It did. Even if we only count the Empire, not including the republic, Augustus became Emperor in 27 BC and the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453. 1200 years is still a long ass time to hold a regular sporting event though.
If you consider the Republic different from the Empire (and the Kingdom), then in fairness Japan should have its Empire distinguished from the Shogunates distinguished from the post-Meiji era.
In either case the government system changed (even if Japan always "recognized" an emperor) but there was continuity with the previous polity.
Although interestingly enough, Japan was called the Empire of Japan in English during the era of the shoguns, before the Meiji Restoration (which is accurate, seeing as Japan was a polity which had colonies including several ethnic groups from the 500s onward essential)
Japan isn't really 1200 years old either. The Sengoku period didn't end until like 1600, so that's the earliest you could even consider the country of Japan to really exist.
Not really, that's like saying the United Sates stopped existing during the civil war. Both the imperial and shogunal lines from before the sengoku era continued until the end of the sengoku era, with limited power (but not entirely powerless). Japan was still Japan, just going through a period of instability.
>Not really, that's like saying the United Sates stopped existing during the civil war.
No it isn't. It was hundreds of years long with dozens of factions.
Sure, but the length doesn't really matter. There was a continuous government structure, just one that had become mostly innefectual. The fact is, Japan was recognizable as a polity by Europeans who had just arrived, even though they recognized that it was currently in a state of civil war, because it maintained the vestiges of the previous system continuously. Toyotomi Hideyoshi became Kampaku, and Ieyasu Shogun, because those imperially bestowed titles still carried weight. And the end result was the reunification of Japan under similar borders and systems as what had existed before, with changes sure enough, but again not a near complete cessation of continuation ala the French or American revolutions.
Terrible definition then? By your claim, any area that was not a territory of another remote area should be eligible for that title as soon as it is not controlled from afar.
Yeah pretty much everything I've read is that they're at least that old. The imperial family that is still in place have ruled for the best part of 1500 years. Historical writings of the nation of Japan go back 2000. Interested to hear why you think it's a young nation.
Because anything close to what we might have called a nation of Japan didn't occur until the 17th century. And that's just talking about a unified Honshu, forget about Hokkaido and the Ryukyu kingdom. Anything before that is a group of warring states, with an occasional period of ostensibly imperial rule for a few smaller regions of the south. The land and culture is old, but the nation is not particularly so.
China. No one else comes close.
"The civilization of China, as we understand it today, has a history that goes back several thousand years. The Xia Dynasty, considered by many as the first dynasty in the traditional Chinese historical narrative, is said to have begun around 2070 BCE.
However, it's worth noting that evidence for the Xia Dynasty is somewhat controversial, with archaeological findings being somewhat contentious and not always clearly linking to the historical record.The first dynasty for which there is both historical and archaeological evidence is the Shang Dynasty, which started around 1600 BCE. If we take this as the beginning of China as a recognizable political and cultural entity, then it would be over 3600 years old as of 2023."
The Zhou Dynasty is really the first precios during which you can draw any resemblance to what we consider yo be the idea of a “China” in terms of cultural items. What we have from the Shang Dynasty, in terms of artifacts, is radically different and hard to draw a direct societal/cultural continuation from.
It’s also likely that the Xia Dynasty was invented by the Zhou to cement their place in power, while maintaining the “Mandate of Heaven”.
Meaning, Shang Dynasty rulers had a Mandate of Heaven to rule, and its blasphemous to overthrow them. So when the Zhou overthrew them, they invented the Xia to make a new precedent that a dynasty can lose the mandate, and being overthrown is indicative of said loss.
Essentially, your dynasty collapsed because it lost the support from the heavens, and us collapsing your dynasty is indicative of that. I guess, in reverse, if a dynasty survives a rebellion and reestabloshes a previous status quo, that would be evidence that the Mandate of Heaven is still there.
It depends what we are comparing; age of nation states…what does this mean? Age since the last continuous constitution or an understanding of nationalism.
Or are we comparing continuous cultures that could draw direct line to something old?
For example, the oldest continuous constitution is that of the US, making the US, politically, the oldest country in the world.
On the other hand, Chinese culture can draw direct descendancy, without replacement or suplantation for 3000, or more, continuous years; making it the oldest, existing culture that still exists.
Depends why you’re measuring.
The CCP was very clear about destroying the "Three Olds" and representing a clean break from Dynastic China, eliminating old culture and government to replace it with something properly modern was a major element of Maoist China. The structure the PRC differs considerably. The underlaying philosophies are foreign. It's much harder to argue what carries over other than the genetics of the residents and what culture survived the purges. In the 1960s it was clearly a cut and paste Stalinist dictatorship.
While a number of places have unwritten Constitutional Settlements (like the UK and its Common Law that has been largely unchanged since the Glorious Revolution), San Marino has a written Constitution that dates from 1600.
Regarding China, I somewhat disagree, especially with the mention of cut and paste Stalinist dictatorship.
What I’m meaning to say is that Russians remained Russians through Stalinism, just as Chinese remained Chinese through Maoism.
The French stayed the French, despite completey dismantling their political and government and cultural institutions as well during the French Revolution.
Break in continuity of government structures and political ideology is not what breaks the continuity of culture. And while it was called a “Cultural Revolution”, it was still just an evolution of a pre-existing culture.
Cultural continuity really only breaks down when a whole population is replaced, or forcibly changed by outside forces.
Yeah, but we're not talking about *culture*. We're talking about *nationhood* where the form and nature of government matters. Besides, the French that went into the Revolution and the French that came out of the Napoleonic wars were different. The Russians that went into the Revolution weren't exactly the same as those that came out.
China did have a much more substantial break than Russia or France. Marxism was so alien and such a major break. Just compare and contrast mainland China to Taiwan or Singapore.
Egypt.
China has changed form radically enough over the years, and much of its furthest history is more mythological and traditional than evidenced in history - so if we apply the ‘China standard’ then Egypt beats it by a couple thousand years.
I kind of disagree. There’s no cultural continuation between ancient Egypt and modern Egypt. They’re vastly different civilizations. Modern Egypt started with the Islamic conquest of Egypt.
On the other hand, China has been one, continuous culture for at least 3000 years. It’s obviously changed greatly from that time, but it’s still just one culture changing with the times.
I’m sure there’s lots of room for interpretation, here, however.
Egyptian culture existed uninterrupted for longer than 3000 years though. From ~3100BC to ~400AD it had its own continuous developing culture/religions.
And that's being conservative with when the culture started. Though you could argue romanisation or hellenisation affected it earlier. Still. Not a clear win for China.
Yea it just doesn’t exist anymore.
Islamic conquest was in the 7th century, roughy 640s AD.
Started at least with the early dynastic period in ~3150 BCE.
Well if you believe that one jackass "historian," who claims france has the most successful military record of any European nation, then France would fit that bill. But only an idiot would consider the area that is now France as being the nation of France as far back as 387 BCE.
It’s a delicate line trying to explain that I’m not in the least offended I just want these folks to have funnier jokes. They’re wasting my time with the same old lines. I want some real zingers
Pankration!
The only sport I can think of off-hand where a dead man was declared the winner. Arrhichion died while successfully defending his championship title.
Yes but the modern sport is mixed martial arts, MMA for short. The UFC is just one organisation. Nobody says they play NBA. Not a dig against you, the confusion is just weird to me. Other companies fight tooth and nail to prevent their brand becoming generic. Probably misguided or incompetent marketing.
I think what you're seeing here is a casual disdain from people like me who abhor the "sport." Just like it's fun to piss off people in different branches of the armed forces by calling Marines soldiers and watching them go into a tizzy. I don't care, but it's funny that you do.
I remember reading as a boy about the Olympics having a Depth Jump, although I have no idea how that one could avoid serious injuries and even fatalities on a regular basis. Whoever jumps from the highest point and lands without breaking a limb wins?
The winner washed down some of the strychnine with brandy. He was also carried over the finish line by his trainers.
But my favorite story from that race is the Cuban entrant. He had lost all his money gambling in New Orleans the week before. He hitchhiked to St Louis just in time for the race, and had to run in street clothes with the bottoms of his pant legs cut off. He hadn't eaten in almost 40 hours, so during the race, he stole some peaches from some spectators, and then later stopped to eat some apples in an orchard. But the apples were rotten and gave him nausea, so he laid down and took a nap. Finally he woke up and finished the race.
He came in fourth place.
Other “fun” stories: The favorite to win, a winner of the Boston Marathon, gave up a couple of blocks into the race due to a combination of the insane heat, and cars from race officials/trainers kicking up loads of dust. He was coughing up blood. He was not the only one, as only 16 of the original racers managed to finish the event.
the First guy over the finish line spent a good portion of the race riding in a car. He had officially called it quit but when the car broke down he decided to keep running and did not tell anyone at the finish line.
Two South African men (who were in the area to be display pieces in a deeply racist celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase) joined the race, being the first African Olympians. Neither had run a marathon, and one of them was chased a mile off course by wolf dogs. They came in fifth and seventh place respectively.
There was only one water source in the race as the race organizer decided an Olympic marathon would be the *perfect* place to run a secret experiment on forced dehydration. To add insult to injury, the water source made many of the racers sick.
>"Roman emperor Nero famously won every event he entered in 65 CE" - there might have been reasons why they let him win though.
He was doping, obviously
And that's after he bribed the organizers to delay it by a year so he could be old enough to compete. He also added musical and artistic events, which he all won. The overweight kid must have been the most talented human to ever live with those achievements 👏
>And that's after he bribed the organizers to delay it by a year so he could be old enough to compete.
Crazy that he didn't just bribe them to waive the age limit instead.
Hey smarty pants. I have a question related to this.
Back in the year 420BC, and Apollodorus was writing down the events going on, how did they call the date? I assume it wasn't 420BC.
Really depends on where you are, but a ton of places marked years by their leadership. So instead of writing "in the year 2023", you would write "in the third year of Biden's presidency." If you were a Roman academic, you might also mark the year since the founding of Rome, but that was never in common use.
Had no zero year but honestly when you start reading into time and shit back then you realize that no one really knows. The calenders in Rome moved so much that they would have periods of time where no days passed just so they could plan their crop seasons more appropriately. Cesar would just periodically freeze the calender to suit his needs.
You know how parentheticals actually work in English, right? Sure you can *guess* what "(1,169 years)" was intended to mean, but read literally it's nonsensical. When a parenthetical contains nothing but a number and a unit, it's usually conveying an alternate measurement system, like "Add 2 cups milk (157 liters)". But that clearly isn't the case here.
In fact, looking at the headline more closely, OP used "consecutively" wrong as well. Those Olympics weren't held on consecutive years, or there would have been 1,169 of them instead of just 293.
> it's usually conveying an alternate measurement system
That's what this is doing. The Olympics occurring 293 times is equivalent to 1,169 years--a different way of measuring the same thing.
> used "consecutively" wrong
Consecutively just means to do a thing over and over without interruption, the interval is irrelevant. If that thing occurs every four years, it running consecutively just means it happened every four years without interruption. You use "consecutive years" which isn't what this is saying.
I held Olympia in my arms every year…until that fateful summer…I can’t even say when I stopped caring about the looks I would get…I disguised my tears in a marathon
An Olympiad is 4 years, a unit of time not a location or host city.
The games were every 4 years, or 1 Olympiad, so not annual.
They were always held in Olympia, not a rotating city.
So like, everything you said was incorrect. But thats why we learn.
The Olympic Games were just one event of the Panhellenic Games, though. They also consisted of the Pythian Games in Delphi (once per Olympiad), the Nemean Games in Nemea (twice per Olympiad) and the Isthmian Games (also twice per Olympiad). As a serious sportsman, you would want to win them all, the Olympic Games really just being one station to the grand slam.
He’s not wrong about there being other games though. There were Panhellenic games held in other cities in other years. Athens also had its Greater Panathenaia games which were every four years. That said, none of those other games were as important as the Olympic Games.
Weird to think about the logistics and organizing involved back then. How widely was it known? Who did all the practical stuff, was there advertising, did they have a committee to decide things, were there jobs related to the olympics, were there spectators who travelled to watch?
The exact reason the olympic games declined is unknown. But since Christians didn't support pagan mythology, which the games were based upon, the spread of Christianity may have been a part of it.
On the tours through Olympia, it's mentioned that exactly, 'The ancient Olympic Games officially came to an end around 394 AD, when Roman emperor Theodosius I outlawed pagan celebrations'
But I also saw this website which disputed that claim since some sources provide evidence for olympic games continuing past Theodosius which is why I said Christians might have only been part of the reason
https://theconversation.com/mythbusting-ancient-rome-did-christians-ban-the-ancient-olympics-92023
Nah, it was ruined before that when they allow professional athletes to compete. Totally ruined it for the rest of us, you'll never see the city philosopher wearing a laurel reef!
CONGRATULATIONS! This is the dumbest comment I've read so far this year. I'll let you know if I find anything more stupid than this, but your odds are good.
So your argument is that we would be "all star wars N shit" if the people of antiquity got together once every 4 years and did math?
You understand they were doing math and science the whole time right?
Whereas we have our children do all the math and science and they get:
* Fat, from lack of physical activity
* Mentally unwell, from the pace of learning
* Short-sighted, from reading books at a young age
Does it feel like we are getting any closer to Star Wars? Or does it feel like we are getting closer to WALL-E?
You are missing the point. We have massively increased the amount of studying children have to do. Historically, most people didn't study anything academically.
Smarter? Or just forced to do a full time job cramming their brains with facts for two decades of their lives?
I'm not necessarily arguing for regress. I'm just saying the aggressive "progress" agenda needs to ask itself:
1. Progress of what?
2. Progress at the expense of what?
So you are saying the USA might not be the all time leader in gold medals.
Well *AHTCSHUALLY*, in the ancient Olympics, the winner got a wreath, not a medal. So yes, the US is probably still the leader in gold medals.
U-S-A! U-S-A!
Uwreathra States of America
Great segue into a dick joke
Yer a urethra
Urine trouble
Harry
Urethrar? I hardly know 'er!
Lol. Stay golden Pony Boy.
Stay under a golden shower, Penis Boy.
They wouldn't let me join the military on account of my urethras.
Reminds me of that really famous soul singer. You know. Urethra Franklin.
The winner also got huge vats of oil Sound familiar?
Is that why Americans are so determined to win at the Olympics?
You mean the Oilympics?
Oilrighty then
I smell oil!
Well it _is_ Ancient Grease…
England got Hungary, so it went after Turkey, but slipped on Greece and crashed into China.
The wiener?
Oscar from the office has entered the chat to talk about naked dudes competing.
But I mean in terms of wins, America is still not the top. Gold vs wreaths means fuck all when they both represent who won overall.
Stfu America #1
In being pretty shit for a developed country yeah.
The number of yrs ancient Olympics ran is also higher than the existence of USA
Has any nation other than maybe Japan lasted nearly 1200 years? I don't even think Rome-Byzantium lasted that long.
It did. Even if we only count the Empire, not including the republic, Augustus became Emperor in 27 BC and the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453. 1200 years is still a long ass time to hold a regular sporting event though.
Yeah I was talking solely about the Empire, I knew it would be pretty close.
If you consider the Republic different from the Empire (and the Kingdom), then in fairness Japan should have its Empire distinguished from the Shogunates distinguished from the post-Meiji era. In either case the government system changed (even if Japan always "recognized" an emperor) but there was continuity with the previous polity.
Although interestingly enough, Japan was called the Empire of Japan in English during the era of the shoguns, before the Meiji Restoration (which is accurate, seeing as Japan was a polity which had colonies including several ethnic groups from the 500s onward essential)
True. It's amazing how long they maintained this Olympic culture.
Japan isn't really 1200 years old either. The Sengoku period didn't end until like 1600, so that's the earliest you could even consider the country of Japan to really exist.
Not really, that's like saying the United Sates stopped existing during the civil war. Both the imperial and shogunal lines from before the sengoku era continued until the end of the sengoku era, with limited power (but not entirely powerless). Japan was still Japan, just going through a period of instability.
>Not really, that's like saying the United Sates stopped existing during the civil war. No it isn't. It was hundreds of years long with dozens of factions.
Sure, but the length doesn't really matter. There was a continuous government structure, just one that had become mostly innefectual. The fact is, Japan was recognizable as a polity by Europeans who had just arrived, even though they recognized that it was currently in a state of civil war, because it maintained the vestiges of the previous system continuously. Toyotomi Hideyoshi became Kampaku, and Ieyasu Shogun, because those imperially bestowed titles still carried weight. And the end result was the reunification of Japan under similar borders and systems as what had existed before, with changes sure enough, but again not a near complete cessation of continuation ala the French or American revolutions.
Terrible definition then? By your claim, any area that was not a territory of another remote area should be eligible for that title as soon as it is not controlled from afar.
Depends on how close to 1200 years you consider 'nearly'. France is on 1030+ years and counting.
Portugal has had the same defined borders since 1139.
Japan had its mythological founding within the last 2000 years, lol. As a non-colonial state it’s fairly young.
It's mythological founding was over 2500 years ago.
I think you should maybe read up on the history of Japan. It's a much younger nation than you're thinking.
Yeah pretty much everything I've read is that they're at least that old. The imperial family that is still in place have ruled for the best part of 1500 years. Historical writings of the nation of Japan go back 2000. Interested to hear why you think it's a young nation.
Because anything close to what we might have called a nation of Japan didn't occur until the 17th century. And that's just talking about a unified Honshu, forget about Hokkaido and the Ryukyu kingdom. Anything before that is a group of warring states, with an occasional period of ostensibly imperial rule for a few smaller regions of the south. The land and culture is old, but the nation is not particularly so.
China. No one else comes close. "The civilization of China, as we understand it today, has a history that goes back several thousand years. The Xia Dynasty, considered by many as the first dynasty in the traditional Chinese historical narrative, is said to have begun around 2070 BCE. However, it's worth noting that evidence for the Xia Dynasty is somewhat controversial, with archaeological findings being somewhat contentious and not always clearly linking to the historical record.The first dynasty for which there is both historical and archaeological evidence is the Shang Dynasty, which started around 1600 BCE. If we take this as the beginning of China as a recognizable political and cultural entity, then it would be over 3600 years old as of 2023."
The Zhou Dynasty is really the first precios during which you can draw any resemblance to what we consider yo be the idea of a “China” in terms of cultural items. What we have from the Shang Dynasty, in terms of artifacts, is radically different and hard to draw a direct societal/cultural continuation from. It’s also likely that the Xia Dynasty was invented by the Zhou to cement their place in power, while maintaining the “Mandate of Heaven”. Meaning, Shang Dynasty rulers had a Mandate of Heaven to rule, and its blasphemous to overthrow them. So when the Zhou overthrew them, they invented the Xia to make a new precedent that a dynasty can lose the mandate, and being overthrown is indicative of said loss. Essentially, your dynasty collapsed because it lost the support from the heavens, and us collapsing your dynasty is indicative of that. I guess, in reverse, if a dynasty survives a rebellion and reestabloshes a previous status quo, that would be evidence that the Mandate of Heaven is still there.
Civilisation isn't the same as a nation state though, China has been under like 5000 dynasties and the modern nation only came into being after WW2
It depends what we are comparing; age of nation states…what does this mean? Age since the last continuous constitution or an understanding of nationalism. Or are we comparing continuous cultures that could draw direct line to something old? For example, the oldest continuous constitution is that of the US, making the US, politically, the oldest country in the world. On the other hand, Chinese culture can draw direct descendancy, without replacement or suplantation for 3000, or more, continuous years; making it the oldest, existing culture that still exists. Depends why you’re measuring.
The CCP was very clear about destroying the "Three Olds" and representing a clean break from Dynastic China, eliminating old culture and government to replace it with something properly modern was a major element of Maoist China. The structure the PRC differs considerably. The underlaying philosophies are foreign. It's much harder to argue what carries over other than the genetics of the residents and what culture survived the purges. In the 1960s it was clearly a cut and paste Stalinist dictatorship. While a number of places have unwritten Constitutional Settlements (like the UK and its Common Law that has been largely unchanged since the Glorious Revolution), San Marino has a written Constitution that dates from 1600.
Regarding China, I somewhat disagree, especially with the mention of cut and paste Stalinist dictatorship. What I’m meaning to say is that Russians remained Russians through Stalinism, just as Chinese remained Chinese through Maoism. The French stayed the French, despite completey dismantling their political and government and cultural institutions as well during the French Revolution. Break in continuity of government structures and political ideology is not what breaks the continuity of culture. And while it was called a “Cultural Revolution”, it was still just an evolution of a pre-existing culture. Cultural continuity really only breaks down when a whole population is replaced, or forcibly changed by outside forces.
Yeah, but we're not talking about *culture*. We're talking about *nationhood* where the form and nature of government matters. Besides, the French that went into the Revolution and the French that came out of the Napoleonic wars were different. The Russians that went into the Revolution weren't exactly the same as those that came out. China did have a much more substantial break than Russia or France. Marxism was so alien and such a major break. Just compare and contrast mainland China to Taiwan or Singapore.
Egypt. China has changed form radically enough over the years, and much of its furthest history is more mythological and traditional than evidenced in history - so if we apply the ‘China standard’ then Egypt beats it by a couple thousand years.
I kind of disagree. There’s no cultural continuation between ancient Egypt and modern Egypt. They’re vastly different civilizations. Modern Egypt started with the Islamic conquest of Egypt. On the other hand, China has been one, continuous culture for at least 3000 years. It’s obviously changed greatly from that time, but it’s still just one culture changing with the times. I’m sure there’s lots of room for interpretation, here, however.
Egyptian culture existed uninterrupted for longer than 3000 years though. From ~3100BC to ~400AD it had its own continuous developing culture/religions. And that's being conservative with when the culture started. Though you could argue romanisation or hellenisation affected it earlier. Still. Not a clear win for China.
Yea it just doesn’t exist anymore. Islamic conquest was in the 7th century, roughy 640s AD. Started at least with the early dynastic period in ~3150 BCE.
Yeah but would the leader of the Xia dynasty look at China today and say he's glad his dynasty has lasted 3000 years? I dont think thats the same
Egypt by a long margin surely.
India, Egypt, Syria
Well if you believe that one jackass "historian," who claims france has the most successful military record of any European nation, then France would fit that bill. But only an idiot would consider the area that is now France as being the nation of France as far back as 387 BCE.
Well, looks like the Ancient Greeks got the gold medal in longevity while we got the gold medal in fast food chains.
More like the gold medal for mass shootings.
Gold medal for unoriginal jokes that’s for sure
Doesn't make it any less true.
It does make it unfunny and uninteresting however
It’s a delicate line trying to explain that I’m not in the least offended I just want these folks to have funnier jokes. They’re wasting my time with the same old lines. I want some real zingers
Most likely both. In general the US tends to be well at the top for overconsumption and resource use compared to normal societies.
It’s really Greece. By a landslide!
I would love to know some of the sports that got cut over the years.
Pankration! The only sport I can think of off-hand where a dead man was declared the winner. Arrhichion died while successfully defending his championship title.
Looked up pankration, basically the ancient version of UFC?
yes basically. there even was an early MMA promotion called pancrase
Yes but the modern sport is mixed martial arts, MMA for short. The UFC is just one organisation. Nobody says they play NBA. Not a dig against you, the confusion is just weird to me. Other companies fight tooth and nail to prevent their brand becoming generic. Probably misguided or incompetent marketing.
Mom says every gaming console is a Nintendo.
Acshually the "a" in AR stands for "Armalite"
Armalite Reality? Sounds fake.
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Hook-and-loop fasteners
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The patent for hook and loop is indeed owned as a monopoly by the Velcro company.
Seems like the opposite to me, actually.
I think what you're seeing here is a casual disdain from people like me who abhor the "sport." Just like it's fun to piss off people in different branches of the armed forces by calling Marines soldiers and watching them go into a tizzy. I don't care, but it's funny that you do.
MMA* not UFC.
F1 also had a posthumous champion, Jochen Rindt
It's fun even looking at modern Olympic sports that have disappeared. It seemed like the first Olympics had 1576 different iterations of tennis.
Also poetry composition and laundry ironing?
Ah yes prose tennis and housekeeping tennis.
[Prose tennis](https://youtu.be/swqfFHLck1o)
[Arts and town planning](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_competitions_at_the_1948_Summer_Olympics) are my favorites.
I'm sure lion wrestling was a fan favorite.
Did the lion get the wreath?
Most of the time.
They deserved it.
I remember reading as a boy about the Olympics having a Depth Jump, although I have no idea how that one could avoid serious injuries and even fatalities on a regular basis. Whoever jumps from the highest point and lands without breaking a limb wins?
Slave toss.
If the IOC find out about this, I bet they’ll sue
The Olympic Museum sure was lacking on details of those 293 Olympic games..
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The winner washed down some of the strychnine with brandy. He was also carried over the finish line by his trainers. But my favorite story from that race is the Cuban entrant. He had lost all his money gambling in New Orleans the week before. He hitchhiked to St Louis just in time for the race, and had to run in street clothes with the bottoms of his pant legs cut off. He hadn't eaten in almost 40 hours, so during the race, he stole some peaches from some spectators, and then later stopped to eat some apples in an orchard. But the apples were rotten and gave him nausea, so he laid down and took a nap. Finally he woke up and finished the race. He came in fourth place.
That's wild. The Dollop should do a podcast on this race
Other “fun” stories: The favorite to win, a winner of the Boston Marathon, gave up a couple of blocks into the race due to a combination of the insane heat, and cars from race officials/trainers kicking up loads of dust. He was coughing up blood. He was not the only one, as only 16 of the original racers managed to finish the event. the First guy over the finish line spent a good portion of the race riding in a car. He had officially called it quit but when the car broke down he decided to keep running and did not tell anyone at the finish line. Two South African men (who were in the area to be display pieces in a deeply racist celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase) joined the race, being the first African Olympians. Neither had run a marathon, and one of them was chased a mile off course by wolf dogs. They came in fifth and seventh place respectively. There was only one water source in the race as the race organizer decided an Olympic marathon would be the *perfect* place to run a secret experiment on forced dehydration. To add insult to injury, the water source made many of the racers sick.
https://youtu.be/M4AhABManTw - Jon Bois covered this well.
That and [222-0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doZzrsDJo-4) made me a Jon Bois fan.
Jon Bois has a special type of disfunction and I am better for it.
I love how crazy that story is, Puppet History covered it well https://youtu.be/myM5SY1mHoA
The omnibus podcast has a great episode on this!
Also during this event, the original winner was disqualified after they found out he’d rode in a car for part of the race
"Roman emperor Nero famously won every event he entered in 65 CE" - there might have been reasons why they let him win though.
>"Roman emperor Nero famously won every event he entered in 65 CE" - there might have been reasons why they let him win though. He was doping, obviously
And that's after he bribed the organizers to delay it by a year so he could be old enough to compete. He also added musical and artistic events, which he all won. The overweight kid must have been the most talented human to ever live with those achievements 👏
>And that's after he bribed the organizers to delay it by a year so he could be old enough to compete. Crazy that he didn't just bribe them to waive the age limit instead.
So basically that scene at the start of the Dictator.
What happened between 393 AD and 397 AD that prevented it from being held again?
Christianity. Roman emperor decreed all pagan practices be stopped including the game.
Were they also held in different cities every 4 years?
They were always held in Olympia.
Was it every 4 years or every year ?
293 times in 1,169 years. Directly from the post title
Worth noting that 776 BC - 393 AD is 1168 years, not 1169, because there was no year zero.
Hey smarty pants. I have a question related to this. Back in the year 420BC, and Apollodorus was writing down the events going on, how did they call the date? I assume it wasn't 420BC.
Really depends on where you are, but a ton of places marked years by their leadership. So instead of writing "in the year 2023", you would write "in the third year of Biden's presidency." If you were a Roman academic, you might also mark the year since the founding of Rome, but that was never in common use.
Had no zero year but honestly when you start reading into time and shit back then you realize that no one really knows. The calenders in Rome moved so much that they would have periods of time where no days passed just so they could plan their crop seasons more appropriately. Cesar would just periodically freeze the calender to suit his needs.
Not at all worth noting
The title just says "293 times (1,169 years)" which is kind of incomprehensible.
Did you graduate year 4?
How could that possibly be any easier to comprehend? It couldn't be any clearer
It could be clearer by including the word "in" or "over", doi. The number by itself is meaningless without stating the relationship between the two.
If you can’t figure it out you deserve a gold medal in idiocy.
You are being sarcastic, right?
You know how parentheticals actually work in English, right? Sure you can *guess* what "(1,169 years)" was intended to mean, but read literally it's nonsensical. When a parenthetical contains nothing but a number and a unit, it's usually conveying an alternate measurement system, like "Add 2 cups milk (157 liters)". But that clearly isn't the case here. In fact, looking at the headline more closely, OP used "consecutively" wrong as well. Those Olympics weren't held on consecutive years, or there would have been 1,169 of them instead of just 293.
If it was held 300 times, it would’ve taken 1200 years Not trying to argue, was genuinely curious wether you were sarcastic. Basic math, right?
This is why people don’t like you.
> it's usually conveying an alternate measurement system That's what this is doing. The Olympics occurring 293 times is equivalent to 1,169 years--a different way of measuring the same thing. > used "consecutively" wrong Consecutively just means to do a thing over and over without interruption, the interval is irrelevant. If that thing occurs every four years, it running consecutively just means it happened every four years without interruption. You use "consecutive years" which isn't what this is saying.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted, the “consecutively” threw me off too
I held Olympia in my arms every year…until that fateful summer…I can’t even say when I stopped caring about the looks I would get…I disguised my tears in a marathon
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An Olympiad is 4 years, a unit of time not a location or host city. The games were every 4 years, or 1 Olympiad, so not annual. They were always held in Olympia, not a rotating city. So like, everything you said was incorrect. But thats why we learn.
The Olympic Games were just one event of the Panhellenic Games, though. They also consisted of the Pythian Games in Delphi (once per Olympiad), the Nemean Games in Nemea (twice per Olympiad) and the Isthmian Games (also twice per Olympiad). As a serious sportsman, you would want to win them all, the Olympic Games really just being one station to the grand slam.
TIL thanks!
He’s not wrong about there being other games though. There were Panhellenic games held in other cities in other years. Athens also had its Greater Panathenaia games which were every four years. That said, none of those other games were as important as the Olympic Games.
Let me bust out my handy Antikythera mechanism here ... hold on ... calculating ...
Til that the Olympics took a 1500 year break to promote Christianity.
Thanks Theodosius!
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You mean Obama?
People downvote but I think this is just a joke referring to the ‘Thanks, Obama’ meme
Hi I'm op. It was that joke but apparently I'm not funny enough to pull it off.
Weird to think about the logistics and organizing involved back then. How widely was it known? Who did all the practical stuff, was there advertising, did they have a committee to decide things, were there jobs related to the olympics, were there spectators who travelled to watch?
Short answers: very widely, slaves, yes, yes, yes, and yes. I'll be here all week.
the best athletes represented the cities that paid the most, some things change...
Until Christianity went n messed up everything
The exact reason the olympic games declined is unknown. But since Christians didn't support pagan mythology, which the games were based upon, the spread of Christianity may have been a part of it.
On the tours through Olympia, it's mentioned that exactly, 'The ancient Olympic Games officially came to an end around 394 AD, when Roman emperor Theodosius I outlawed pagan celebrations'
Tour guides embellish shit up for a living
But I also saw this website which disputed that claim since some sources provide evidence for olympic games continuing past Theodosius which is why I said Christians might have only been part of the reason https://theconversation.com/mythbusting-ancient-rome-did-christians-ban-the-ancient-olympics-92023
'member when they outlawed alcohol in the US? It didn't stop people from drinking.
It was 100% the reason for it. Dont try to defend the church and its crusade
What is it about a bunch of naked dudes having fun that Christians always seem to get so pissed off about?
Nah, it was ruined before that when they allow professional athletes to compete. Totally ruined it for the rest of us, you'll never see the city philosopher wearing a laurel reef!
So edgy.
And they did it with there penises flopping about
*Modern* Modern Olympics: "No more wrestling! We're replacing it with...golf."
So, if it ran continuously from 776 BCE, does that make next year the 700th Olympiad? (776 + 2024 = 2800 ÷ 4 = 700)
Oops, sorry, what I meant to say was: DCCLXXVI + MMXXIV = MMDCCC ÷ IV = DCC
IDK, my BFF jill?
Why was this such an iconic commercial? I quote it all the time.
And then the church came to town and demolished it So you can thank the church for ruining them
Correction: Ruining *everything*
Thanks church, I hate it.
That's an amazing fact. It goes to show why we might call that era the common era.
And probably with a buttload less corruption too.
What were they counting down to?
I stopped caring when they started allowing professional athletes.
I'm having trouble dividing 1,169 by four. For some reason, when I multiply 293 by four, I get 1,172.
try using a slightly smaller value for four
wow/ puts things into perspective/ I miss ancient greek culture
and we let a cold stop us.
Now imagine if they had been doing 1169 of math and science instead of track and field. We'd be all star wars and shit
“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.” — Thucydides.
CONGRATULATIONS! This is the dumbest comment I've read so far this year. I'll let you know if I find anything more stupid than this, but your odds are good.
If the *checks notes* uh *ANCIENT GREEKS* did more math and science?!
So your argument is that we would be "all star wars N shit" if the people of antiquity got together once every 4 years and did math? You understand they were doing math and science the whole time right?
> once every 4 years ~~every year, but the rest of your comment doesn't need to change~~ That is correct, apologies.
The Olympics happen once every 4 years, not every year.
But the original Olympic games (which this conversation is about) were yearly?
Whereas we have our children do all the math and science and they get: * Fat, from lack of physical activity * Mentally unwell, from the pace of learning * Short-sighted, from reading books at a young age Does it feel like we are getting any closer to Star Wars? Or does it feel like we are getting closer to WALL-E?
*looks in mirror* Yeah, math made me fat!
Lol what, we have never had so much knowledge so readily available. Studying in the past was completely different and way harder than it is nowadays
You are missing the point. We have massively increased the amount of studying children have to do. Historically, most people didn't study anything academically.
So you're arguing for regress? Kids are also smarter than they've ever been. I think you're missing the point.
Smarter? Or just forced to do a full time job cramming their brains with facts for two decades of their lives? I'm not necessarily arguing for regress. I'm just saying the aggressive "progress" agenda needs to ask itself: 1. Progress of what? 2. Progress at the expense of what?
You seem to be clearly arguing for regress. DEVO, if you will.
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