The history of ballroom dancing is very long because it is very old, but a recent history brings it to us as we know it today.

From earliest times man has used dance to express, communicate and share feelings.

With the advent of Greek civilization Ballroom dancing experienced a boom as Greeks started to represent it on theater stages using the most varied choreographies.

With the Roman Empire, in circuses, it took a decisive character which represented a new developing choreographic difficulty. This lasted until the fall of the Roman Empire, in the year 476 AD, when the dance was practically suspended.

  The society was divided between the aristocracy, clergy and peasants, this division produced two tracks in the dance:

 The Nobleness Style represented by dance works made by lines of dancers that took specific positions in the whole dance.

The Popular Style. Where dancing performed by couples was totally anarchic induced by the rhythm rather than by organized patterns.

Already in the sixteenth century, Europe will live a true cultural revolution:

The Renaissance:

A dance called Volta was born in 1559, with a ¾ pace. Although it was not accepted in the royal courts and Louis XIII declared it "immoral" because the dancers were in contact. The most popular dance within the monarchy is minuet.

 Two centuries after, in the eighteenth century Waltzes was born in Germany having the most success in Vienna. It appeared in England in 1812 under the name Waltz coming, being the favorite of the Viennese court

 
 Waltz is then considered the mother dance of what is  now known as ballroom dancing. The three Austrian musicians to whom it owes its development are:  Johann Strauss father, Josef Lanner and Johann Strauss son.

At that time and during centuries, slaves were brought from Africa, moving with them their music and culture. All this culture was isolated and marginalized; we will have to wait until the twentieth century when a more tolerant society fully recognizes the error.

 In 1870 in Boston America a similar to the waltz rhythms dance appears even if being much slower, leading after many variations to what we now know as the English Waltz

From here the dance takes different aspects:

On one side in the U.S. Jazz, Blues and Big Bands emerge, starting from these rhythms several dances born which were more or less controversial or accepted.

 Throughout Latin America new steps are gestated to generate what now covers Latin dance.

Tango, of African origin, was developed in the suburbs of Buenos Aires (Argentina) on 1860.

 From here I leave it with you for a little more in depth lecture about the dances that you prefer.