Boxing

Boxing appeared at the ancient Olympic Games in 688 BC, with fighters wrapping their hands in leather thongs. The modern sport grew out of English prizefighting: champion Jack Broughton wrote the first rules in 1743 after killing an opponent in the ring, and the bare-knuckle era ran under the London Prize Ring rules for over a century. In 1867 the Marquess of Queensberry rules mandated gloves, timed three-minute rounds, and the ten-count — the framework of boxing ever since.

1. 1743

   Broughton's rules

   Jack Broughton banned hitting a downed man and grabbing below the waist, introducing boxing's first safety code after a fatal bout.

2. 1867

   The Queensberry rules

   Written by John Graham Chambers and sponsored by the Marquess of Queensberry, the new code required padded gloves, three-minute rounds with one-minute rests, and a ten-second count for knockdowns.

3. 1892

   The gloved era takes over

   James J. Corbett beat bare-knuckle champion John L. Sullivan under Queensberry rules — the symbolic end of bare-knuckle prizefighting at the top level.

4. 1904

   Olympic boxing

   Boxing joined the Olympic program in St. Louis, developing a separate amateur code with shorter bouts, headguards for much of its history, and point scoring.

5. 1980s

   Twelve rounds, not fifteen

   After Duk-koo Kim's death following a 1982 title fight, sanctioning bodies cut championship bouts from fifteen rounds to twelve and strengthened medical oversight.

6. 2010s

   The amateur code converges

   Olympic boxing dropped computerized punch-counting for professional-style 10-point-must scoring, and headguards were removed from elite men's competition in 2013–2016.