The game is so old that no one can say when it began. It was perhaps played in ancient Egypt. The Greeks know the game as long ago as 400 B.C. Catkire More, a king of Ireland, left behind him fifty-five billiard balls of brass, with the pools and cues of the same material in the second century after Christ. St. Augustine has mentioned billiards in his Confessions which was written in the fifth century.
One of complaints of Mary, Queen of Scots when she was kept in prison in 1576, was that her billiard table had been taken away! The first description of billiards in English is found in a book called Compleat Gamester by Charles Cotton, published in 1674.
Some pictures of these days depict that there were all kinds of obstacles on the table, such as hoops, and pegs, and forts. The player had to go around or through these obstacles without knocking them down.
About the year 1800, the game became much as we know billiards today. In 1807, the first English book written about the game was published in which billiards is described very much like modern game.
