Roller skating milestones
1760s -- Belgian John Merlin invents the first pair of roller skates. He wears them to a masquerade party in London -- and crashes into a mirror.
1819 -- France's Monsieur Petitbled takes out the first patent for a roller skate. His version, featuring a wooden sole and three in-line wheels, only enables its wearers to go forward.
1863 -- James Plimpton of New York City -- now considered "the father" of modern roller skating -- creates a four-wheeled skate with a pivoting mechanism that allows skaters to turn.
1866 -- The New York Roller Skating Association, headed by Plimpton, opens the first public rink in the United States in a Newport, R.I., hotel.
1916 -- Charlie Chaplin stars in the first roller skating movie, called "The Rink."
Early 1970s -- Evolutions in plastic lead to safer, less bumpy skate wheels and smoother rink floors.
1975-1981 -- Roller disco booms, spurring the opening of 1,000 new rinks nationwide and such films as "Xanadu" and "Roller Boogie."
1978 -- Skaters are included in the Sports Act and begin to participate in the Pan American Games.
SOURCE: National Museum of Roller Skating 