high
*2003 — British juggler Luke Burrage compiles the first annual Top 40 Jugglers list based on an online poll of jugglers voting for their favorite jugglers. Rec.juggling is where both the polls and the results were posted for the first few years.https://lukeburrage.com/blog/archives/1643
===Mid-aughts===
*2004 — Czech juggler Alan Sulc, at the age of 13, is the first person to qualify an 8 ball force bounce on video.
*2004 — Canadian juggler Emile Carey is the first person to do a 7 ball force bounce for 100 catches on video. (The video was downloadable from The Bounce Page at the time, but is no longer available.)
*2004 — Israeli juggler Eden Zak is the first person to flash a 9 ball force bounce on video.https://web.archive.org/web/20041015005153/http://www.bouncepage.com:80/records.htm (The video was downloadable from The Bounce Page at the time, but is no longer available.)
*2004 — The World Juggling Federation, founded by American juggler Jason Garfield to promote juggling as a sport, holds its first convention, with competitions that aired on ESPN2.https://www.thewjf.com/about/https://www.thewjf.com/past-events/
*2005 — Eden Zak is the first person to qualify a 10 ball bounce.https://web.archive.org/web/20050306143324/http://www.bouncepage.com:80/records.htm(video)
*2005 — YouTube is launched,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube leading to an increase in technical skill among jugglers as they were now able to see what was possible,https://www.juggle.org/40-years-of-change-in-the-juggling-world-part-1/ to study videos of high-level jugglers doing the tricks they wanted to learn any time they wanted,https://www.juggle.org/how-time-flies-when-5-clubs-7-balls-went-from-rare-to-commonplace/ and to show off tricks too hard to perform live, which they might otherwise have no reason to work on.https://www.facebook.com/arthur.lewbel/posts/10157148154496414?comment_id=10157148260801414&reply_comment_id=10157148400586414
*2005 — Luke Burrage creates the first user-editable wiki page listing juggling world records, at Wikipedia.https://forum.frontrowcrew.com/discussion/7492/this-shit-just-got-real-juggling-world-recordshttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juggling_world_records&oldid=13630065https://lukeburrage.com/archive/juggling/njgreen.html This list allows records that are not officially verified by any world record organizations, if there is publicly available video evidence of those records. It expands beyond the record categories tracked by JISCON and the Bounce Page by including records for lower numbers of objects and records for ball and ring passing, but it doesn't include records for tricks as opposed to basic patterns.
*2006 — Anthony Gatto is the first person to qualify 8 clubs.(video)
*2006 — Alan Sulc is the first person to do an 8 ball force bounce for 100 catches on video.https://web.archive.org/web/20061207214921/http://www.bouncepage.com:80/records.htm
===Late aughts===
Vova and Olga Galchenko|thumb|320px
*2008 — Alan Sulc is the first person to qualify a 9 ball force bounce.https://web.archive.org/web/20090420132528/http://www.bouncepage.com:80/records.htm(video)
*2008 — Alan Sulc is the first to flash a 10 ball force bounce, and the first to flash a 12 ball force bounce.(video)
===2010s-2020s===
*2011 — Belarusian juggler Pavel Evsukevich creates JugglingRock, formerly the biggest juggling community on Facebook.https://www.facebook.com/groups/JugglingRock/about The current largest juggling Facebook group is Juggling Home, which was started in 2014.https://www.facebook.com/groups/JugglingHome/about
*2011 — American juggler Richard Kohut starts the current Juggle Wiki on the wiki hosting platform Wikia (now called Fandom), replacing the defunct JuggleWiki that was originally part of the IJDb website.https://groups.google.com/g/rec.juggling/c/0Y9UcqP5zqE/m/geNYxzIsoYcJ
*2011 — English juggler Alex Barron is the first person to flash 13 balls on video.https://www.juggling-records.com/world_record_progression?i=13bo
* 2012 — Alex Barron is the first person to qualify 11 balls on video.
*2013 — Swedish juggler Emil Dahl is the first person to flash 9 clubs (as opposed to sticks) on video.
* 2014 — Eden Zak is the first person to do an 11 ball bounce for at least a flash on video.
* 2017 — Alex Barron is the first person to flash 14 balls.https://www.juggling-records.com/world_record_progression?i=14bo(video)
* 2022 — Alan Sulc is the first person to do a 9 ball force bounce for 100 catches.(video)
== See also ==
* History category on Juggle Wiki
* Misconceptions about juggling - Includes a section on history
== External links ==
* History of juggling on Wikipedia
* The Museum of Juggling at JIS
* The Museum of Juggling History
* Opinion/theory/history articles on eJuggle
* Juggling history books by David Cain
* Juggling, The Past and Future by Karl-Heinz Ziethen
* Juggling: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages by Thom Wall
==References==
Category:History
Category:Lists