The Chinese Ping Pong Delegation playing an exhibition match at Stanford University

Even though ping pong was invented in the 1880s by the English, its association with Chinese athletics is undeniable. In the 1920s, Mao Tse-tung instituted it as a recreational activity for the People’s Liberation Army, which quickly resulted in it becoming China’s most popular sport. The game played a crucial role in the thawing of relations between China and the U.S. In 1971, a U.S. ping pong player, Glenn Cowan, accidentally boarded a Chinese team bus at the World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan. Cowan was greeted by Zhuang Zedong of the Chinese team and the two had a conversation via translator. After learning of this exchange, Chairman Mao invited the U.S. team to tour China. President Nixon approved the trip, which ended more than a 20 year period of diplomatic silence between the two nations. In February of 1972, President Nixon visited China and met with Chairman Mao and began normalizing U.S.-China relations. In April of 1972, a Chinese delegation of ping pong players ended up touring America for two weeks; this exchange become known as “ping pong diplomacy.” On April 28, 1972, the Chinese team played an exhibition game at Stanford University’s Maples Pavilion.