Possibly one of the most famous events to combine history and Olympics is the Munich massacre of 1972. During the 1972 Summer Olympics in West Germany a group of 8 heavily armed Palestinian militants took over the athletes’ living quarters of the Israeli Olympic team. There was a stand off for hours until the hostage takers demanded a flight out of West Germany and to freedom. At the airport where the militants were supposed to leave with their hostages gunfire broke out and, when it was all over, 5 of the 8 militants were dead and 11 Israeli athletes were also dead. The 3 militants that were captured were later released as part of a bargaining agreement with terrorists that had hijacked a commercial airliner.
In 1996 history and Olympics met again as there was a bomb attack in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, GA. The attack killed 2 people and injured over 100 others. Richard Jewell was initially regarded as the hero of the day as he was the one that found the bomb and possibly saved many lives. But soon it was speculated that Jewell was a suspect and the federal authorities did very little to stop the speculation. Richard Jewell’s name was ruined in the public eye and it was not until some time after ruining Jewell’s reputation that the authorities announced they had caught Eric Robert Rudolph who was proven to be the Centennial Olympic Park bomber. Jewell went on to sue many of the media outlets that had spread the story of his possible connection with the bombing and some of those cases are still pending to this day.
A story of historical Olympic success is that of Bruce Jenner. Jenner was an athlete from the United States who captured gold in the Decathlon by gathering the most points in the combined Decathlon events in the history of the Olympics. During his victory lap around Montreal’s Olympic stadium after he had won the Decathlon, Jenner was handed a large American flag which he wrapped around himself and ran his victory lap with. To this day the wrapping of the flag around an athlete is a universal symbol of Olympic success. Jenner went on to be a world wide celebrity and an advocate for physical fitness and good health.
The Olympics has been the site of some history’s greatest triumphs and also some of history’s greatest disasters. Hitler tried to use the Olympics as a propaganda event for his new master race but a black man from the United States named Jesse Owens ruined Hitler’s Olympics by winning 4 gold medals. One of the most famous brawls between figure skaters was caused by the dream of Olympic gold as Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan had the Olympics’ most public feud ever. As long as there is the Olympic games there will always be new chances for history to be made.