The early days of Roller Derby can be traced back as far as 1934 when Leo Seltzer organised an event called Transcontinental Roller Derby. This roller skating spectacular required several mixed-gender pairs to race round an oval, banked track enough times to cover 3000 miles. The event lasted about a month and skaters would race for up to 11 hours a day!

The sport went through several boom and bust periods until 2001 when the original members of Texas Lone Star rollergirls formed an all-female league in Austin, Texas. Although various disputes caused many members to leave and form the Texas Rollergirls, the original format became the basis of the current movement which is taking the world by storm.

According to Frogmouth, a major roller derby clothing label:

Today, fewer than 15 years after roller derby’s reinvention, there are nearly 2000 roller derby leagues, spread across 53 countries, and 100,000 women play the sport regularly, as do many men.

More details of this amazing sport can be found on Wikipedia, as well as roller derby association sites such as the WFTDA, MRDA, JRDA,