The history of the tango can trace its roots to Argentina in the late 19th century, where a massive immigration from Europe took place. Various Spanish, Italian, French, Turkish, Polish, and even some Irish and German immigrants congregated in the tenement buildings, gathering with the locals on the streets and in bars at night, singing improvised songs along to buskers and other street musicians about their plight, poverty, homesickness and the love of a woman. In this melting pot of different cultures, the tango, both as music and as the dance.

Their second most popular form of entertainment was of course to avail of the services of Buenos Aires' brothels. However, the Argentina of this time had experienced a shortage of women, since almost all the immigrants from Europe were men. The history of the tango points out this interesting phenomenon because it is the reason why tango dancing in these bordellos. Musicians were brought in to entertain the waiting customers, who would gamely join in with improvised singing and dancing.

The earliest dancers in the history of the tango were soloists, until there came a reason for the men to practice dancing together. Women were eventually brought out to dance with the men, and since these gauchos, or Argentinian cowboys, and factory workers were poor and didn't smell very nice, the women would pick only the best dancers to dance with. Therefore, men were often seen dancing together on the street, practicing the tango every chance they got, to make them acceptable to the women.

Even the steps of the tango evolved from the characteristics of these people. Gauchos, who had come straight from the farms and had no chance to wash, wore trousers that were stiff with the sweat from horses and had to dance with their knees bent. The basic tango steps were walking steps in circular patterns because very often, men had to dance around tables that were in the way. The women danced with their heads held backward, away from the men, to keep from smelling their musky after-work odors, anchored to their partners by holding on to their bent elbows.

As much as these dances were popular in the brothels and night clubs of Buenos Aires, the tango was only given public praise and acclaim when sons of wealthy Argentinian families were sent to study in Europe. These young men learned the tango in the same manner as the gauchos did, as the shortage of women had them lining up in brothels as well. In Europe, however, particularly in Paris, the dance was a hit and the history of the tango took a favorable turn. Because there was a tango mania in Europe, Argentinians were made to accept with pride the dance that was publicly shunned in their native country.

The history of the tango progressed even better when the dictator Juan Peron deemed the tango a national dance form in the 1940s, to please his wife, Eva. Soon, everyone in Argentina knew how to dance the tango. The tango became an essential part of the Argentinian lifestyle, where ordinary people would go to work in the morning, go home for siesta in the mid-afternoon, and then hit the dancehalls by nightfall.