Donuts: International sweet treats and a multi-billion-dollar industry

 Fun Facts About Donuts

Although controversial, who traditionally is known for importing doughnuts to America, around 1847? 

Dutch settlers. The donut (or “doughnut”) is a deep-fried piece of dough or batter. It comes from the Dutch origin of olykoeck or “oily cake”. The two most common types of donuts are the flattened sphere (you know…the ones that are injected with jelly or custard) and the ring donut.

Which company is the world’s largest coffee and baked goods chain?

Dunkin’ Donuts. Internationally, Dunkin’ Donuts has over 1700 locations in 29 countries and over 6,000 stores in 30 countries world-wide! In the U.S. there are over 4,400 locations across 36 states.

Which company, founded in 1937 proudly boasts the slogan, “Hot Original Glazed”? 

Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme is probably best known for their fresh, hot, glazed, yeast-raised doughnuts. The company’s “Hot Doughnuts Now” flashing sign is an integral part of the brand’s appeal and fame.

Which Entenmann’s doughnut is the company’s top seller in 2005?

Rich Frosted Chocolate Dipped. Introduced in 1972, the Rich Frosted Chocolate Dipped doughnut has become a favorite among consumers. More than 168 million pounds of chocolate has been used to produce the doughnuts. Image how many swimming pools you could fill with that amount of chocolate!

Which is NOT one of Dunkin’ Donuts top selling donuts as of 2005?

Coconut Crunch. Jelly-filled and Chocolate frosted also rank as their top sellers. Coconut Crunch, although not a number one seller, still remains one of the over 52 varieties of donuts the chain produces on a yearly basis.

Which chain produced the world’s largest edible doughnut in 1998?

Winchell’s House of Donuts. You may also know Winchell’s by its other name, “Home of the Fresh ‘n Warm Donut” The store located in Pasadena, CA, created a gigantic version of their apple fritter doughnut. It weighed 5000 pounds and stood 95 feet in diameter!

What is the name given to the popular Polish doughnut, which is now being marketed in many U.S. grocery stores today?

Paczki. The others are also types of doughnuts from other regions around the world. The popular deep-fried Paczki’s are usually filled with jams such as raspberry, strawberry, lemon ,and prune. They are pronounced (poonch-key) and have deep roots in Polish heritage and history.

According to an article published by Restaurant.org in 2002, what is the estimated number of doughnuts that Americans consume annually?

10 billion. It really is too big of a number when you consider that as of 1997, there were 6,792 doughnut shops in the U.S. alone. In 2005, one can only imagine that the number of doughnut shops has increased dramatically. Unfortunately, 1997 was the last year that all overall statistics and data is available on this subject (or at least that I can find!).

According to a 2004 report by USA Today, doughnut sales increased 9% in 2003. According to the same article, how much is the U.S. doughnut industry worth?

$3.6 billion. USA Today also reports that the three fastest-growing chains in the U.S. are (in order) Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, and Tim Horton’s.

Nationally, what is Randy’s Donuts best known for?

Big Donut Drive-In. Randy’s Donuts is a landmark in Inglewood, CA. The 22 foot diameter donut on top of the building was built in 1952. The giant donut has been featured in many TV shows as well as many popular movies, such as “Mars Attacks” and “Coming to America”.

Special thanks to  www.funtrivia.com

OPEC: Influential Oil Producing Cartel with “Diplomatic Immunity”

OPEC Cartel Logo

Fun Facts About OPEC

Members of OPEC meet

 

 

Current Members: Algeria, Angola, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela

Cartel: By definition, OPEC is a cartel — a group of producers which tries to restrict output in an effort to keep prices higher than the competitive level.

It no longer sets crude oil prices: OPEC admits to setting crude oil prices in the ‘70s and’ 80s — they would look ridiculous to try and deny it. However, the oil market underwent a transformation in the 1990s and today, prices for crude oil are established according to three markets: 1) The New York Mercantile Exchange; 2) The International Petroleum Exchange in London; and, 3) The Singapore International Monetary Exchange.

This isn’t to suggest that OPEC has no influence on prices; quite the contrary. Prices established by the exchanges are based on supply and demand; therefore any decision OPEC makes concerning restricting production, for example, will have some effect on prices. These decisions, however, can have a direct consequence on profit margin, so it isn’t always in their best interests.

Its practices are considered to be illegal: Simply put: Cartels are illegal in many countries. In the U.S., for example, OPEC is in direct violation of antitrust laws, such as the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 — the same act that broke up Standard Oil, American Tobacco and Ma Bell. Antitrust laws don’t criminalize monopolies per se, only if the monopoly is used to eliminate its competition through methods of production or price-fixing.

Ordinarily, U.S. antitrust laws explicitly prohibit dealing with cartels. What makes OPEC so special? Simple: Congress grants OPEC diplomatic immunity from prosecution and in essence treats it as though it were a sovereign nation, even though this is not remotely the case. This status was tested in 1978, when the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), a non-profit labor organization in the U.S., filed suit against OPEC under the Sherman Act. In 1981, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the case, claiming OPEC was protected by its sovereign immunity status.

In 2007, a pair of controversial bills were introduced in Congress designed to amend antitrust laws to include OPEC. If the measures are approved in both houses and the president doesn’t veto it, individuals harmed by OPEC in the U.S. can begin to sue the organization. If this were to happen, few expect OPEC to continue doing business with the U.S.

It isn’t the only game in town: If one only paid passing attention to the media, you might get the impression that OPEC is the only oil game in town. Granted, its member countries control anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of the world’s proven oil reserves and over 40% of the globe’s oil production; however, there are other sets of somewhat substantial oil-producing groups.

Originally formed as an agent of the Marshall Plan following World War II, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a vast and all-encompassing organization with all sorts of arms and legs. Of its 30 member countries, a minority are oil producers, including the USA, Canada, Mexico, and the UK. Together they account for about 23% of the world’s oil production.

Additionally, the Russian Federation and a handful of former-Soviet states, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, are responsible for about 15% of global oil production.

OPEC Member Nations

It was formed to fight the “Seven Sisters”: The world’s wealthy oil barons have not always resided in the Middle East. In fact, for most of the 20th century, the member nations of OPEC were at the mercy of the so-called “Seven Sisters,” a non-organizational set of oil producers and distributors which, perhaps due to that non-organizational status, somehow eluded antitrust prosecution. The Seven Sisters was composed of Standard Oil of New Jersey, Royal Dutch Shell, Anglo-Persian Oil, Standard Oil of New York, Standard Oil of California, Gulf Oil, and Texaco.

By 1960, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela had grown tired of exporting their oil and then having to buy it back at higher prices. They formed OPEC to assert their “legitimate rights in an international oil market,” and by the 1970s, thanks in part to strategic maneuvers such as the Arab oil embargo, began to dominate the market.

It’s “customers” see bigger oil prices than its members: Oil taxes by countries that regularly import oil from OPEC, such as the U.S., the UK, Japan, and Italy, are often as much to blame for high oil prices as OPEC. Such taxes allow some countries to see oil-related revenues that are three or four times higher than some OPEC members see from exports. In addition, the production and development of oil requires huge investments, a fact that further chips away at OPEC-member profit margins.

As gasoline prices soar, more and more attention gets paid to OPEC. In the Western press its easily vilified and is a common ”fall guy“ for every issue related to oil and oil prices — not always unjustifiably so.

More than a few people would be pleased to see OPEC’s influence reduced or even made moribund. However, proven oil reserves are defined in the industry as the amount of oil that can be recovered and produced using today’s technologies, and as of 2006, the world total was 1,195,318 million barrels of crude oil; OPEC’s share of that amount was 922,482 million barrels or 77.2% (if you accept OPEC’s figures; hardly everyone does). Thus, unless a drastic change occurs in the energy-consumption habits of much of the world’s oil-hungry population, interest in OPEC is unlikely to recede for some time.

Special thanks to www.askmen.com

Elizabeth Blackwell: America’s First Female Medical Doctor

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell

Fun Facts About Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell

• Elizabeth Blackwell 1821-1910, American physician, b. England; sister of Henry Brown Blackwell .
• She emigrated to New York City when she was eleven years old. During Elizabeth’s childhood she took all the subjects the boys did at school. It was said that she wouldn’t leave until all of her writing was perfect.
• When Elizabeth was ready to start college she applied to many colleges. Before applying to college she had gone to many teachers’ houses and trained with them. After many tries, she finally was the first women accepted to Geneva Medical College (then part of Geneva College, early name of Hobart). Even though she was accepted, the school did not seem to take her seriously. Nonetheless, her perseverance led her to a medical degree, which she received in 1849.
• After she finished college she went to France to get more training. Elizabeth tried to enter La Maternite as a student apprentice. Even though the hospital did not recognize her degree, they let her be a nurse. While she was working there she got to help some doctors. One time she was called to take care of a baby whose eyes were infected. When she bent over the baby, some of the liquid squirted into her own eye. It got infected and resulted in her losing sight in that eye.
• After she recovered she came home to the US. Shortly after, she tried to start her own hospital. A big problem was that no one wanted to see a female doctor. After she treated each patient they would spread the word about how good she was, and soon lots of people were coming to her.
• With her sister, Emily Blackwell (1826-1910) who was also a doctor, and Marie Zackrzewska (an assistant), she founded (1857) the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, which was expanded in 1868 to include a Women’s College for the training of doctors, the first of its kind.
• In 1869, Dr. Blackwell settled in England, where she became (1875) professor of gynecology at the London School of Medicine for Women, which she had helped to establish.
• She wrote Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895) and many other books and papers on health and education. 

 

Special thanks to www.encyclopedia.com and  library.thinkquest.org

 

The U.S. Federal Reserve: Determining Monetary Policy Since 1914

Fun Facts About the U.S. Federal Reserve

• 

  The 12 Federal Reserve Banks

  The U.S. Federal Reserve System began on November 16th, 1914
  

• The Federal Reserve is a private institution. It is owned by the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, which are each in turn owned by a combination of regional banks, commercial banks, foreign banks, and miscellaneous individuals who have inherited pieces passed down through generations. (Rockefellers, Rothschilds, etc.)

• The Federal Reserve holds a monopoly on the issuance of currency in the USA. In essence, this is the power to borrow an infinite amount of money at 0%. The dollar bill in your pocket is a 0% loan to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve then uses these 0% loans to purchase income-producing assets. Before 2008, the assets purchased were primarily Treasury debt, which is backed by the taxation power of the US Government. In other words, we are exchanging the property rights to our valuable assets (land, labor, entrepreneurship) for little slips of green paper to buy trinkets with. The government can then tax these valuable assets to pay for our excess. The more we spend, the more the Fed owns.
• If all money created is debt and counts as principal, where does the money come from to pay interest on this debt? It comes from the money that gets printed in the future. This is why inflation is a natural result of our current monetary system.

• Prior the the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act/TARP Act of September 2008, commercial banks were required to hold 10% of deposits as reserves. This placed a limit on the potential amount of money creation at around 9x the original deposit. An obscure clause in the TARP Act changed the reserve requirement to 0%, immediately making the potential money supply infinite.
• The reason for the credit spread blowups of October/November 2008 was because in the same TARP Act the Fed was allowed to pay interest on deposits without publicly stating the interest rate. Before the TARP Act, there was around $20 billion deposited by commercial banks at the Fed. After the TARP Act, deposits immediately jumped 50x to $1 TRILLION. This resulted in a disappearance of demand for risky assets, which led to blowouts in credit spreads.
• As a result of various acts of Congress in 2008, the Federal Reserve now has the authority to buy all sorts of assets (commercial paper, corporate bonds, mortgage loans, etc.). A cynical person would say this essentially allows the Fed to seize all valuable assets in this country directly by exchanging fancy bits of green paper for them without having to go through the intermediate step of coercing the US Government into spending more money and taking on more debt.

• Much of the Fed’s activity is not made public because of the use of off-balance sheet vehicles.

• There is debate over the constitutionality of the Fed’s various awesome powers.

What does this all mean? This economic crisis will not become a depression. By employing the new tools of monetary policy that the Fed has created for itself (interest on reserves and direct asset purchases), the money supply can be jerked around as if on a string. Initially, this means we will soon experience another period of easy credit and unsustainable economic growth.

However, the end result of current policies is that the Fed will be powerless to stop the next economic crisis. Assuming no outside shocks (another big war, nuclear attack, etc.), the dollar will over time lose its status as the reserve currency, and we will experience a currency crisis followed by rampant inflation at some point down the road.

Special thanks to www.seekingalpha.com 

The Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941: Living in Infamy

The Pearl Harbor Memorial rests atop the sunken USS. Arizona

Facts About the Attack on Pearl Harbor

• 

  Japanese attack routes on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii

  Although the aerial attack was very successful, the submarines failed to finish off any wounded ship inside the harbour.

• The attack’s success surprised the Japanese as much as the Americans.
• The last part of the decoded Japanese message stated that U.S. relations were to be severed.
• The Japanese attack force was under the command of Admiral Nagumo.
• Japansese force consisted of six carriers with 423 planes.
• At 6 a.m. the first Japanese attack wave of 83 planes took off.
• Nickname for Pearl Harbor is “Gibraltar of the Pacific.”
• Eighteen U.S. ships were hit.

• 

  Franklin Delano Roosevelt

  President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy,” in reference to the attack.

• Three prime targets escaped damage, the U.S. Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers, the Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga. They were not in the port when the attack took place.
• Another target, the base fuel tanks also escaped damage.
• Casualties included 2,335 servicemen and 68 civilians.
• 1178 people were wounded.
• The day after the attack the U.S. and Britain declared war on Japan.
• Pearl Harbor is the Naval Base for the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
• Pearl Harbor is the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
• Pearl Harbor has 10 square miles of navigable water.
• The harbour is on the southern coast of Oahu.

• 

  Naval vessel placement at Pearl Harbor during the attack

  The harbour is artificially improved.

• The attack was the climax of a decade of worsening relations between the U.S. and militaristic Japan.
• A U.S. embargo on necessary supplies for war prompted the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• The Japanese Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku planned the attack with great care.
• All of the planes on the Japanese ships were fully fueled and armed.
• The Japanese planes took off about 90 minutes from Pearl Harbor.
• The president at the time of the attack was Franklin D. Rooselvelt.
• The attack brought the United States into World War II.
• The Japanese fleet had 30 ships.

• The Japanese were interested in the Hawaiian islands since the islands were annexed by the U.S. in 1898.
• An admiral said, “leaving aside the unspeakable treachery of it, the Japanese did a fine job.”
• Japanese suffered just small losses.
• The attack crippled the United States fleet.
• The Japanese deceived the U.S. by saying false statements and expressed interest in continued peace.
• Americans think of the attack as very dishonorable.
• The attack was planned weeks in advance.
• The main reason for the attack was over economic issues.

• Because of the unpreparedness of the U.S. military, Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short were relieved of duty.
• The attack severely crippled the U.S. naval and air strength in the Pacific.
• Of the eight battleships, all but the Arizona and Oklahoma were eventually repaired and returned to service.
• On December 8, 1941, Congress declared war on Japan with only one vote against it. The vote against it was of Represenative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who had also voted against U.S. entry into World War I.
• Once the fleet was out of action, Japan would be able to conquest a great area.
• A U.S. Army private who noticed the large flight of planes on his radar screen was told to ignore them because a flight of B-17s from the continental U.S. was expected at the time.
• More than 180 U.S. aircraft were destroyed.

• 

  Pearl Harbor Memorial

  During the attack the USS Arizona sank with a loss of more than 1,100 men.

• A white concrete and steel structure now spans the hull of the sunken ship as a memorial.
• The memorial was dedicated on May 30, 1962.
• U.S. officials had been aware that an attack by Japan was probable, but did not know the time or place it would occur.
• Pearl Harbor was not in the state of high alert when the attack started, Anti-Aircraft guns were left unmanned.
• The Americans were taken completely by surprise.
• The main targets for the first wave was the airfield and battleships.
• The second wave targets were other ships and shipyard facilities.
• The air raid lasted until about 9:45 a.m.

 

 

 

Special thanks to  www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com and www.absoluteastronomy.com

 

The Olympics: The Thrills of Victory, the Splendor of Pageantry and the Pride of Nations

The Olympic Flame burns brightly during the Opening Ceremony

Fun Facts About the Olympics

 

• The early Olympic Games were celebrated as a religious festival from 776 B.C. until 393 A.D., when the games were banned for being a pagan festival (the Olympics celebrated the Greek god Zeus).

• In 1894, a French educator Baron Pierre de Coubertin, proposed a revival of the ancient tradition, and thus the modern-day Olympic Summer Games were born.

• Opening day of the first modern Olympic Games was in Athens, Greece on April 5th, 1896.

• Women were first allowed to participate in 1900 at the second modern Olympic Games.

• The first opening ceremonies were held during the 1908 Olympic Games in London.

• During the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, the procession of athletes is always led by the Greek team, followed by all the other teams in alphabetical order (in the language of the hosting country), except for the last team which is always the team of the hosting country.

• Created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic flag contains five interconnected rings on a white background.
  

  The Olympic Flag

• The five Olympic rings represent the five major regions of the world – Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceana, and every national flag in the world includes one of the five colors, which are (from left to right) blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The colors of the rings were chosen because at least one of them appeared on the flag of every country in the world.

• The Olympic flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.

• In 1921, Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, borrowed a Latin phrase from his friend, Father Henri Didon, for the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius (“Swifter, Higher, Stronger”) to be used as the Olympic motto.,

• Pierre de Coubertin wrote an oath for the athletes to recite at each Olympic Games. During the opening ceremonies, one athlete recites the oath on behalf of all the athletes. The Olympic oath was first taken during the 1920 Olympic Games by Belgian fencer Victor Boin.

• The Olympic Oath states, “In the name of all competitors, I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules that govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams.”

• Pierre de Coubertin got the idea for the Olympic Creed from a speech given by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot at a service for Olympic champions during the 1908 Olympic Games. The Creed reads: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

• The Olympic flame is a practice continued from the ancient Olympic Games. In Olympia (Greece), a flame was ignited by the sun and then kept burning until the closing of the Olympic Games.
  

  The ceremonial lighting of the Olympic Flame

• The flame first appeared in the modern Olympics at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.

• The flame itself represents a number of things, including purity and the endeavor for perfection.

• In 1936, the chairman of the organizing committee for the 1936 Olympic Games, Carl Diem, suggested what is now the modern Olympic Torch relay. The Olympic flame is lit at the ancient site of Olympia by women wearing ancient-style robes and using a curved mirror and the sun. The Olympic Torch is then passed from runner to runner from the ancient site of Olympia to the Olympic stadium in the hosting city. The flame is then kept alight until the Games have concluded. The Olympic Torch relay represents a continuation from the ancient Olympic Games to the modern Olympics.

• The Olympic Hymn, played when the Olympic Flag is raised, was composed by Spyros Samaras and the words added by Kostis Palamas. The Olympic Hymn was first played at the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens but wasn’t declared the official hymn by the IOC until 1957.

• The last Olympic gold medals that were made entirely out of gold were awarded in 1912.

• The Olympic medals are designed especially for each individual Olympic Games by the host city’s organizing committee. Each medal must be at least three millimeters thick and 60 millimeters in diameter. Also, the gold and silver Olympic medals must be made out of 92.5 percent silver, with the gold medal covered in six grams of gold.

• Host Greece won the most medals (47) at the first Olympic Summer Games in 1896.

• James B. Connolly (United States), winner of the hop, step, and jump (the first final event in the 1896 Olympics), was the first Olympic champion of the modern Olympic Games.

• The winter Olympic Games were first held in 1924 (in Chamonix, France), beginning a tradition of holding them a few months earlier and in a different city than the summer Olympic Games.

• Beginning in 1994, the winter Olympic Games were held in completely different years (two years apart) than the summer Games.

• Norway has won the most medals (263) at the Winter Games.

• The United States has won more medals (2,189) at the Summer Games than any other country.

• Up until 1994 the Olympics were held every four years. Since then, the Winter and Summer games have alternated every two years.

• The first Olympics covered by U.S. television was the 1960 Summer Games in Rome by CBS.

• No country in the Southern Hemisphere has ever hosted a Winter Games.

• Three continents – Africa, South America, and Antarctica – have never hosted an Olympics.

• A record 202 countries participated in the 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Athens.

• Only four athletes have ever won medals at both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games: Eddie Eagan (United States), Jacob Tullin Thams (Norway), Christa Luding-Rothenburger (East Germany), and Clara Hughes (Canada).

• Speed skater Bonnie Blair has won six medals at the Olympic Winter Games. That’s more than any other American athlete.

• Nobody has won more medals at the Winter Games than cross-country skier Bjorn Dählie of Norway, who has 12.

• Larrisa Latynina, a gymnast from the former Soviet Union, finished her Summer Olympic Games career with 18 total medals—the most in history.

• In order to make the IOC an independent organization, the members of the IOC are not considered diplomats from their countries to the IOC, but rather are diplomats from the IOC to their respective countries.

• When choosing locations for the Olympic Games, the IOC specifically gives the honor of holding the Games to a city rather than a country.

• The United States Olympic Committee established the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983 to recognize outstanding American Olympic athletes, however, a plan to build a hall has been suspended due to lack of funding.

• The first marathon: In 490 BCE, Pheidippides, a Greek soldier, ran from Marathon to Athens (about 25 miles) to inform the Athenians the outcome of the battle with invading Persians. The distance was filled with hills and other obstacles; thus Pheidippides arrived in Athens exhausted and with bleeding feet. After telling the townspeople of the Greeks’ success in the battle, Pheidippides fell to the ground dead. In 1896, at the first modern Olympic Games, held a race of approximately the same length in commemoration of Pheidippides.

• During the first several modern Olympics, the marathon was always an approximate distance. In 1908, the British royal family requested that the marathon start at the Windsor Castle so that the royal children could witness its start. The distance from the Windsor Castle to the Olympic Stadium was 42,195 meters (or 26 miles and 385 yards). In 1924, this distance became the standardized length of a marathon.

• Because of World War I and World War II, there were no Olympic Games in 1916, 1940, or 1944.

• Tennis was played at the Olympics until 1924, then re-instituted in 1988.

• In 1960, the Winter Olympic Games were held in Squaw Valley, California (United States). In order to bedazzle and impress the spectators, Walt Disney was head of the committee that organized the opening day ceremonies. The 1960 Winter Games Opening Ceremony was filled with high school choirs and bands, releasing of thousands of balloons, fireworks, ice statues, releasing of 2,000 white doves, and national flags dropped by parachute.

• Though Russia had sent a few athletes to compete in the 1908 and 1912 Olympic Games, they did not compete again until the 1952 Games.

• Motor boating was an official sport at the 1908 Olympics.

• Polo was played at the Olympics in 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924, and 1936.

• The word “gymnasium” comes from the Greek root “gymnos” meaning nude; the literal meaning of “gymnasium” is “school for naked exercise.” Athletes in the ancient Olympic Games would participate in the nude.

• The first recorded ancient Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE with only one event – the stade. The stade was a unit of measurement (about 600 feet) that also became the name of the footrace because it was the distance run. Since the track for the stade (race) was a stade (length), the location of the race became the stadium.

• An Olympiad is a period of four successive years. The Olympic Games celebrate each Olympiad. For the modern Olympic Games, the first Olympiad celebration was in 1896. Every four years celebrates another Olympiad; thus, even the Games that were cancelled (1916, 1940, and 1944) count as Olympiads. The 2004 Olympic Games in Athens was called the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad.

• The Summer Olympic sports are archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, canoe / kayak, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, handball, judo, modern pentathlon (shooting, fencing, swimming, show jumping, and running), mountain biking, rowing, sailing, shooting, soccer, swimming, synchronized swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, track and field, triathlon (swimming, biking, running), volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling.

• The Winter Olympic sports are alpine skiing, biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooting), bobsled, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hocky, luge, Nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country skiing), skeleton, ski jumping, snowboarding, and speed skating.

VIDEO:  “The Olympic Hymn” by Spyros Samaras

VIDEO:  “The Olympic Anthem”, a.k.a, “Bugler’s Dream” by Leo Arnaud

Special thanks to www.factmonster.com and www.about.com