History
Work on the stadium, the Deutsches Stadion ("German Stadium"), began in 1912 at what was the Grunewald Race Course. It was planned to seat over 18,000 spectators. On 8 June 1913 the stadium was dedicated with the release of 10,000 pigeons. 60,000 people were in attendance.
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, organization continued as no one expected that the war would continue for several years. Eventually, though, the Games were cancelled.
A winter sports week with speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey and nordic skiing was planned; the concept of this week eventually gave rise to the Winter Olympic Games. The central venue was to have been the Deutsches Stadion. Berlin returned to Olympic bidding in 1931, when it beat Barcelona, Spain for the right to host the 1936 Summer Olympics.
Read more about this topic: 1916 Summer Olympics
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)