1. Skateboarding

2. What kind of equipment do you need to skateboard? You need a board and some shoes designed for skating. You also need a helmet and pads to protect yourself.

3. There are lots of different shoes to choose.

4. Where did skateboarding come from?

5. Skateboarding was probably born sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s when surfers in California wanted something to surf when the waves were flat.

6. These first skateboarders started with wooden boxes or boards with roller skate wheels attached to the bottom.

7. Skateboarding was seen as something to do for fun besides surfing, and was therefore often referred to as "Sidewalk Surfing".

8. Skateboarding can be a recreational activity, an artform, a job, or a method of transportation.

9. There are about 18.5 million skateboarders in the world.

11. A key skateboarding maneuver, the ollie, was developed in the late 1970s by Alan "Ollie" Gelfand as a half-pipe maneuver.

12. Freestyle skateboarder Rodney Mullen was the first to take it to flat ground and later invented the kickflip and its variations.

13. Now there are skate parks. Designed for skateboarders.

14. No one knows who made the first board.

15. A skatepark may contain half-pipes, quarter pipes, handrails, funboxes, vertical ramps, pyramids, banked ramps, full pipes, pools, bowls, snake runs stairsets, and any number of other objects.

16. Skateboarding has no set arena or rules and skateparks have no standard design

17. The first skatepark in the world was built in March of 1976 in Carlsbad, California.

18. Carlsbad was the site of the 1976 World Skateboard Championships.

19. California's 1998 law says that skateboarding is an inherently "Hazardous Recreational Activity"

20. Skateparks keep skateboarders from getting injured on private property.

21. The world’s largest skatepark is located in Shanghai, China.

22. Burnside Skatepark in Portland, Oregon

23. Pedlow Skate Park, San Fernando Valley, CA

24. Louisville Extreme Park, Kentucky

25. Skateparks can be public or private. This is Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark in Houston, Texas (USA) It is a public skatepark.

26. Skateparks are used by skateboarders, rollerskaters, and bikers.