History of the Catholic Church in the United States British-America-born Catholic priest. In 1788, after the Revolution, John Jay urged the New York Legislature to require office-holders to renounce foreign authorities "in all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil." In one state, North Carolina, the Protestant test oath would not be changed until 1868. The Catholic population of the United States, which had been 35,000 in 1790, increased to 195,000 in 1820 and then ballooned to about 1.6 million in 1850, by which time, Catholics had become the country’s largest denomination. Between 1860 and 1890 the population of Roman Catholics in the United States tripled primarily through immigration and
History of sports in the United States History of sports in the United States The history of sports in the United States shows that most sports evolved out of European practices. However, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions, some of which have become popular in other countries. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. In Chesapeake society (that is, colonial Virginia and Maryland), sports occupied a great deal of attention at every social level, starting at the top. In England, hunting was severely restricted to landowners. In America, game was more than plentiful. Everyone—including servants and slaves—could