Badminton's history runs from an ancient shuttlecock game to British India, where army officers in Poona added a net, to an 1870s garden at Badminton House in England that gave the sport its name. Here's the whole story in order — where badminton originated, who shaped its first rules, how it spread worldwide through the IBF (now the BWF), and how it ended up on the Olympic stage at Barcelona in 1992 — with the dates checked against Britannica, the BWF and Olympic records.
