In the 1950s, surfing1 had
taken off in America. But there was one problem with waiting for the perfect wave—sometimes it just wouldn't come. On days when the ocean was flat, surfers still
longed for the feeling of riding on top of the water. Eventually, a surfer took the wheels off of a pair of roller skates2 and
attached four of them to his surfboard. While it wasn't perfect, this was the beginning of what would later be known as skateboarding3.
By the 1960s, makers were producing skateboards and sold 50 million of them in just three years. Soon, some experts claimed that skateboards were unsafe, which caused sales to slow. In the 1970s, though, with the invention of a kick tail4 and new
material for the wheels, skateboarding started becoming popular again. Skate parks were
constructed and many new tricks were developed during this time. However, it wasn't until the 1980s and 1990s that skateboarding became a mainstream5 sport. Skaters were doing amazing tricks in big
competitions that were
attended by thousands of people. Skateboarding is now a sport that
captures people's
attention worldwide, all thanks to the cleverness of one surfer who got tired of waiting for waves.
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