While the modern Olympics started in 1896, the torch lighting started 40 years later in Berlin.
Most of the final runner who actually gets to light the cauldron in the torch relay is a well-known sports figures from the host country, but three were not:
1952: Oslo (Norway): Grandson of Polar Explorer Fridtjof Nansen.
1976: Sapporo (Japan) “a 16-year-old volleyball enthusiast who knows nothing of winter sports"
1980: Lake Placid: A psychiatrist, elected by the other members of the torch relay team
I just learned of the existence of the Bally Bomber, a manned-flying, custom-built, 1/3-scale replica of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. Built over the course of 17 years by Jack Bally.
(Who unfortunately passed away just a couple years after the plane’s public debut.)
In the 1956 Torch relay in Australia, a uni student made a fake torch and ran through the crowd, handing the ‘torch’ to the Lord Mayor of Sydney before the ‘official’ torch.
The ‘torch’ was made from a pudding tin stuck on an old chair leg. The fuel was a pair of flaming underpants.
I remember those metal ones. My mom had a huge box of 45s from her teen years (50s). My sisters and I would play them all the time on an old record player that was also my mom’s. There were 2 of those metal inserts and they were next to impossible to change them out. We finally got the plastic ones which were much easier to use, but could still be tricky for us kids. Great memories of those 45s!
Continuing the Olympic theme, in the mid 20th century there were Olympic medals for arts. Specifically, there were medals for architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. At the 1948 games they gave out Olympic medals for poetry.
At the 1900 games they had competitive hot air ballooning.
At the 1908 games there was a pistol dueling competition, although it wasn’t really what it sounds like. It was basically a target shooting contest; competitors shot at a dummy with a target on its chest.
The knockout holes in the 1960s were a recognition that the only people that needed the large holes were jukebox operators. The knockouts were almost impossible to remove without a special tool (called a “dinker”).
A. A 2000 year old Roman cargo ship was found a while back. It contained over 1000 bars of lead.
B. They are using some of that lead to line a very special detector as shielding. The radioactive lead-210 in the bars will have decayed to nearly nothing by now so not adding to the noise.
C. That the lead is shielding the detector from cosmic rays and neutrinos.
Wait, what? Neutrinos? I don’t think so. Yeah, even a decent channel like SciShow needs better fact checkers.
Anyway, ancient shipwreck, state-of-the-art detector. Cool beans. (As in it’s chilled to a a really cold temp.)
The Uluburun Shipwreck is a Late Bronze Age shipwreck dated to the late 14th century BC, discovered close to the east shore of Uluburun (Grand Cape), Turkey, in the Mediterranean Sea. The shipwreck was discovered in the summer of 1982.
Its cargo came from all over the ancient world, including 10 tons of copper (Cyprus) and 1 ton of tin (Uzbekistan and Turkey) - that is, the ingredients for 11 tons of bronze, enough to equip a small army. Other cargo came from Africa, the Baltic, Egypt and the Levant.
When lead ore is first processed, it is purified and most of the uranium is removed. Whatever lead 210 is already present begins to break down, with half of it decaying on average every 22 years. In Roman lead almost all of the lead 210 has already decayed, whereas in lead mined today, it is just beginning to decay.
