This is a timeline of women's sports, spanning from ancient history up to the 21st century. It includes both competitive sports and notable physical feats.
Early history
2134–2000 BCE – Illustrations on Egyptian temple walls from the Eleventh Dynasty showed women exercising and playing ball games.
6th century BCE – The Heraean Games were the first recorded women's athletic competition, held in the stadium at Olympia.
368 BCE – Spartan charioteer Euryleonis won the two-horse chariot races in that year's Olympic games. A bronze statue was erected in Sparta in her honour.
2nd century CE – Contemporary writers and historians described female gladiators fighting in Rome.
25–220 – Han Dynasty-era frescoes depict women playing the ancient game of Tsu Chu. There are a number of opinions about the dates of the frescoes with the earliest estimates around 5000 BCE.
1296 – At a Christmas feast for Edward I of England, an acrobat named either Maud or Matilda Makejoy performed acrobatic feats as part of the entertainment.
Pre-Columbian era – In the Americas, women from many indigenous tribes participated in sports such as foot races, swimming, stick and ball games, and wrestling contests. Starting in the 16th century, however, European settlers and colonial influence gradually began limiting athletic opportunities for indigenous women, particularly as Europeans tried to forcibly assimilate indigenous people into Western culture.
1493 – When Italian noblewoman Beatrice d'Este visited Venice, a regatta was held in which fifty peasant women competed.
1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots became the first recorded woman to play golf in Scotland at Musselburgh Links.
18th century
1722 – English champion boxer Elizabeth Wilkinson won her first public bout, after challenging a local woman to a fight.
1745 – The first recorded women's cricket match took place in Surrey, England. By the second half of the eighteenth century, women's cricket matches played between local teams became common in the South East of England.
1768 – A French woman named Madame Bunel played a highly publicized tennis match against the English Mr. Tomkins. After three sets, she defeated him 2–1, subsequently winning again in a rematch 11 days later.
1780 – At the American horse racing track of Hempstead Plains, Long Island, a three-day equestrian event included a competition for women riders.
1781 – As archery became a popular sport for aristocracy in England, upper-class women and men competed in archery contests and created archery societies such as the Toxophilite Society.
1784 – Elizabeth Thible of France was the first women to fly in a hot air ballon.
1790s – An annual women's association football competition was held in Mid-Lothian, Scotland.
19th century
1811 – The first women's golf tournament is held at the Royal Musselburgh Golf Club, Scotland.
1816 – French tightrope walker Madame Saqui performed in England to celebrate the opening of Vauxhall Bridge. After ascending a 300-ft inclined rope to the top of a tower, she completed one of her signature tricks, running back down along the rope while fireworks exploded in the background.
1819 – In a New York City exhibition, a Mrs. Adolphe became the first woman to publicly walk on a tightrope.
1825 – Madame Johnson ascended from New York in a hot air balloon in New York, later landing in a swamp in the neighboring state of New Jersey.
1842 – English rower Ann Glanville achieved national celebrity becoming known as the champion female rower of the world; her all-women crew often winning against the best male teams.
1856 – The Swedish swimmer and bath house director Nancy Edberg arranged her first public Swimming exhibitions with female swimmers.
1858 – On August 5, the American Julia Archibald Holmes became the first woman to climb to the summit of Pike's Peak in Colorado.
1863 – Association football governing bodies introduced standardized rules to prohibit violence on the pitch, making it more socially acceptable for women to play.
1864 – A group of 25 founding members form the Park Place Croquet Club of Brooklyn. Croquet is believed to be the first game played by both sexes in the United States.
1866 – Two baseball teams with female players were formed at Vassar College in New York.
1867 – The first ladies golf club was formed at St. Andrew's in Scotland. It gained 500 members by 1886.
1867 – The Dolly Vardens from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an all African-American baseball team, became the first women's professional sports team.