The Olympic Games are considered to be the world's foremost sports
competition and more than 200 nations participate. The Games are held
biennially, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating, so that
each of these is held every four years. Originally, the ancient Olympic
Games were held in Olympia, Greece, from the 8th century BC to the 4th
century AD. Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) in 1894, which is still the governing body of the games.
The 20th and 21st centuries have seen several changes to the games, such
as the creation of the Winter Games for ice and winter sports, the
Paralympic Games for athletes with a physical disability, and the Youth
Olympic Games. The Olympics have shifted away from the pure amateurism
envisioned by Coubertin to allow participation of professional athletes.
The growing importance of the mass media has created issues around
corporate sponsorship and commercialization of the Games. World Wars led
to the cancellation of the 1916, 1940, and 1944 Games. Large boycotts
during the Cold War limited participation in the 1980 and 1984 Games.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
30 BC:
Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian
Ptolemaic dynasty, committed suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_VII>
1121:
Forces led by David the Builder decisively won the Battle of
Didgori, driving Ilghazi and the Seljuk Turks out of Georgia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Didgori>
1877:
American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Deimos, the smaller
of the two moons of Mars.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deimos_(moon)>
1944:
After a week of indiscriminate killing of civilians in Wola,
Warsaw, Poland, SS General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski ordered that any
remaining Poles be sent to labour or concentration camps.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wola_massacre>
1950:
Korean War: Members of the North Korean People's Army executed
75 captured U.S. Army prisoners of war.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Gulch_massacre>
1990:
American paleontologist Sue Hendrickson found the most complete
skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus ever discovered near Faith, South Dakota,
US.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_(dinosaur)>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
repechage:
(sports) A heat (as in rowing or fencing) in which the best competitors
who have lost in a previous round compete for a place or places yet left
in the next round.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/repechage>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take
part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the
essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. To
spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and,
above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.
--Pierre de Coubertin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Coubertin>