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Regardless what language you speak, what country you're from, or how old you are, you probably know what this symbol is
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The Olympics is the largest, most global, highest standard for athleticism. But since when
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The Olympics started all the way back in 776 B.C. in Greece
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But this was not the Olympics that we know today. People would perform in the nude, they would fight to the death, and it was all done in the name of pagan gods
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It was a tradition that would supersede the political situations, so they would set aside war and political strife to come together to do these games in honor of these pagan gods
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But in 393 AD, when a Christian ruler came in, he banned all pagan practices
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including the Olympics. From then all the way until the 19th century, the Olympics was essentially dead
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This was until a man by the name Pierre de Coubertin came along
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He was a French man who really loved sportsmanship, and he believed in the spirit of the Olympics
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in the sense of pure sportsmanship and working to become our best
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He laid this out in what later became the Olympic Creed, which reads, The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle
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The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well. So with this idealized image of what the Olympics could be
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Coobertine set out to create the International Olympic Committee. And this was founded in 1894, and then only two years later
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the first ever modern Olympic Games was held. The 1896 Olympics were held in the Panathneic Stadium in Athens Greece It a stadium that built entirely of marble and it was built actually 6th century BC So there really wasn a better place to revive the Olympics than right there in Athens
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Then it was in 1912 that Cupertine designed the Olympic rings that we know and love today
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Each ring is supposed to symbolize an inhabited continent. The Americas counting as one for some reason
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And the colors are chosen because at the time, every flag in the world had at least one color represented in the rings
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So it really was supposed to be this message of world unity and everyone coming together to better themselves through sportsmanship
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When the International Olympic Committee was created, they had a million decisions to make
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They had to decide, are we only going to allow the same games that were played in ancient Olympics
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Where are we going to hold these Olympics? How often are we going to hold them? Who's allowed to participate
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It was just a whole list of things to be decided. Thankfully, their ideals and the spirit of unity shone through a bit, and as early as
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1900, women athletes and black athletes were allowed to participate in the Games
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In the 1960s, the Paralympics were created for athletes with disabilities. And as recent as 2016, a refugee team was created for those athletes who are also refugees
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Another way to push this agenda of unity and sportsmanship was to not allow professional
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athletes to play. So it wasn't even until 1986 that professional athletes were allowed to perform in the games at the Olympics
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In fact, there was an early medalist in the 1912 Olympics who won tons of gold medals
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His name was Jim Thorpe. He was actually stripped of all of his medals after the Olympics because it turned out that he played professional baseball So did everyone else at the games but he just didn lie about it He went on to create a little club of his own where professional athletes could play
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the NFL. While the games themselves are really inclusive, the events and the organization has been used
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to push political propaganda for better or for worse. And this is what's so fascinating to me, is that learning the history of the Olympics
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can often tell a much larger story of what was happening in the world at the time
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So here are a couple examples of that. In 1936, the Olympics were held in Berlin, which was Nazi Germany at the time
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Hitler wanted to use the games to perpetuate his ideas of a superior race
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This backfired a bit when Jesse Owens, a black U.S. athlete, won four gold medals for his running
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And all Hitler could do in response was refuse to shake his hand. Only 20 years after World War II in 1964, the Olympics were held in Japan
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This marked Japan's emergence from the war as not an enemy, but a peaceful country
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Then in 1968, during the Mexico Olympics, two runners, Tommy Smith and John Carlos
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protested against racial violence in America, leading to their suspension from the U.S. team
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They say the games are sports, not politics, something separate and apart from the realities of life
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But the black athlete says that he wants equality everywhere, not just within the arena
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He says that he will not be used once every four years on behalf of a group
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That ignores what happens to him every day of all the years
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In 1980 during the Cold War the U hockey team and the Soviet Union hockey team went head in an event that Sports Illustrated called the top sports moment of the 20th century
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And the last example I'll give is that only six months after the horrible 9-11 attacks in New York
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the Salt Lake City Olympics signified a resilient nation that could overcome fear and safely gather together again
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Because of the platform that the Olympics has and because of its dense, complex history
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it's really worth looking into the history of the Olympics if you are in an Olympic city
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The modern Olympics has been held in 43 different cities across five different continents
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And this is all due to Pierre de Coubertin and his ability to gather people together
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to create the Olympic Committee and his vision of what the Olympics could be
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Hey guys, thank you so much for watching if you like this video give us a thumbs up
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It's good for YouTube to know that we make good stuff And if you subscribe to the channel, we'll be posting a lot more stuff like this if you get the chance to travel to an Olympic
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City I highly recommend you take it I've been able to go to a couple like the arena in Athens that they first
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Hosted the Olympics at and the arena in Berlin where Jesse Owens won his gold medals
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And it's always been an awesome experience when I get to take that chance And if you want to find full online travel courses
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how you can travel smarter, we will see you over at brighttrip.com
