I took it upon myself to research the History of my beloved Hula Hoop. I created a timeline with the best of the information I found. If you're also a hooper, you may find it also equally interesting, so Enjoy!

-Amy Blaze

The hula hoop is an ancient invention - no modern company and no single inventor can claim that they invented the first hula hoop. Hula hooping has been a type of exercise and play since 500 BCE to the 21st century.

~QUICK FACTS (WHAM-O)~

Invention:

Hula-Hoop®

Function:

noun / brand name / Tradeamark WHAM-O Inc

Definition:

A light multi-colored plastic hoop that is whirled around the body for play or exercise by the movement of the hips. More than 100 million Hula Hoop's in the first twelve months on the market

Trademark:

Registration No. 0739307 issued October 16, 1962

Inventor:

Arthur K. Melin (aka Spud)

Criteria:

First practical. Entrepreneur.

Birth:

December 30, 1924 in Los Angeles, California

Death:

June 28, 2002 in in Costa Mesa, California

Nationality:

American

Inventor:

Richard P. Knerr

Criteria:

First practical. Entrepreneur.

(Interesting to note, Wham-O was not able to patent the hula hoop as it had been in use for thousands of years. Merely using a new material did not meet the requirement of originality to secure a patent. They were, however, able to trademark the name “Hula Hoop” in the United States.)

~HOOP HISTORY~

■BC 1000 Egypt children played with large hoops of willow, rattan stiff grasses and dried grapevines.

■The Greeks used hooping as a form of exercise.
(The Hoop Dancer, La Joueuse de cerceau, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1891

Gérôme had his first success as a painter at the Salon of 1847. Six years earlier, he had left his native city of Vesoul to study in Paris. Gérôme’s The Hoop Dancer and related works were inspired by terra cotta figurines discovered in the ancient Greek city of Tanagra. These Tanagra Figurines were unearthed between the 1860’s and 1870’s and are dated between the 1st and 3rd centuries B.C. According to the Musée du Louvre in Paris.)

■During the fourteenth century, a "hooping" craze swept England, and was as popular among adults as kids. were later extended to adult audiences and were popular for recreation and religious ceremonies. The records of doctors at the time attribute numerous dislocated backs and heart attacks to "hooping." According to their medical records from that era, doctors treated and encouraged patients with dislocated backs and heart attack victims to use this winding exercise.

■Hoop dancing is a form of storytelling for Native American Indians dating back to the 1400s. With no beginning or end, it symbolizes the never-ending circle of life. In hoop dance, the dancer may use 12-28 hoops to form symbols and figures

■Eskimos rolled hoops and as they spun, attempted to throw poles through their centers. The game was practical as well as fun as it taught children the elements required for harpooning and other hunting.

■The word hula became associated with the toy in the early 1800s when British sailors visited the Hawaiian Islands and noted the similarity between "hooping" and hula dancing.

■In 1957, an Australian company began making wood rings for sale in retail stores.

■1958, The item attracted the attention of Wham-0, a fledgling California toy manufacturer. The next year Richard P. Knerr and Arthur K. Melin, of Wham-O, manufactured a plastic hoop in a variety of bright colors. The Hula-Hoop was an instant success. (Truckloads of hoops were hijacked on their way to stores by crazed consumers. Wham-O sold more than 100 million Hula Hoop's in the first twelve months on the market, and even that wasn't enough to meet the demand.) Dan Rodick, director of sports promotion at Wham-O, has said, "There is no other product that gives me as much fear and respect for the power of mass culture as the hula hoop."

■That's when Billy Joel's song, "We Didn't Start the Fire", referenced the sale of the millionth hula hoop as one of the important events in 1959.
" ...Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go...

We didn't start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world's been turning

We didn't start the fire

No we didn't light it

But we trred to fight it"

■In the late 1950’s, Japan’s nervous officials banned the toy's use in public for fear of mass impropriety.

■Indonesia also banned the public use of hoops because it was not culturally acceptable to shake one's hips in public.

■In Russia the hoops were denounced as an example of the “the emptiness of American culture.”

■The fad died out in the sixties.

■By the mid 60Â’s, hula hoop sales were lagging so Wham-O added several ball bearings inside the tube to make noise. This helped launch a second hooping craze, including a National Hula Hoop Contest that ran from 1968 – 1981.

■The hoop emerged in the world of circus in the 1960s, with Russian and Chinese artists taking it to extremes. These influenced contemporary circus artists like Australian circus comedian and hula hoop historian Judith Lanigan, who performs the Dying Swan — "a tragedy with hula hoops" — using 30 hula hoops.

■In the late 1960’s Wham-o held a national competition to renew the interest in their product and in 1983, the company re-launched the hula hoop a third time in Europe holding competitions in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

■In 1973, KP Snacks produced Hula Hoops, a potato-based snack in the shape of short, hollow cylinders. In 2009, a Hula Hoops advert featured The Village People song '"Y.M.C.A." in the background, as two hands with a couple of Hula Hoops on their fingers danced.

■The 1980 World Hula Hoop Championship was held in more than 2,000 cities with an estimated two million participants.

■In 1994, The Cohen Brothers' fictionalized the invention of the hoop in a film called The Hudscker Proxy.

■During the recent revitalization of the hula hoop, its uses have been extended to serve as an implement for fitness. A multitude of websites have been created as a result of this revival, many of which provide links to hooping clubs, online retailers from which to buy specialized hula hoops, and information on workout routines.

■In 1999, American Ken Kovach sets the Guinness world record for the most revolutions of a hula hoop while jumping on a trampoline.

■In 2000, the world record for simultaneous hula-hooping is achieved at Chung Cheng Stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. 2,290 hula-hoopers keep their hoops going for at least 2 minutes.

■Since 2003, the annual Burning Man festival of arts and freedom in the northern Nevada desert has been a hotbed (literally!) of hooping, providing an uninhibited and clothing-optional forum for hoopers from all around the world to share tricks, techniques, and energy.

■Michael Turvey of the University of Connecticut won the 2004 IgNoble Prize in Physics along with Ramesh Balasurbramaniam of the University of Ottawa for exploring and explaining the dynamics of hula-hooping.

■An International Holiday World Hoop Day has become the hula hoop holiday celebrating the circle around the world. Every year, in numerical sequence starting from 2007-07-07 and continuing through 2012-12-12.

■In 2009, Christabel Zamor, creator of the HoopGirl Workout released a book called Hooping, a Revolutionary Fitness Program, including a DVD.

■Many modern hoopers make their own hoops out of polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, high-density polypropylene, or polypropylene tubing. The polyethylene hoops, and especially the polyvinyl chloride hoops, are much larger and heavier than hoops of the 1950s.

■Within the past few years, some hoopers have taken up fire hooping, in which spokes are set into the outside of the hoop and tipped with kevlar wicks, which are soaked in fuel and lit on fire.
A vase in the Louvre [dated 500-490 BCE] shows Ganymede rolling a hoop. However, there is no evidence that hooping was part of the early Olympics.
• In 1973, KP Snacks produced Hula Hoops, a potato-based snack in the shape of short, hollow cylinders. In 2009, a Hula Hoops advert featured The Village People song '"Y.M.C.A." in the background, as two hands with a couple of Hula Hoops on their fingers danced.
The Hoop Dancer, La Joueuse de cerceau, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1891 Gérôme had his first success as a painter at the Salon of 1847. Six years earlier, he had left his native city of Vesoul to study in Paris. Gérôme’s The Hoop Dancer and related works were inspired by terra cotta figurines discovered in the ancient Greek city of Tanagra. These Tanagra Figurines were unearthed between the 1860’s and 1870’s and are dated between the 1st and 3rd centuries B.C. According to the Musée du Louvre in Paris.