The earliest public use of roller skates was in 1760 by John Joseph Merlin, who tried them out in London, England. He also filed a patent for them. Infamously, while showing them off, he crashed into a large mirror, and the metal wheels even caused sparks.

The first American public roller rink opened in 1866 in Newport, Rhode Island.

James Plimpton invented the quad skate with four wheels arranged in pairs in 1863.

Roller derbies saw their earliest beginnings in the 1930s, with the first all-female leagues emerging in the 1940s.

Inline roller skates became popular in the 1980s when Rollerblade Inc. heavily marketed them to kids and teenagers.

Postal workers experimented with using roller skates to deliver mail, and while there were periods of popularity in London and Paris, the practice never truly caught on.

The fastest recorded roller skating speed for 100 meters is 7.92 seconds.

During World War II, some soldiers were trained in endurance and agility using roller skates, but it was never a widely adopted program.

Roller skating burns between 300–600 calories per hour, depending on speed and intensity.

Some U.S. towns in the early 1900s banned roller skating after numerous accidents.

Circus animals such as goats, bears, and elephants have been trained to skate.

In the 1970s, one roller rink disastrously combined skating night with a spaghetti dinner.

In the 1980s, roller skating was so popular that kids even tried to skate to school, sometimes on highways.

In 19th-century France, roller skates were known as patins à roulettes.

Before rubber became the standard, some luxury roller skates had wheels made of ivory.

While the Pope never officially condemned roller skating, Catholic clergy often referred to the pastime as frivolous.

Pepsi capitalized on the disco roller-skating trend in the 1970s by sponsoring contests.

A major revival in roller skating happened again in 2020, thanks to trends on TikTok.