The exact origins of tango—both the dance and the word itself—are lost in myth and in unrecorded history. The generally accepted theory is that in the mid-1800s, African slaves were brought to Argentina and began to influence the local culture. The word "tango" may be straightforwardly African in origin, meaning "closed place" or "reserved ground." Or it be may derived from Portuguese (and from the Latin verb tanguere, to touch) and was picked up by Africans on the slave ships.

Whatever its origin, the word "tango" first acquired its standard meaning as the place where African slaves and free blacks gathered to dance. During the later part of the 1800s and early 1900s Argentina was undergoing a massive immigration. Buenos Aires, a key city in tango history, then harbored a intermixing population of African, Spanish, Italian, British, Polish, Russian and native-born Argentines.In a melting pot of cultures, each tradition borrowed dance and music from one another. Traditional polkas, waltzes and mazurkas were mixed with the popular habanera from Cuba and the candombe rhythms from Africa. It was here that the African rhythms met the Argentine milonga music (a fast-paced polka) and soon new steps were invented and took hold. This new form of dance was soon to be named “tango”. Although high society looked down upon the activities in the barrios, well-heeled sons of the porteño oligarchy were not averse to slumming. Eventually, everyone found out about the tango and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the tango as both a dance and as an embryonic form of popular music had established a firm foothold in the fast-expanding city of its birth. The tango spread worldwide throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The dance appeared in movies and tango singers traveled the world. By the 1930s, the Golden Age of Argentina was beginning. The country became one of the ten richest nations in the world and music, poetry and culture flourished. The tango came to be a fundamental expression of Argentine culture, and the Golden Age lasted through the 1940s and 1950s. Tango's fortunes have always been tied to economic conditions and this was very true in the 1950s. During this time, as political repression developed, lyrics reflected political feelings until they started to be banned as subversive. The dance and its music went underground as large dance venues were closed and large gatherings in general were prohibited. The tango survived in smaller, unpublicized venues and in the hearts of the people. The necessity of going underground combined with the eventual invasion of rock and roll sent the tango into decline until the mid-1980s when the stage show Tango Argentino opened in Paris. Once again Paris was ground zero for igniting tango excitement worldwide. The show toured the world and stimulated a revival in Europe, North America and Japan that we are part of today.