History of darts

The first 200 words of this essay...

Darts have been used as far back as man can remember where flint-pointed darts were used for hunting wild game.

The first recorded game being played in Dartford, hence the name.

The dartboard has a distinct resemblance to the cross section of a tree trunk and the old term used for the first type of dartboard was butt, because the bottom of wine barrels or butts were used. It probably stems from the french word of butte meaning target.

The game was established in England back in the Middle Ages at a time when soldiers used the bottom of wine barrels to throw short arrows at, seeing who could get closest to the bung.

As usual some genius (there's always one around somewhere) came up with the idea of using a cross-section of a tree, the rings on it making it easier to determine who was closest to the middle.

In 1530 Anne Boleyn presented Henry VIII with a set of ornate darts showing that the game had become more widespread during the medieval period.

In 1844 there was a version of darts called Puff and Dart where a blowpipe was used to fire