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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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snooker
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By the late 20C easily the most popular form of *billiards in Britain. It developed in about 1880 as a variant of two other billiard games, pool and pyramid (it was known at the time as 'snooker's pool', snooker being slang for a newly-joined cadet). The game remained relatively obscure until the great billiards player Joe *Davis took it up in the 1920s, recognizing it as more dramatic than billiards for exhibition games.
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Davis was the first to achieve, in 1955, the 'perfect' score of 147 (requiring the black to be potted after each of the 15 reds, followed by the coloured balls in the correct sequence, clearing the table in a single break). But the wide popularity of snooker began with the television programme *Pot Black. The climax of each year's snooker season is the World Professional Championship, sponsored since 1976 by Embassy and televised in May from the *Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
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