Invented by students in England 185 years ago, squash has a long history. Here, a few key points about the sport, courtesy of the upcoming J.P Morgan Tournament of Champions, some of which seriously surprised us:

1. Squash has been around since 1830, when it was invented by students at the Harrow School outside London. (Upper class prisoners in the London debtors' prison had previously played a similar sport, rackets, which involved hitting a ball against walls with rackets to get exercise, according to the World Squash Federation.)

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2. The Titanic had a squash court (above), and professional Fred Wright went down with the ship.

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3. A squash court at the University of Chicago (above) provided the venue for the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Enrico Fermi and his colleagues secretly engineered it in Chicago Pile Number One, the world's first nuclear reactor, in 1942. The reactor was built as part of the Manhattan Project to construct the first atomic weapons.

4. The first players used rubber balls, which, when hit, squashed against walls (hence the name "squash").

5. Squash is played today by more than 25 million people (1.2 million in the United States), and there are nearly 50,000 courts around the world in 185 countries.

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6. While squash may be perceived as an upper crust sport (the Preppy Handbook called it "the game every Preppy can play"!), programs like StreetSquash (above) promote it as a youth enrichment program in low-income communities like Harlem, NY and Newark, NJ.

7. Squash may be in the 2024 Olympics (supporters of the sport are lobbying for its inclusion).

8. It's been voted the healthiest sport to play by Forbes magazine based on cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, muscular endurance, calories burned, and risk of injury.

9. An hour of squash can burn 600-1000 calories.

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10. St. Bart's Church and the Park Avenue Armory (above), both on Park Avenue in New York City, used to have squash courts.

11. There are only two outdoor squash courts in the US: one is in Burlington, VT, and theother is just outside the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

12. Prince Philip played squash while Queen Elizabeth II was in labor (for 30 hours) giving birth to Prince Charles.

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13. The late Rainier III, prince of Monaco (above, with wife Grace Kelly), played squash every day for many years.

The 2014 J.P Morgan Tournament of Champions in Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal SquashPics.com

14. The J.P. Morgan Tournament of Champions, which starts Friday at Grand Central Terminal and has been running since 1932, is the best and largest opportunity to see the most competitive squash in the world. Click here to get tickets to what's considered to be the "Wimbledon of squash."

Sam Dangremond Contributing Digital Editor Sam Dangremond is a Contributing Digital Editor at Town & Country, where he covers men's style, cocktails, travel, and the social scene.

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