Excerpts from the Fact and Fiction and History of Bridge:

No one knows precisely where the name bridge for the card game came from, although it is fairly certain that it has nothing to do with other senses of the word bridge. The invention of bridge in the 19th century was, evidently, based on a card game long popular in the Near East and known at that time as Russian Whist. The word whist itself, by the way, is an old British equivalent of shhh!, and is a natural name for a game that demands silence from its players. Russian Whist was also known as biritch or britch, both of which do sound Russian although neither of them seems to be an actual Russian word. In any case, once the British took up the game, britch became bridge through a process known as folk etymology, which is a fancy way of saying that people often substitute a word they do know for one they don't, even when the substitution makes no sense. So the answer is that the name bridge is almost entirely random and does not mean a thing, or, as we say at my house, Go Fish.

1742: The first book devoted to Whist appeared, Edmond Hoyle's Short Treatise, which became a best seller.

1857: The first game of duplicate Whist was played in London; this eliminated much of he luck involved in which card each player was dealt. It was the forerunner of modern duplicate bridge.

1903: British civil servants in remote India developed the practice of bidding for the privilege of calling the trump suit, thus introducing "auction bridge."

1925: Harold S. Vanderbilt, American multi-millionaire and three-time America's Cup winner, changed the course of bridge while on a cruise. He suggested that only tricks bid and made count toward game, with extra tricks counted as bonuses. These revised rules turned auction bridge into contract bridge.

1931: The Culbertson Summary and Culbertson's Blue Book topped all book sales for the year, outselling such popular titles as Believe It or Not and Crossword Puzzles! "The Battle of the Century" was held in New York City. The team captained by Ely Culbertson won by 8980 points.

1953: President Eisenhower played bridge regularly on Saturday night with top experts. He attended national bridge tournaments when possible. He enjoyed bridge as much as golf and he was considered an excellent player.

1958: Charles Goren appeared on the cover of Time magazine and was dubbed "The King of Aces." The inside story explained the basic rules of bridge and proclaimed it the "United States' No. 1 card game."