Short answers, pulled from the story.
Cultures in ancient Peru began surfing back to shore on reed watercraft between three thousand and five thousand years ago. The Moche culture utilized the caballito de totora around 200 CE as evidenced by archaeological records.
Jesuit missionary José de Acosta documented Inca surfing in Callao in his 1590 publication Historia natural y moral de las Indias. Lieutenant James King became the first person to write about surfing on Hawaii after completing journals of Captain James Cook following Cook's death in 1779.
Three teenage Hawaiian princes surfed the mouth of the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz, California during July 1885. David Kawānanakoa, Edward Keli'iahonui, and Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole rode custom-shaped redwood boards while attending boarding school at St. Matthew's Hall in San Mateo.
Swell is generated when wind blows consistently over a large space of open water called the wind's fetch. The size of a swell depends on the strength of the wind, the length of its fetch, and the duration of the wind blowing.
The International Olympic Committee added surfing to the Olympic program in 2016 to begin at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan. Brazilian Ítalo Ferreira and American Carissa Moore became the first gold medalists in Tokyo 2020 surfing men and women competitions respectively.