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NARRATOR: In recent
history, skateboarding

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has become a pop
culture phenomenon.

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You see it in everything,
from TV advertisements

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to fashion shows.

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And for the first time
ever, skateboarding

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will be introduced in
the 2020 Summer Olympics.

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But, skateboarding
hasn't always had

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the mass appeal you see today.

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Sometime in the late
1940s or early 1950s,

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skateboarding was born out
of the boredom of surfers

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when the waves were no good.

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They would remove the
wheels from roller skates

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and attach them to pieces of
wood to create a skateboard.

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By the 1960s,
skateboarding's popularity

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had grown with the
rise of surf culture.

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Contests were held all over,
and the first sponsored

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skateboarders were
beginning to emerge.

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However, the popularity
of skating in the '60s

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dropped just as fast as it rose.

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The 1970s brought along one
of the most important changes

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for the skateboarding world,
the advent of the urethane

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wheel, which allowed
skaters to ride

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faster and over rougher types
of ground than ever before.

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In 1976, a horrible drought
in Southern California

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forced most homeowners with
backyard swimming pools

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to drain them, giving way to
the birthplace of pool skating.

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This was the first
major shift in how

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people rode their skateboards.

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No longer were they limited
to the abysmal, flat grounds

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of parking lots and sidewalks.

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The 1980s were a time of
renaissance in skateboarding.

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People were constantly
inventing new tricks,

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pros were earning unheard
of amounts of money,

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and skateboarder-owned
companies were thriving.

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The favorable terrain for
most of this era was vert.

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And even though there was a high
level of progression occurring,

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to the untrained
eye, skateboarding

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had gone stale
and the popularity

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once again fell flat.

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This lull in skateboarding
led to the introduction

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of street skating, which
brings us into the 1990s.

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Skating during this era
was at its most raw.

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Skaters took to the streets
to find new terrain,

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abandoning traditional
skate parks

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for something that
felt more natural

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and could be done
anywhere, by anyone.

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This meant skating things
that occur almost anywhere,

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like sets of stairs, handrails,
benches, curbs, and just about

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anywhere four wheels can roll.

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From there, skateboarding has
been on a nonstop, uphill climb

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to what it is today.

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At its core, skateboarding
has traditionally

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been for the underdogs,
the outcasts, the misfits,

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and in result has been
thought of negatively

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by a large majority of outsiders
for most of its existence.

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But now, with generations
of young adults

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who grew up with
skateboarding and the exposure

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at an all-time high, the
future of skateboarding

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is looking bright.