Nobody knows when the first snowboard, or the first snowboarder, whooshed down a ski slope.

Dozens of people had the idea of taking a platter, sled or wooden plank and using it to slide down a hill. To us, the sideways position seems the most natural way to avoid toppling over.

That's the one kids use on freshly-waxed supermarket floors. And tennis players when they want to stop short on the court before hitting the ball or drivers to keep their cars from spinning out of control on a sheet of ice.

In its most basic form, snowboarding seems like the most natural way to slide. Here's a short timeline with the milestones in our favorite sport's history.

1965: Sherman Poppen, an American, invents the Snurfer (snow surfer) for his daughter Wendy by tying a pair of skis together.

1970: Dimitrije Milovich, an East Coast surfer, starts developing a snowboard prototype based on a surfboard.

1975: Dimitrije Milovich creates Winterstick, the first snowboard brand.

1977: Vermont's Jake Burton Carpenter, a bartender by night, works on prototypes by day. He founds Burton Snowboards.

1978: Milovich exports Wintersticks to 11 countries.

1979: Paul Graves appears in the first TV ad featuring a snowboard. The commercial, for a brand of beer, is aired for four years in the United States and Canada. Mark Anolik creates the first half-pipe in Tahoe, which attracts early snowboarders, including Terry Kidwell, Keith Kimmel, as well as skateboard magazine photographers.

1980: Burton and Winterstick apply ski technology to snowboarding. Their new models have a P-tex sole. Meanwhile, new brands appear, including Avalanche, Barfoot and Sims. Suicide Six, Vermont hosts the first international snowboarding competition, in which daredevils race down an icy slope called "The Face".

1985: just 39 of 600 United States ski resorts are open to snowboarders. The first snowboarding magazine, Absolutely Radical, hits the newsstands.

1986: France's Régis Rolland introduces snowboarding to Europe and appears in a movie, Apocalypse Snow. A whole generation of European snowboarders follows in his footsteps. The Swiss championships in Saint-Moritz are Europe's first snowboarding competition.

1987-1988: a World Cup circuit is organized between Europe and the United States.

1989: all North American ski resorts are open to snowboarding at last.

1990: a genuine snowboarding industry begins taking shape and Damian Sanders becomes one of the sport's new heroes. He is featured in specialized magazines and early videos. He performs moves nobody had ever seen before. Some folks think he's crazy.

1992: this is the crossover year. Surfers and skateboarders take up snowboarding. A movie, The Hard, the Hungry and the Homeless, illustrates snowboarding's new "skateboard" trend. Meanwhile, Norwegian teen Terje Haakonsen hits the half-pipe circuit and wins everything from &lsquo92 to '97. He is a five-time Europe champion, three-time U.S Open winner, three-time world champion and two-time World Cup circuit winner. He also wins nearly every contest he enters in during this period. In addition, Haakonsen sets the standard for style and technique. He is still the sport's biggest legend and Norway's top-earning athlete.

1993: skateboard brands like Santa Cruz and Plan-B create snowboard divisions and the International Ski Federation (FIS) has its eye on snowboarding; many people fear its intrusion into the sport.

1994: start of a long rivalry between two federations and two circuits, the FIS (ski) and ISF (International Snowboard Federation). The ISF has the legitimacy, the FIS the money.

1995: snowboarding keeps growing. The global market has over 300 snowboard brands. Everybody wants a piece of the pie.

1998: despite objections from some snowboarders, the sport becomes part of the Olympic Games. Switzerland's Gian Simmen becomes the first Olympic champion.

2002: the ISF, the only legitimate federation in snowboarders' eyes, goes bankrupt, ending the ISF/FIS rivalry. The FIS is now the only snowboard federation, a situation many of the sport's followers dislike. Terje Haakonsen creates the Ticket To Ride (TTR) World Snowboard Tour, a group that listens to riders and promotes snowboarding's development. It includes independent freestyle snowboard events, each weighted with a set number of points. The snowboarder with the most points at the end of the TTR World Snowboard Tour season is the champion.

2003: every ski brand is active on the snowboard market. One small, independent company closes after the other. Snowboarding becomes a business like any other; there's no more room for amateurism.

Photo: Jake Burton, snowboarding pioneer and founder of Burton Snowboards.

Eurosport