History
All Fours is among the oldest extant card games in England. Its first known description was in Charles Cotton's Compleat Gamester of 1674, where the game was reported as popular in Kent. It is probably of Dutch ancestry, and David Parlett suggests that it played a role with the association of the name Jack with the card rank that was originally known only as the knave.
In the 19th century, the game was taken to America and became popular among the African Americans on slave plantations. Also called Seven up, it gave rise to other variants such as Pitch and Auction Pitch, which probably developed in the New England States, Pedro, and California Jack, also known as High-Low-Jack. Modern descendants include Don and Phat, developed in Britain and Ireland. The game is still played in north-west England and Wales, and it has become the national game of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Read more about this topic: All Fours
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)