Sport in the UK
Britain since 1945
British sport has a long history, and this stretch of it starts well before either World War. The first tennis club in the world was founded in 1872, decades before Wimbledon became a fixture of the British summer, and organised motor-car racing in the country began not long after, in 1902. The UK went on to host the Olympic Games for the first time in 1908.
The Games returned to London a second time in 1948, while much of the country was still recovering from the war. Success at the top of tennis went quiet for a long stretch: no British man won a Grand Slam singles title again after 1936 for decades. That drought was still unbroken when, in 1954, Sir Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile, a feat that made him famous well beyond athletics.
What to remember
 The first tennis club’s founding | 1872 Founded in Leamington Spa, as modern tennis was taking shape in England. |
|---|---|
| Motor-car racing in the UK | 1902 The UK remains a world leader in developing motor-sport technology today. |
| The first time the UK hosted the Olympic Games | 1908 The earliest of the UK's three Olympic hosting years; the others were 1948 and 2012. |
| The most recent British man’s Grand Slam singles title before Murray’s 2012 US Open win | 1936 The handbook says no British man had won a Grand Slam singles title since 1936 before Murray. |
| The second time the UK hosted the Olympic Games | 1948 The middle of the UK's three Olympic hosting years, between 1908 and 2012. |
| The first sub-four-minute mile | 1954 A landmark in middle-distance running: no one had run a mile in under four minutes before this. |
Everything in Britain since 1945or the whole course, from the beginning