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 The polka originated in Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic around 1830.

 A popular story is that a peasant girl named Anna Slezáková invented the polka as a unique set of steps to accompany the local folk song "Strýček Nimra koupil šimla" ("Uncle Nimra Bought a White Horse"). Her music teacher, Josef Neruda, recorded the music and steps and taught others to dance it. 

 Historians believe the polka evolved from the waltz, which was scandalous for its physical contact between dance partners 

 The name "polka" may come from the Czech word pulka, which means "half" or "half-step". This refers to the quick, half-step dance movements of the polka. 

Polka Varieties was an hour-long television program of polka music originating from Cleveland, Ohio. The show, which aired in several U.S. cities, ran from 1956 until 1983. At that time, it was the only television program for this type of music in the United States. A number of polka shows originated from the Buffalo Niagara Region in the 1960s, including WKBW-TV's Polka Time, which was hosted for its first half-year on air by Frankie Yankovic, and cross-border station CHCH-TV's Polka Party, hosted by Walter Ostanek. In 2015, when Buffalo station WBBZ-TV launched the weekly Polka Buzz hosted by Ron Dombrowski, who also hosts the Drive Time Polkas radio show on WXRL Mondays-Saturdays from 5pm-7pm and on WECK Sundays from 8am-11am.

Beginning with its inception in 2001, the RFD-TV Network aired The Big Joe Show, a television program that included polka music and dancing. It was filmed on location in various venues throughout the United States from 1973 through 2009. RFD-TV replaced The Big Joe Show with Mollie Busta's Polka Fest in January 2011; after Big Joe's death, reruns of The Big Joe Show returned to RFD-TV in 2015