The Olympic Games is an international multi-sport event subdivided into summer and winter honorable events. The summer and coldness games are each held every four years (an Olympiad). Until 1992, they were both held in the same year. Since then, they have been separated by a two year gap.
The original Olympic Games were first account in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and were celebrated until AD 393. Interest in reviving the Olympic Games proper was first shown by the Greek poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his verse "Dialogue of the departed" in 1833.[4] Evangelos Zappas sponsored the first modern international Olympic Games in 1859. He paid for the renovation of the Panathinaiko Stadium for Games held there in 1870 and 1875. This was noted in newspapers and publications around the world including the London Review, which stated that "the Olympian Games, discontinued for centuries, have recently been revived near Athens".
The International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894 on the initiative of a French nobleman, Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin. The first of the IOC's Olympic Games were the 1896 Summer Olympics, held in Athens, Greece. Involvement in the Olympic Games has enlarged to include athlete from nearly all nations universal. With the improvement of satellite infrastructure and global telecasts of the events, the Olympics are constantly gaining supporters. The most recent Summer Olympics were the 2004 Games in Athens and the most recent Winter Olympics were the 2006 Games in Turin. The imminent games in Beijing are planned to comprise 302 events in 28 sports. As of 2006, the Winter Olympics were competed in 84 events in 7 sports. By 2010, the Olympic Games will have been hosted by 41 cities in 22 countries. The forthcoming 2008 Summer Olympics will be held in Beijing, and the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held in Vancouver. The numeral in parentheses subsequent the city/country denotes how many times that city/country had then hosted the game.
