China is one of the earliest countries in the world to invent rolling bearings. In ancient Chinese books, the structure of axle bearings has long been recorded. From the archaeological relics and materials, the most ancient bearing with the prototype of the modern rolling bearing structure in China appeared in the 221~207 B.C. (Qin Zhao) Xue Jia Ya Village, Yongji County, Shanxi province. Since the founding of new China, especially since the 70s of the last century, the bearing industry has entered a new period of high quality and rapid development under the impetus of the reform and opening up.

At the end of the seventeenth Century, the C. VW of England designed and manufactured ball bearings and tried it on a mail car and the P. worth of the UK Patent for ball bearings. At the end of eighteenth Century, H.R. Hertz published a paper on contact stress of ball bearings in Germany. On the basis of Hertz achievement, a large number of experiments have been carried out in Germany's R. Pam and Sweden's A. Glen, which contributed to the development of the design theory of rolling bearings and the calculation of fatigue life. Subsequently, Russian N.P. Petrov applied Newton's law of viscosity to calculate bearing friction.

O. Reynolds of England made a mathematical analysis of Torre's discovery and deduced the Reynolds equation, which laid the foundation of hydrodynamic lubrication theory. The early form of linear motion bearings is to place a row of wooden poles under a row of prizing boards. This technology may be traced back to the construction of the great Pyramid of Giza, though there is no clear evidence. Modern linear motion bearings use the same working principle, but sometimes they replace balls with balls. The earliest sliding and rolling bearings are made of wood. Ceramics, sapphires or glass are also used. Steel, copper, other metals and plastics, such as nylon, bakelite, Teflon and UHMWPE, are commonly used.

From heavy wheel axle and machine spindle to precise clock parts, rotary bearings are required in many occasions. The simplest rotary bearing is the axle sleeve bearing. It is just a bushing between the wheel and the axle. This design is replaced by rolling bearings, which replace the original bushing with many cylindrical rollers. Each rolling body is like a single wheel. The earliest practical rolling bearing with cages was invented by John Harrison in 1760 to produce H3 timemeters.

An example of an early ball bearing was discovered on an ancient Rome vessel found in Lake Italy. This wooden ball bearing is used to support the rotating table. The ship was built in 40 BC. It is said that Leonardoda Da Finch used to describe a ball bearing around 1500. One of the most important factors in ball bearings is the collision between balls, resulting in additional friction. But it can be prevented by putting balls into small cages.

Galileo made the earliest description of fixed ball or cage mounted ball bearings in seventeenth Century. But after quite a long time, the installation of bearings on the machine has not been realized. The first patent on the ditch was acquired by Philip Vaughan of Carmarthen in 1794.

In 1883, Friedrich Fisher proposed the idea of using suitable production machines to grind steel balls of the same size and roundness. This laid the foundation for creating an independent bearing industry.