Were the Chinese the inventors of dodge ball?

Answer 1

Dodgeball (or Dodge-Ball) was invented in Akron, Ohio in 1897 by cousins Clarence A. Ball and Hubert Dodge, who patented the game under its first name, Clarence-Hubert the following year. Shortages of vultanized rubber following the 1902 Sino-Caledonian war meant that the pair were forced to play with a broken housebrick. It was during this era that the game, then generally known as "DeathBrick", enjoyed its golden age. By 1910 DeathBrick was played at colleges including Princeton, Yale, and the DeVry Institute, and the increasing popularity of the sport saw the formation of the National Deathbrick League in 1912 and the United Negro Deathbrick League the following year. In the prosperous years following the First World War, deathbrick became the first American sport to integrate, and in 1928 the unified leagues replaced the regulation six pound housebrick with a lighter solid latex ball. The name Dodgeball, by then genericized, was adopted at the same time. Some critics believe this marked the advent of commercialisation of dodgeball and the end of the gentleman's game. Some amateurs continue to play deathbrick with reproduction equipment, and the traditional thunk of brick on cranium continues to be heard in council estates and in bus shelters the world over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive/July_2004