Skateboarding was first started around the 1950s, California Surfers got the idea of trying to surf the streets. No one really knows who made the first board -- instead, it seems that several people came up with similar ideas at the same time. Several people have claimed to have invented the skateboard first, but nothing can be proved, and skateboarding remains a strange spontaneous but great creation. A good movie depicting this history would be Dogtown and Z-Boys or maybe Lords of Dogtown.