Olympics

For over a millennium, Greek athletes gather at Olympia every four years to compete in running, wrestling and chariot events until the Roman emperor bans the pagan festival in 393 AD.

French educator Pierre de Coubertin founds the International Olympic Committee, and Athens hosts the first modern Games: 241 athletes from 14 nations.

Both world wars wipe out three editions of the Summer Games — the only times the modern Olympics have been cancelled outright.

Chamonix stages the first Winter Games, and Paris 1924 introduces the Olympic motto 'Citius, Altius, Fortius'. The Olympic flame debuts at Amsterdam in 1928.

Rome hosts the first Paralympic Games, growing from the Stoke Mandeville wheelchair games for war veterans into a parallel global movement.

Cold War boycotts mar Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984, but the 1984 Games also open the door to professional athletes and commercial sponsorship that bankrolls the movement.

The Winter Games shift to the even years between Summer Games, giving the movement a global event every two years with more than 200 nations and 10,000+ athletes competing.