Short answers, pulled from the story.
Fishermen in ancient Peru were already riding waves on reed watercraft known as caballitos de totora about three thousand years ago. The Moche culture utilized these small, horse-shaped reed boats to catch waves and return to shore, creating a tradition that has persisted for millennia in Huanchaco.
In July 1885, three teenage Hawaiian princes named David Kawānanakoa, Edward Keli'iahonui, and Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole stepped off their boarding school in San Mateo and surfed the mouth of the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz, California. This event marked the first recorded instance of surfing in the continental United States.
For a surfer to successfully navigate a wave, the peel angle must be greater than 25 degrees. Fast waves have angles around 30 degrees and slow waves reach 60 degrees, while a break that closes out has a peel angle of 0 degrees and is unsurfable.
Surfing was added by the International Olympic Committee as an Olympic sport to begin at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan in 2016. The first gold medalists of the Tokyo 2020 surfing men and women's competitions were the Brazilian Ítalo Ferreira and the American from Hawaii, Carissa Moore.
As of 2023, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized a 26.2 meter wave ride by Sebastian Steudtner at Nazaré, Portugal, as the largest wave ever surfed. This achievement highlights the sport's capacity for extreme achievement and the use of tow-in surfing to match large wave speeds.