• Boxing: Those who boxed wore a sort of glove made of straps of soft ox-hide. They didn't fight people of similar weight; opponents were chosen at random. Boxing matches had no time limit and ended only when one boxer held up his hand or fell to the ground.
• Discus: The throwers of the discus originally threw a circular stone and then later a circular shape made of iron, lead, or bronze. The movements and techniques of ancient discus throwers were very similar to those of today's athletes.
• Equestrian Events: Horse racing took place in a hippodrome, a large stadium that contained a racetrack very much like today's track and field ovals. The athletes would ride in war chariots that were fitted to either two or four horses. (Even with four horses, only one man rode in the chariot.) The races numbered three, eight, or 12 times around, depending on the age of the horse.
• Javelin: The javelin of ancient Greece was made of wood and was about as tall as an average man. The javelin throwers of this time also attached a piece of leather called a thong, a leather strap that formed a loop. The thong made the javelin easier to grip in the first place and made it fly longer after it was released. The Games featured two kinds of javelin events: throwing for distance and throwing at a target (for which an athlete would throw from horseback at a specific distance).
• Jumping: This was long jump only, and the main difference in ancient times was that the jumper carried a weight in each hand. He would swing these weights as he ran down the ramp, jump, then release the weights just before he landed. All of this was designed to increase the distance of the jump.
• Pankration: This was a sport that has been lost. It was a combination of boxing and wrestling that was very, very rough. The only things outlawed were biting and gouging out an opponent's eyes. Athletes didn't wear boxing gloves, but they could hold an opponent with one hand and hit him with another, unlike in boxing. Two versions of the pankration were offered. In the first, whoever hit the ground first lost; in the second, whoever lost consciousness first lost. Soldiers were usually very good at this sport, and it was not unusual for pankration athletes to be seriously injured or even die.
• Pentathlon: This event combined five other events: discus, javelin, long jump, running, and wrestling. The first three were used only in the pentathlon. Historians don't know much about the winner of the pentathlon was determined.
• Running: The running races were usually very popular. The three distances were 200 meters, 400 meters, and a long-distance race, which ranged from 1400 to 1800 meters. Various running races took place, including one in which athletes wore armor. In every case, the winner was the one who crossed the finish line first.
• Wrestling: This, too, was similar to wrestling today. The object was to get an opponent to fall to the ground. The first man to fall three times lost. Hitting, as in boxing, was not allowed, nor was biting or gouging out one's eyes. Tripping was allowed, however. Also, no weight classes were involved, meaning that the smallest man could take on the largest man if the luck of the draw made it so.

In lacrosse's current form, men's lacrosse is played on a field of grass or artificial turf (such as Field Turf). Each team is composed of 10 players on the field at a time: three attack men, three midfielders, three defenders and one goaltender. In men's lacrosse, players wear protective equipment on their heads, shoulders, arms, and hands, as body checking is an integral part of the game, and stick checks to the arms and hands are considered legal. Now, that is a big difference from how the Native Americans played lacrosse. As you can see, lacrosse has slowly developed into more of an advanced form of lacrosse. Since lacrosse's debut in the Native American age, lacrosse has changed in a lot of ways. including the sticks, the amount of players that are allowed on the field, the size of the lacrosse field, the ball that they use to play, the goals, the positions, etc.

Pretty much everything has changed since. The game has always required tremendous athletic skill. In early games, just running up and down the field was a great feat. Goals could be as far as 500 yards to half a mile apart and no sidelines limited the playing area. Games lasted two to three days with "time outs" between sundown and sunup. Compared today there are four quarters in very game, and each quarter is 15 minutes long. The only real main part of the game that remained the same was the concept of the game of lacrosse, to have fun, and to knock people out.

The first form of government was tribal councils. These became absorbed into more overarching forms under developing monarchies, oligarchies and democracies, but the tribal structures remained. In Athens for example, there were ten tribes which each elected a general, provided quotas for the army, and to which 18-year olds had to prove their descent in order to be granted citizenship.

In ancient Greece, if you were caught cheating, you had to pay fines and with that money, statues of Zeus were build with the funds. Today people would be disqualified, have to pay, and would have shame following them for the rest of their life, even face jail time depending on the charge.

Women did not participate in the Ancient Olympics. Only Greek speaking men were allowed to participate.

Exception: in the chariot-race the owner of the horses was considered to be the competitor, and got the prize if they won. Women could put their horses in for the chariot race, and were considered competitors when they did.

Chamonix, France - 1924

St. Moritz, Switzerland - 1928

Lake Placid, USA - 1932

Garmisch- Partenkirchen, Germany - 1936

St. Moritz, Switzerland - 1948

Oslo, Norway - 1952

Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy - 1956

Squaw Valley, USA - 1960

Innsbruck, Austria - 1964

Grenoble, France - 1968

Sapporo, Japan - 1972

Innsbruck, Austria - 1976

Lake Placid, USA - 1980

Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, - 1984

Calgary, Canada - 1988

Albertville, France - 1992

Lillehammer, Norway - 1994

Nagano, Japan - 1998

Salt Lake City, USA - 2002

Turin, Italy - 2006

Vancouver, Canada - 2010

In 2014, the Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia

In 393 the Christian Theodosius I (or the Great) outlawed the Olympic games as part of his banning of pagan festivals. However, archaeological evidence indicates that some games were still held after this date.

In the ancient Olympics, the event was dedicated to god Zeus by the Greek people. The Olympics was held in the Olympia plains of Peloponnesus, Greece.

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 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.

You had to be 7 or older to compete in the Ancient Greek Olympic games

The original Olympic athletes competed completely in the nude. Some athletes wore a thin leather strap as a penis restraint called a kynodesme.

The original Olympic oath was first introduced in the 1920 Summer Olympics by Victor Boin. It goes like this: "We swear we will take part in the Olympic Games in a spirit of chivalry, for the honour of our country and for the glory of sport." In 1961 "oath" was replaced by "promise" and "the honour of our countries" became "the honour of our teams". "Committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs" came in in the 2000 summer Olympics. (See I'm smart ;-)

The Pankration (wrestling). It only stopped when someone was unconscious or dead!

The ancient Greek Olympic games were to honor Zeus and sportsmanship.

There was one Peloponnesian War. It was finally sparked by Athens' refusal to lift a ruinous trade ban on Megara.

A crown of olive leaves cut from the sacred tree at Olympia.

• Partly because they were an important pan-Hellenic religious festival in honour of Zeus.
• Partly because they were an important diplomatic occasion, with senior statesmen from all over the Greek world gathering during a sacred truce.
• Partly because the ancient Greeks loved athletic competition.
• Partly because it was an important occasion for artists, poets, musicians, and actors to meet wealthy sponsors and get pan-Hellenic exposure for their work.
• And partly because the Olympiad was the main thing other than the Greek language that all Greeks had in common (Greece was nothing like politically unified at that time).

The olympic games were held in honour of Zeus, king of the Greek gods. He and the other gods lived on Mount Olympus

The Olympic Games were a series of athletic competitions held for held in honor of Zeus because they want some thing to do and to honor their gods. According to Greek Mythology, Hercules started the games in celebration of his defeating and killing King Augeas and his sons, because Augeas did not give Hercules his promised reward after Hercules had cleaned the king's stables. After the original games, they were repeated every four years.

The Olympic Festival started in 776 BC when a cook named Koroibos from neighboring town of Elis won a 600 ft foot race. He was the first recorded winner in the only athletic activity at the Olympics at the time. The date of 776 BC is from inscriptions found at Olympia. There is belief that the festival may have started prior to that year but nothing commonly accepted as truth. It is also believed that the participants were naked in the race but again nothing concrete that can be claimed as complete truth.

The Olympians as they were known were the twelve Gods and Goddesses associated with the Olympics.They were:Aphrodite the Goddess of loveApollo the God of the SunAres the God of WarArtemis the Goddess of the MoonAthena the Goddess of WisdomDemeter the Goddess of FertilityDionysus the God of TheatreHephaestos the God of FireHera the Goddess of Marriage (wife of Zeus)Hermes the messenger GodPoseidon the God of the SeaZeus the God of the Sky and Ruler of Olympia.

The Olympics were a reference to them as they were a test of peoples' outstanding strength, speed, skill, and other "olympic" abilities.

See also Demigods, the Dryads, the Fates, the Erinyes, the Graces, the Horae, the Muses, the Nymphs, the Pleiades, the Titans

The first ever Olympics lasted only one day but gradually grew to five.

St. Louis, Missouri was the first US city to host the Olympics. It took place in 1904 and was the third Olympics.

The ancient city of Olympia is in Greece. There is a link below to an article on it.

There is a modern city named Olympia in Washington State and one named Olimpia in Brazil.