Did King Tut play tenpin? It’s quite possible, because bowling is one of the world’s oldest known sports. The first recorded evidence of the basic equipment, was found in a pyramid from around 5,000B.C. It consisted of a ball and set of marble bars that appeared to be the accompanying pins, in case the pharaoh had some spare time in the afterlife.

In more modern times, or around 1200A.D., bowling for pins became popular in England, but it was strictly an outdoor sport. It would be at least another two centuries before the game moved indoors. The Brits still have lawn bowling, as well as other bowling related games such as skittles, nine pins and half-bowls.

In Europe, the game was first played with nine pins, and was carried to America with Dutch settlers, in that format. Not only did it become popular, it got to be a betting sport, and that propensity for wagering, is what caused the game to become "tenpin", according to popular legend. In 1840, the Connecticut legislature outlawed nine pins, due to excessive gambling on the outcome of games. Savvy players solved the minor problem by adding a tenth pin.

But they’d still be picking up those pins and setting them by hand, for another hundred years, until the invention of an automatic pinspotter in the 1940s.

Bowling remains such a popular sport today, that you’ll find one of the world’s largest bowling alleys in the Showboat Hotel, Las Vegas. It boasts 106 lanes. The former king of bowling, the now closed, was the Tokyo World Bowling Lanes Center in Japan, which had an unbelievable 252 lanes in one facility.