Hula Hoop and when it was invented

Hula Hoop History

The Hula hoop is a colored plastic ring which is whirled around the body for exercise or play by moving the hips. From a toy, entertaining children, the Hula Hoop turned from a rolling bamboo circle into a spinning around the waist hoop. In the 21st century it revived as a new-age entertainment fitness hula hoops exercise, amusing people of all ages. 

• The Hula Hoop was not a fad of the 1950s. Actually people of the ancient world were doing the same thing using hoops made from stiff grasses and grape vines. 
• The children in Egypt, more than three thousand years ago, also played with large hoops of dried grapevines. This toy was propelled on the ground with a stick and was also swung at the waist. 
• The hoping craze swept England during the fourteenth century and the hula hoop became popular among adults and kids. Numerous dislocated backs, heart attacks to "hooping" found place in doctors’ records at that time. 
• In the early 1800s the British sailors visited  Hawaiian Islands and noticed similarity between hooping and the hula dance. This way the word hula was associated with the ring. 
• An australian company began to produce wood rings in 1957. The toy manufacturer Wham-O from California was attracted by the new items. Arthur K. Melin and Richard P. Knerr manufactured of Wham-O plastic hoop in variety of bright colors. 
• In 1958, Knerr and Melin promoted it on Southern California playgrounds, doing demonstrations and giving away hoops to learn children play. Their persistense turned the Hula Hoop into the most famous fad the country had seen. In four months about twenty-five million hula hoops were sold! Introduced in 1958, the Hula Hoop made the two inventors very rich. Although the fad died out in the sixties, thanks to the fitness craze the Hula Hoops are very much with us again.