History
Camel fighting originated among ancient Turkic tribes over 2,400 years ago. Camels also wrestle in the wild, so the practice occurred before it was first organized by nomads. During the 1850s an American military officer was inspired by the popularity of Camel Wrestling in the Middle East and set out to establish a Camel Wrestling tournament in Texas. He was unsuccessful, however, due in part to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. In the 1920s the Turkish National Aviation league has held Camel fights as fundraisers in order to purchase planes for the Government of Turkey. The government of Turkey began discouraging the practice in the 1920s, however, characterizing it as too backwards of a practice. In the 1980s the new government of Turkey began encouraging the competitions as part of Turkey's historic culture. Camel wrestling was also a popular event at the Lahore Horse and Cattle show, but it was excluded from the program during the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1961 as it was deemed "too fierce" for the Queen.
Read more about this topic: Camel Wrestling
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)