The Pool Table: Past and Present

The history of billiards goes back all the way to the 15th Century. Throughout the centuries, billiards has been seen as a sport for bad boys, from the highest aristocracy to the lowest street thugs. For hundreds of years, churches and governments denounced the game as a sinful activity, especially in early America. Thomas Jefferson kept an illegal billiards table hidden under the dome of Monticello in Virginia.

In the 19th Century, billiards became known as