Swimming pool

HISTORY

The world's first swimming pool was The Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan. Built in 2500BC, it was lined with bricks covered in a tar-like sealant.

The Great Bath of the Indus Valley civilization M.Imran at English Wikipedia

Charlemagne had a great marble pool that could accommodate one hundred swimmers at a time at his Aachen palace. Even in his old age he beat young men in races there.

Britain's first indoor swimming pool opened in London's Lemon Street in 1742. The entrance fee for the heated, 43ft pool was one guinea and it was for men only. 

The world owes the rebirth of swimming to Britain. The opening of the first swimming baths at Liverpool in 1828 was soon emulated elsewhere. By about 1837, London owned six pools. 

Rivacre baths Ellesmere Port The Wirral

The ocean liner RMS Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg in 1912, was one of the first ships to include an indoor heated swimming pool. The pool was 30 feet long and cost a shilling (5p) to use.

Hollywood superstars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, married on March 28, 1920. Fairbanks bought his wife as a present a house with the first swimming pool in Beverly Hills. The pool was designed to resemble a Venetian lagoon, complete with a miniature island and a bridge. The pool area became a popular gathering spot for Hollywood celebrities, who would attend parties and social events at Pickfair.

Toronto, Ontario was home to the biggest swimming pool in the world in 1925. It held 2000 swimmers, and was 300 ft. x 75 ft. It is still in operation.

In 1930 Ernest Hemingway had the first ever swimming pool in Key West built. 

Mao Zedong enjoyed swimming. When was too old to swim any longer, the indoor swimming pool he had at Zhongnanhai was converted into a giant reception hall.

In 2010 only 324 households in Athens wealthy suburbs declared ownership of a swimming pool on their tax form. Fearing tax evasion, Greek authorities turned to satellite imagery for further investigation. They discovered a total of 16,974 swimming pools.

FUN SWIMMING POOL FACTS

There is a small swimming pool in the middle of the Mojave Desert that can be used by anyone who knows of its location and has obtained the key to open it.

The world's biggest swimming pool covers an area of 1,041,947 square feet (9.68 hectares). The man- made saltwater lagoon is at the Citystars Sharm El Sheikh resort in Egypt. 

The world's deepest swimming pool is the Y-40 swimming pool at the Hotel Terme Millepini in Padua, Italy. It is 40 metres (131 ft) deep and contains 4,300 cubic metres (1,136,000 US gal). 

Garden City, Kansas is home to the world's largest outdoor concrete municipal swimming pool. The "Big Pool" is so large, it's possible to waterski in it.

Swimmers at "The Big Pool" on a 100-degree afternoon (2010)

24 degrees Celsius is the perfect temperature for swimming pools in the summer time.

In 2010, managers at Vienna's 18 public pools asked swimmers to stop swallowing the water — after calculating they were losing 5,000 litres of pool water a day and spending an extra £1.11 per pool on chlorine, too.

A person's eyes turn red in a swimming pool not because of the chlorine, but because of urine in the pool reacting with the chlorine. In fact, the more strong smelling a pool is, the more contaminated it is.

It is illegal to wear swimming shorts in public swimming pools in France. Instead, it is compulsory for men to wear speedos for hygiene reasons.