The bow is a weapon designed to shoot arrows, the person who uses the bow is called the archer, and in the past this word was applied to the warrior whose main weapon was the bow and archery is the art of shooting arrows using the bow, and archers have had a decisive role in several battles throughout history, such as the first Islamic wars and The Hundred Years War, bows are used today mainly in sports and hunting.
In the prehistoric era, humans invented the bow and arrow, and this weapon revolutionized hunting methods, as it made humans able to kill animals from a distance, and the ancient Egyptians were the first to know the use of the bow and arrow on a large scale, so they used this weapon in their hunting and wars as early as the year 5000 BC, the Assyrians and Persians were among the other primitive peoples that used bows and arrows, and throughout history there have been various types and shapes of bows, the most famous of which are the long bow made of a single piece of wood and the short composite bow whose edges bend outward, and by the twelfth century AD, it became Crossbow is a common weapon in Europe.
The National Archery Federation was established in the United States in 1879 AD, and the International Archery Federation was established in 1931 to supervise international courses. A group of American hunters established the National Society for Arrowhead Shooting in the desert in 1939. The International Archery Federation included archery in the desert in the international championship competitions in 1969
The sport of bow and arrow appeared for the first time in the Summer Olympic Games of the second edition, which was held in the French capital Paris in 1900, where there were six competitions with the participation of 153 archers from only three countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and France, who participated with 129 archers.
The sport of bow and arrow was also present in the next edition of the Olympic Games, which was hosted by the city of St. Louis in 1904, in which only archers from the United States participated. He was absent again for ten consecutive copies (44 years) and returned again in the 1972 edition in Munich, where 95 archers and shooters from 27 countries participated in it.