Timeline

A timeline of fencing, row by row and weapon by weapon.

Every row below comes from the sources used across the History section. The second column says which weapon the row is about: foil, epee or sabre, all weapons, or wheelchair fencing. Where sources disagree about a date, the row gives each version and the source column says who gives which. Rows marked unconfirmed rest on a single secondary source or a search summary of a page that could not be opened.

The timeline is split into four tables by period. Rows marked "All (before the sport)" belong to historical swordsmanship, which the sources treat as the sport's roots, not to Olympic fencing. "All" means a rule, body or event that covers every weapon. "Wheelchair" rows name their weapon where the source does. Each period's story is told in full on the pages linked from the History index.

Before the sport, to 1700

Year	Weapon	Event	Source
About 1190 BCE	All (before the sport)	Relief at Medinet Habu, near Luxor: the earliest known depiction of a bout	Olympedia
Late 13th century, about 1300 or about 1330	All (before the sport)	Royal Armouries MS I.33, the oldest known European fencing manual	Royal Armouries caption (late 13th century) and text (about 1330); Wikipedia (about 1300)
About 1410, or 1410 to 1420	All (before the sport)	Fiore dei Liberi's Flower of Battle; copies dated differently	The Getty via the Public Domain Review (about 1410); the Morgan, search summary (1410 to 1420)
1474	All (before the sport)	Lost Spanish treatises of Jayme Pons and Pedro de la Torre; Pons's date and existence disputed	Valle Ortiz and Curtis (2009)
1487	All (before the sport)	Imperial privilege for the Marxbrueder; credited to Frederick III, or to Maximilian I's initiative (unconfirmed)	Talaga (2022), abstract; Wikipedia; Maximilian reading from a search summary of Talaga's chapter
1532	All (before the sport)	Francisco Roman's lost treatise printed in Seville	Valle Ortiz and Curtis (2009)
1536	All (before the sport)	Marozzo's Opera Nova, Bologna (unconfirmed)	Northern Arizona University bibliography, search summary
1540	All (before the sport)	Henry VIII sanctions the London Masters of Defence; how far it was enforced is disputed	Wikipedia; a wrestling-history website (no enforcement found, single source, unconfirmed)
1570	All (before the sport)	Henri de Saint-Didier names most of fencing's major movements	Olympedia
1582 (completed 1569)	All (before the sport)	Carranza's book on the philosophy of arms printed at Sanlucar de Barrameda; the colophon says completed in 1569	Valle Ortiz and Curtis (2009); Wiktenauer, search summary
1600	All (before the sport)	Pacheco de Narvaez, Grandezas de la espada, Madrid	Valle Ortiz and Curtis (2009)
Mid-17th century	Foil	The small sword replaces the rapier in France; the foil and its conventions follow	British Fencing (Fare)

Schools, masks and the first bodies, 1700 to 1945

Year	Weapon	Event	Source
Mid-18th century, 1780, or late 18th century	All	The wire mask; inventor and date disputed	Fare, 2019 (mid-18th century, La Boessiere); FIE article, search summary (1780, Saint-Georges); British Academy of Fencing (late 18th century)
1760	All	Domenico Angelo's school in Britain (date from a picture caption)	British Academy of Fencing
1860s	Epee	Epee developed in France as a reaction to the foil conventions	British Fencing (Fare)
1888	All	A mask bib first mentioned	Fare, 2019
1891	All	Amateur Fencers League of America founded, 22 April (today USA Fencing)	USA Fencing
1892	Epee	Epee rules begin to develop in France and elsewhere	FIE historical note, i.3
1896	Foil	Men's individual foil and masters' foil at the Athens Olympics	Olympedia; Wikipedia
1896	Sabre	Men's individual sabre at Athens; Italo Santelli recruited to teach sabre in Budapest	Wikipedia; Olympedia
1900	Epee	Men's individual epee first at the Olympics	Wikipedia
1901 or 1902	All	Amateur Fencing Association founded in Britain (disputed)	British Academy of Fencing (1901); Wikipedia (1902)
1904	Foil	Men's team foil first at the Olympics	Wikipedia
1906	All	French federation founded	Federation Francaise d'Escrime
1908	Epee	Men's team epee first at the Olympics	Wikipedia
1908	Sabre	Men's team sabre first at the Olympics	Wikipedia
1909	All	Italian federation founded, 3 June, Rome	CONI
1911	All	German federation founded, 17 December, Frankfurt am Main	Deutsche Biographie
1913	All	FIE founded in Paris, 29 November; eight or nine founding nations (disputed)	Olympedia (eight); British Fencing (nine)
1914	Foil	FIE Foil Rules adopted, 12 June	FIE historical note, i.2
1914	Epee	FIE Epee Rules drawn up, co-ordinating rules in use since 1892	FIE historical note, i.3
1914	Sabre	FIE Sabre Rules adopted, 12 June	FIE historical note, i.4
1919	All	FIE rules issued as the Rules for Competitions	FIE historical note, i.1
1921	Epee	First FIE championship, Paris, men's epee only, later counted as World Championships (unconfirmed)	Wikipedia
1924	Foil	Women's individual foil at the Paris Olympics	Olympedia
1929	Foil	Women's foil at the European (later World) Championships (unconfirmed)	Wikipedia
1932	Foil	Women's team foil at the European Championships	FIE, Escrime XXI
1933	Epee	Laurent-Pagan electrical apparatus introduced	FIE, Escrime XXI
1936	Epee	FIE electrical epee rules adopted; electric epee at the Berlin Olympics; metallic pistes replace cork ones that year	FIE historical note, i.3.3; FIE, Escrime XXI; Olympedia
1936	All	The FIE's European Championships become World Championships	FIE historical note, i.5

The electric era, 1946 to 1999

Year	Weapon	Event	Source
1949	All	World Junior Championships rest on Congress decisions from Paris 1949 onward; British Academy of Fencing formed	FIE historical note, i.5; British Academy of Fencing
1951	All	A fatal penetrating injury at the World Championships leads to the plastron	IOC chapter (Harmer, 2010)
1953, 1954 or 1955	Wheelchair	Start of wheelchair fencing (disputed: 1954 a demonstration only, per the IPC)	British Fencing (1953); Wikipedia (1954); IPC (competition from 1955)
1955	Foil	First electric foil at the World Championships	British Fencing (Fare)
1955	Wheelchair sabre	Sabre competition at Stoke Mandeville	IPC
1956	Foil	Electric foil at the Melbourne Olympics	Olympedia
1956	Wheelchair foil	Women's foil event at Stoke Mandeville	IPC
1957	Foil	FIE electrical foil rules adopted	FIE historical note, i.2.3
1957	Wheelchair epee	Epee events added; trial frames for the chairs at Stoke Mandeville	IPC
1960	Foil	Women's team foil at the Rome Olympics	NBC Olympics; Wikipedia
1960	Wheelchair	First Paralympics, Rome: men's sabre, men's team sabre and women's foil	IPC
1982	Foil	Vladimir Smirnov fatally injured at the World Championships, Rome; died 28 July or 29 July	Olympedia (28 July); Wikipedia (29 July)
1984	Epee	FIE Congress approves women's epee	FIE historical note, i.3.4
1986	Sabre	Sabre electrified (British Fencing's date)	British Fencing (Fare)
1988	Sabre	FIE electrical sabre rules adopted	FIE historical note, i.4.3
1988	Wheelchair epee	Women's epee at the Seoul Paralympics (unconfirmed)	Wikipedia, search summary
1989	Epee	First women's epee World Championships	FIE historical note, i.3.4
1990	All	Blades must comply fully with the Annexe A specification	FIE handbook (2009)
1992	Sabre	Electric sabre at the Barcelona Olympics	Olympedia
1994	All	SEMI approval becomes a condition of the FIE label on blades (July Congress)	FIE handbook (2009)
1995	All	800 N plastron at FIE "A" events from 1 April and 1600 N bibs from 1995-96 (unconfirmed)	rec.sport.fencing FAQ (informal)
1996	Epee	Women's individual and team epee at the Atlanta Olympics	Olympedia; NBC Olympics
1998	All	World Cadet Championships (individual) from the Neuchatel Congress	FIE historical note, i.5
1999	Sabre	Women's sabre at the World Championships (unconfirmed)	Wikipedia

Wireless, maraging and the full programme, 2000 to 2028

Year	Weapon	Event	Source
2001	Sabre	Wireless scoring first used, at the World Championships	British Fencing (Fare)
2004	All	FIE masks to be marked "1600 Newton" (Information Letter 9-04, 15 March)	FIE handbook (2009)
2004	Sabre	Women's individual sabre at the Athens Olympics; wireless sabre at the Olympics	Olympedia; British Fencing (Fare)
2007	Epee	Wireless scoring at the World Championships	British Fencing (Fare)
2008	Foil	Wireless scoring at the Olympics	British Fencing (Fare)
2008	Sabre	Women's team sabre at the Beijing Olympics	Wikipedia
2008	Wheelchair	Team events dropped from the Beijing Paralympics, restored in 2012	IPC
2009 to 2012	Foil	M2009 foil mask with a conductive bib; retrofit bibs accepted May 2009 to July 2012	FIE handbook (2009)
2010	All	Fencing at the first Youth Olympic Games, Singapore	Olympedia
2014 or 2019	All	Two rear safety systems on masks: urgent decision from 1 September 2014, or immediate effect, in the SEMI minutes; new FIE fastening requirements applied from 1 January 2019 by Fencing Australia (its circuit events) and adopted from that date by the UIPM	FIE SEMI minutes (2014); Fencing Australia; UIPM
2014	Epee	Non-maraging epee blades no longer homologated from 1 January	FIE note in USA Fencing Rules (October 2026)
2015	Epee	Non-maraging epee blades excluded from FIE competitions from 31 December	FIE note in USA Fencing Rules (October 2026)
2020 to 2022	Sabre	Maraging sabre blades required at FIE events; start given as September 2021 (first set for the 2020-2021 season, then postponed, per the FIE's July 2020 text), the 2020-2021 season (British Fencing, January 2020) or after Tokyo (a maker's claim), with "M"-stamped blades allowed until September 2022 (British Fencing)	FIE Material Rules (July 2020); British Fencing (7 January 2020; 13 March 2026); a maker's claim
2021	All	Tokyo 2020, held in 2021: the first Games with all 12 events (inferred from Wikipedia's table)	Wikipedia
2021	Wheelchair sabre	Women's sabre debuts at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics	IPC
2023	Wheelchair	IWAS, after merging with CPISRA, rebrands as World Abilitysport (April; unconfirmed)	Wikipedia
2025	Wheelchair	The sport takes the name World Para Fencing (announced 15 January)	IPC
2025	All	Abdelmoneim ElHusseiny appointed FIE interim President, 30 April	FIE Information Letter 7-25
2028	All	LA28: twelve Olympic fencing events, 212 places	FIE LA28 qualification system (12 May 2026)
2028	Wheelchair	LA28 Paralympics: sixteen wheelchair fencing events, 96 athletes	IPC (3 June 2025)

The stories behind these rows are on how the three weapons developed, electric scoring, safety history and wheelchair fencing history.

Sources

Keep reading

Sword schools and origins

The Medinet Habu relief, three accounts of where and when the sport began, the Marxbrueder privilege of 1487 and its rival guild, the London Masters of Defence of 1540, Saint-Didier in 1570 and the change from rapier to small sword.

Electric scoring

Epee with the Laurent-Pagan apparatus from 1933 and at Berlin 1936; foil at the 1955 Worlds, the 1956 Olympics and in FIE rules from 1957; sabre in 1986, 1988 or 1992 depending on the source; and wireless scoring from 2001.

Safety history

The disputed invention of the wire mask, the plastron after a 1951 World Championships death, the 800 and 1600 newton ratings, the two rear safety systems on masks, maraging blades weapon by weapon, and the 1982 Rome death with what the sources say followed.