# Origin of USA! USA! chant **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 30, 2004, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805 "2004-01-30T19:24:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/1 "2004-01-30T19:24:02Z")
Did the USA! USA! chant first emerge at the 1980 Olympics during/after the hockey game between the US and the Soviet Union? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/2 "2004-01-30T21:23:25Z")
The answer is yes. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/3 "2004-01-30T22:43:57Z")
Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/4 "2004-01-31T00:01:50Z")
I can’t offer any documentation. I can only attest that the 1980 Winter Olympics were the first place I ever heard that chant (which has become annoying overused ever since). ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/5 "2004-01-31T02:34:21Z")
Nope, it was that rogue Benny Franklin in Philadelphia in 1776. Commonly thought of as a great statesman and inventor, Franklin was also quite a motivator. And the 2 cups of rum before hand didn’t hurt. His signature is kind of shakey and in painting of the event, he is always sitting down. Hey, it could have happened. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/6 "2004-01-31T05:46:41Z")
And me, I always thought that the ‘USA! USA!’ chant was invented in Constantinople in 1432. Drat! ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/7 "2004-01-31T07:17:12Z")
I also recall that it first appeared in the 1980 Winter Olympics ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/8 "2004-01-31T07:42:19Z")
In theory then, it might be possible to assign attribution to one person since such chants often begin with one lone voice. Then again, it might be like Woodstock — a hundred times more people claim they were there than the field would hold. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/9 "2004-01-31T10:56:22Z")
**Al Gore** started it right after he invented the internet. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/10 "2004-01-31T17:15:37Z")
The answer is **no**. It was quite well entrenched. The chanting for the 1980 hockey team was something that made that event more memorable to some people. It’s merely an intertwined memory association. (And not always in a postive way.) It was regularly used during the 70s at various international (and sometimes national) sporting events. Who knows how far back it goes. I Googled some but it’s hard to pin down using such generic search words. [here](http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/year/1979.html) is definite pre-1980 proof. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/11 "2004-01-31T18:07:15Z")
Yeah, but not very much pre-1980. I’m old enough to recall a time when the very last thing you might hear was patriotic chanting. At least up until the end of Carter’s malaise period. (Yes, I know he didn’t use the term in the speech.) Except in die-hard pockets, patriotism was almost a shameful thing. People were ashamed of their country. Vietnam, Iranian hostages, and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2004, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/12 "2004-02-01T00:00:52Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > Vietnam, Iranian hostages, and all that. I remember it the opposite way. In my opinion, the Iranian hostage crisis, which began in November 1979, was the turning point in the U.S. between the seventies and the eighties. Suddenly patriotism was back. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-usa-usa-chant/226805/13 "2018-02-12T14:45:17Z")
Eh. . . Sorry for the 14-years bump, but. . . In the documentary [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6241040/reference]Olympic Cavalcade (1948), which showed highlights of the 1936 Olympics, there is one competition in which you can hear a ‘U-S-A’ chant. I suspect that the original footage was silent, and the soundtrack was later dubbed, but still that’s some years before the 1980 Olympics. Having said that, this is a rather obscure doc, and doesn’t change the probability that this chant actually obtained currency as a result of the US hocky team’s victory over the Evil Empire in 1980.