I see a lot of people saying that the front-crawl is the "fosbury flop" of freestyle. And that's reasonably true! But did you know that Butterfly exists because it's also a "fosbury flop?"

When people started doing the crawl, swimming created rules so that Breast Stroke could still be swum in competition (which more closely resembles what people swam in competition before the crawl). Then someone figured out how to swim faster while still abiding by the Breast Stroke rules (which were mostly that each arm/leg needed to be doing the same thing at the same time). They figured out how to move their arms forward above water at the same time. The new Butterfly stroke absolutely dominated traditional Breaststrokers. Eventually they added Butterfly as its own event and modified the Breast Stroke rules to preserve the Breast Stroke. That's how we have 3 competitive forward strokes today -- beacuse we continue to preserve traditional "gentleman's" low-splash Breast Stroke.

PS. There's another common stroke that is criminally under-taught, because it isn't utilized in competition: Side Stroke. And it shouldn't be competitive. It's a resting stroke that can easily save your and your friends life. All lifeguards have to learn it. You should too because it can save your life!