 |
The North American Tiddlywinks Association T i d d l y w i n k s ! |
Chronology
| Year | Date | Event | Area | Reference |
| 1888 | 8 Nov | Joseph Assheton Fincher files provisional specification for English patent for a "New and Improved Game" | History | UK Patent # 16,215 |
| 1889 | 29 Jan | Fincher applies for an English trademark for "TIDDLEDY-WINKS" | History | UK Trademark # 85,800 |
| 15 May | "TIDDLEDY-WINKS" trademark published in Trade Marks Journal | History | UK Trademark # 85,800 | |
| 19 Oct | Fincher's patent application approved | History | UK Patent # 16,215 | |
| 1890 | 18 Jan | Query about tiddledy-winks, new game in British Guiana | History | Notes & Queries, page 48 |
| 22 Sep | E. I. Horsman Jr. applied for a patent for "Parlor Tennis" | Equipment | US Patent # 442,438 | |
| 7 Nov | Extensive rules for tiddledy-winks, including tiddledy-winks tennis, appears in a book | Rules | The Young Folks' Cyclopaedia of Games and Sports, by John D. Champlin Jr. and Arthur E. Bostwick (date from introduction), pages 725-726 | |
| 1891 | 23 Oct | John Kendrick Bangs' book Tiddledywink tales is copyrighted | Books | US Copyright # 38,009 |
| 6 Dec | Macy's newspaper ad includes tiddledy winks | Publicity | New York Times, page 17 | |
| 6 Dec | Bang's book Tiddledywink tales is reviewed | Books | New York Times, page 19 | |
| 1892 | 6 Apr | John Kendrick Bangs' book The tiddledywink's poetry book is copyrighted | Books | Copyright # 15,185 |
| 24 Apr | Emily Lytton wrote a letter to Rev. Whitwell Elwin about a tiddledy-winks party | Books | In A Blessed Girl, 1954, pages 97-98 | |
| 1936 | 20 Feb | The Duke of Kent sees TIDDLYTENNIS (An Ernest Sewell game manufactured by The London Magical Co.) played at the British Industries Fair | Publicity | Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb 1936 Daily Sketch, 21 Feb 1936 |
| 1947 | Early reports of tiddlywinks play at Cambridge in England | |||
| 1954 | The beginnings of enduring tiddlywinks activity at Cambridge | |||
| 1955 | The Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club (CUTwC) is formed | Club | On the Mat by Guy Consterdine | |
| First match (CUTwC vs.
Whitcomb's Winkers) played under modern squopping rules |
Tournaments | |||
| 1956 | Marchant Trophy (teams championship) established | |||
| 1958 | The English Tiddlywinks Association (ETwA) is founded | Club | ||
| 1 Mar | CUTwC plays The Goons, representing Prince Philip | Tournaments | Winks Rampant by Guy Consterdine | |
| First CUTwC vs. OUTS match | Tournaments | |||
| "Official" rules agreed upon at First World Congress | Rules | |||
| 4-2-1 scoring system defined (but no potout point transfer) | Rules | |||
| Free turns limited to the number of free winks after the squop-up | Rules | |||
| Time limit optional; games were usually played until a potout | Rules | |||
| Marchant equipment becomes tournament standard | Equipment | |||
| 1960 | First Varsity Match, Cambridge vs. Oxford | Tournaments | ||
| Oxford introduces double squop strategy at Cambridge-Oxford match | Play | |||
| "Time limit" (to be agreed upon by team captains ) introduced as a result of the double squop strategy (previously games ended via potouts) | Rules | |||
| 1961 | Prince Phillip Silver Wink Trophy donated (university team championship) | |||
| Xylophone freeing shot outlawed; current rule for desquopping introduced (can hit winks only directly below top wink) | Rules | |||
| Winking World, a publication of ETwA, first appears | Publications | |||
| 1962 | Aug-Sep | The Oxford University Tiddlywinks Society (OUTS) tours the United States, sponsored by Guinness Stout | Publicity | |
| British winkers attend university in Canada and start "pre-NATwA" winks teams | ||||
| Steve Carnovsky pots 4 out of 5 from the line during a Harvard team practice; the source of the name for the "Carnovsky" shot. | History | |||
| Dec | Life magazine article on Harvard tiddlywinks appears | History | ||
| 1963 | Time limit points increased from 2 to 3 for a potted wink (to encourage more potting) | Rules | ||
| Addition of five extra rounds after the time limit for a game expires | Rules | |||
| Rule change to only lose one turn no matter how many of your own winks sent off | Rules | |||
| 1965 | Baselines added to mats | Rules | ||
| Point transfer for potting out added to rules | Rules | |||
| Squidge-off winner ends rounds | Rules | |||
| 1966 | The North American Tiddlywinks Association (NATwA) is founded | Club | ||
| 1969 | Newswink, a publication of NATwA, first appears | Publications | ||
| (Approx) Sharp squidgers
become prevalent in England when Keith Seaman develops a method for machining them |
Play | |||
| First published discussion (in WW) about possible advantage of dominant corners | ||||
| 1970 | IFTWA established | |||
| First NATwA National Pairs tournament | Tournaments | |||
| (Approx, may have been 1969) Bristol shot developed at Bristol University | Play | |||
| 1971 | First ETwA National Singles tournament | Tournament | ||
| 1972 | MIT tour of England; sharp squidgers brought back to USA; boondock strategy "exported" to England | Play | ||
| Games no longer being played on the floor | Play | |||
| First ETwA National Pairs tournament | Tournaments | |||
| First NATwA National Singles Tournament | Tournaments | |||
| "Good" shot (desquop using wink adjacent to the pile) invented by John Good at MIT | Play | |||
| 1973 | First World Singles match | Tournaments | ||
| 1974 | (Approx) 2 ply grey felt mats no longer being made; switch to new source all white mats | Equipment | ||
| 1975 | (Approx) Increasing popularity of using a more wide-open, long squopping strategy as an option to pure "positional" play | Play | ||
| 1976 | NATwA establishes 30 second rule (clock stops automatically, no opponents' choice) | Rules | ||
| 1977 | Original egg cup pot supply almost gone; NATwA pot mold commissioned (late 1976) and "new" pot production begins | Equipment | ||
| 1978 | First World Pairs match | Tournaments | ||
| Squidger diameter limited to between 1 and 2 inches | Rules | |||
| 1979 | Joe Sachs popularizes "squop-style" bring-ins | Play | ||
| "Foreign visitor" rule for World Challenges agreed upon; however national title still went to highest national finisher even if foreigner finished first | Rules | |||
| 1980 | Pam Knowles' NATwA singles
win prompts consensus change that national titles go to winner (foreign or not); highest national finisher also gets world challenge (as was decided previously) |
Rules | ||
| 1981 | 30 second rule revised to opponents' choice; adopted by NATwA and ETwA | Rules | ||
| Free turns rule clarified so that free turns before time limit do not go into rounds | Rules | |||
| Length of games standardized
at 20 minutes for singles and 25 minutes for pairs (previously ETwA used 20
minutes for both and NATwA 25 minutes for both) |
Rules | |||
| NATwA and ETwA rules "converge" (a few minor exceptions) | Rules | |||
| 1982 | "Personalized" winks banned for tournament games (a result of Charles using a "flattened" set of winks created via Larry's boiling method) | Equipment | ||
| "New" Italian winks introduced; judging winks as squopped or unsquopped becomes much more difficult (among other things) | Equipment | |||
| 1984 | Megacrud blowup shot outlawed; 2 inch "jab" rule introduced (ETwA) | Rules | ||
| 1985 | American tour of England | Tournaments | ||
| 1986 | Bristol (or Cambridge) Good shot developed at CUTwC (may have been 1987) | Play | ||
| 1987 | (Approx) First use of flexible squidgers for potting nurdled winks (After Jon introduces his Sainsbury mint jelly top squidger, Nick inadvertently buys a different brand with a very flexible lid) | Play | ||
| "Push" pile shot (no downward motion) ruled not in the spirit of the game, leading to better rules wording for the definition of a legal shot. | Rules | |||
| 1988 | British tour of the United States | Tournaments | ||
| 1990 | British tour of the United States | Tournaments | ||
| Ratings (from Nick) first published in Winking World (best rant material ever) | ||||
| "Nominated wink" rule for failure to free incorporated (proposed by Rules Committee in 1989) | Rules | |||
| 1991 | 25th anniversary celebration of NATwA | Celebrations | ||
| 1992 | The term "tiddlies" replaces
"time limit
points", providing the answer to the common question, "If those are the winks, what's a tiddly?" |
Rules | ||
| 1993 | First Scottish National Pairs tournament | Tournaments | ||
| "Playing out of turn" rule refined so that offended party decides which color to shoot next | Rules | |||
| 2004 | Major rewrite of rules to make them easier to read/understand and to clarify some of the more complicated situations (the problem of piles crossing the boundary has yet to be solved) | Rules | ||
| 2005 | 50th anniversary celebration of modern winks and the first modern tiddlywinks club, the Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club | Celebrations | ||
| 2006 | Jul | NATwA celebrates its 40th anniversary with events at Cornell and elsewhere in Ithaca NY | Celebrations | |
| 2008 | 1 Mar | To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the famed Goons vs. CUTwC Royal Tiddlywinks Match of 1958, Prince Philip designates the Savage Club to be his royal champions to play CUTwC in Cambridge, England | Celebrations |
