My son and I were wondering when the concentric pattern of rings was developed and in reference to what. We have both traditional targets, along with more realistic targets and targets with other shapes, but the bullseye is ubiquitous.
What gives?
This was actually covered in a recent episode of How America Got It's Slang on TV.
Many ages ago, when bows were still commonly used in warfare, people would take bull skulls (because they were tough) to practice shooting at. The more proficient archers would then challenge each other to put arrows through the eye socket of the bull skull - a literal bull's eye - as it was a much smaller target and harder to hit. The name ended up sticking as it is takes more skill to hit that specific point on the target.
As for the center of that target, in france (also taken from same episode), it was a french term called point blanque - the white point - and archers would practice hitting that point at a range to where they could aim straight at it and hit it without having to adjust upwards for distance/gravity - thus where we get hitting point blank, especially combining that with a hit and calling it a bullseye!