1.
Order of Leopold (Belgium)
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The Order of Leopold is one of the three current Belgian national honorary orders of knighthood. It is the highest order of Belgium and is named in honour of King Leopold I and it consists of a military, a maritime and a civilian division. The maritime division is awarded to personnel of the merchant navy. The decoration was established on 11 July 1832 and is awarded for bravery in combat or for meritorious service of immense benefit to the Belgian nation. The Order of Leopold is awarded by royal decree, when Belgium became independent of the Netherlands, there was a urgent need to create a national honour system that could serve as a diplomatic gift. The first King of the Belgians, Leopold I of Belgium, two years after the independence, the young King officially founded the dynastic Order of Leopold. The king approved the colour and grades both civil and military, and the official motto L’Union fait la Force/Eendracht maakt Macht, in the early 19th century, the court sent the Grand Cordon as a diplomatic gift. The founder gave his French family grand Cordons as wedding gifts, people who fought in the Belgian revolution became members in great numbers. In 1838 the King lost his right to create members, this was then on the responsibility of the foreign office. At the end of his reign the major political elite were members of the order, King Leopold II gifted major Belgian artists, generals and clergy into the order. At the end of World War I, the Order became internationally recognised for its famous members, the order was bestowed as a personal marriage gift by the King Leopold II to Prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern and Ernst Gunther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. In 1878 the King named several diplomatic dignitaries Grand cordon in honour of his wedding celebration. In 1919 King Albert granted all Lieutenant-Generals of the Belgian Army the Grand Cordon in Brussels, one of the rare Ladies in the order was Countess Renée de Merode. The Order can be bestowed post-mortem, for example, Emile Verhaeren received the Grand Cordon after his death, people can lose the order, for example what happened during World War I with Alfred Wotquenne. After the Second World War, the Order of Leopold was bestowed on the officers of foreign militaries who had helped to liberate Belgium from the occupation of German forces. Most illustrious was the grand Cordons with Palms given by the King to Sir Winston Churchill, the medal was also granted to Karel Bossart in 1962, and Josip Broz Tito in 1970. Annually, there are two days when the King normally grants membership, on April 8 and on November 15. During state visits, the Order of Leopold is the most important diplomatic gift of the state, in 2015 some protest was noted when King Philippe offered the Grand Cordon to President Erdogan of Turkey during his state visit in Belgium
2.
Order of St Michael and St George
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It is named in honour of two military saints, St Michael and St George. People are appointed to the Order rather than awarded it, British Ambassadors to foreign nations are regularly appointed as KCMGs or CMGs. It is the award for members of the FCO. The Orders motto is Auspicium melioris ævi and its patron saints, as the name suggests, are St. Michael the Archangel, and St. George, patron saint of England. One of its symbols is that of St Michael trampling over. The third of the aforementioned Orders—which relates to Ireland, no longer fully a part of the United Kingdom—still exists but is in disuse, the last of the Orders on the list, related to India, has also been in disuse since that countrys independence in 1947. In 1864, however, the protectorate ended and the Ionian Islands became a part of Greece, accordingly, numerous Governors-General and Governors feature as recipients of awards in the order. In 1965, the order was open for women, with Evelyn Bark becoming the first CMG, the British Sovereign is the Sovereign of the Order and appoints all other members of the Order. The next-most senior member is the Grand Master, the office was formerly filled by the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, now, however, Grand Masters are chosen by the Sovereign. Members of the Royal Family who are appointed to the Order do not count towards the limit, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, like many other heraldic officers. The Usher of the Order is known as the Gentleman Usher of the Blue Rod, he not, unlike his Order of the Garter equivalent. On the left side is a representation of the star, the mantle is bound with two large tassels. The collar, worn only by Knights and Dames Grand Cross, is made of gold and it consists of depictions of crowned lions, Maltese Crosses, and the cyphers SM and SG, all alternately. In the centre are two winged lions, each holding a book and seven arrows, at less important occasions, simpler insignia are used, The star is an insignia used only by Knights and Dames Grand Cross and Knights and Dames Commanders. It is worn pinned to the left breast, the Knight and Dame Grand Cross star includes seven-armed, silver-rayed Maltese Asterisk, with a gold ray in between each pair of arms. The Knight and Dame Commanders star is a slightly smaller eight-pointed silver figure formed by two Maltese Crosses, it does not include any gold rays, in each case, the star bears a red cross of St George. In the centre of the star is a blue ring bearing the motto of the Order. Within the ring is a representation of St Michael trampling on Satan, the badge is the only insignia used by all members of the Order, it is suspended on a blue-crimson-blue ribbon
3.
Thomas Bach
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Thomas Bach is a German lawyer and former Olympic fencer. Bach is the ninth and current President of the International Olympic Committee, Bach is a former foil fencer who competed for West Germany. He won a gold medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics, as well as a silver, a gold. Thomas Bach was born in Würzburg in 1953 and he grew up in Tauberbischofsheim, where he lived with his parents until 1977. Bach earned a doctor of law degree in 1983 from the University of Würzburg, Bach served as the President of the Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund, prior to becoming President of the International Olympic Committee. He resigned as the head of the DOSB on 16 September 2013 and he was replaced by Alfons Hörmann, and remained a member of the DOSB Executive Board. Additionally, he resigned as the head of Ghorfa Arab-German Chamber of Commerce, in the host city election, Munich secured 25 votes as Pyeongchang was elected as host city with 63 votes. On 9 May 2013, Bach confirmed that he would run for President of the International Olympic Committee, Bach was elected to an eight-year term as IOC President at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires on 10 September 2013. He secured 49 votes in the round of voting, giving him the majority needed to be elected. He succeeds Jacques Rogge who served as IOC President from 2001 to 2013, Bach will be eligible to run for one additional four-year term at the 133rd IOC Session in 2021 until 2025. Bachs successful election came against five other candidates, Sergey Bubka, Richard Carrión, Ng Ser Miang, Denis Oswald and Wu Ching-Kuo. The result of the election was as follows, Following his election as IOC President, Bach stated that he wished to change the Olympic bidding process and he stated that he feels that the current bidding process asks too much, too early. The first bidding process over which he presided as President was the process for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Bids were due in November 2013 and the host city, Beijing, was elected at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in July 2015. Bach officially moved into the IOC presidential office at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 17 September 2013 and he speaks fluent French, English, Spanish and German. Doctorate honoris causa from the Universidad Católica de Murcia, grand cordon de lOrdre national du Mérite sportif from Tunisia on 12 March 2016. Honorary Doctorate from the University of Tsukuba
4.
Ghent
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Ghent is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province and it is a port and university city. With 240,191 inhabitants in the beginning of 2009, Ghent is Belgiums second largest municipality by number of inhabitants, the current mayor of Ghent, Daniël Termont, leads a coalition of the Socialistische Partij Anders, Groen and Open VLD. The ten-day-long Ghent Festival is held every year and attended by about 1–1.5 million visitors, archaeological evidence shows human presence in the region of the confluence of Scheldt and Leie going back as far as the Stone Age and the Iron Age. Most historians believe that the name for Ghent, Ganda, is derived from the Celtic word ganda which means confluence. Other sources connect its name with a deity named Gontia. There are no records of the Roman period, but archaeological research confirms that the region of Ghent was further inhabited. When the Franks invaded the Roman territories from the end of the 4th century and well into the 5th century, they brought their language with them and Celtic, around 650, Saint Amand founded two abbeys in Ghent, St. Peters and Saint Bavos Abbey. The city grew from several nuclei, the abbeys and a commercial centre, around 800, Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, appointed Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, as abbot of both abbeys. In 851 and 879, the city was attacked and plundered twice by the Vikings. Within the protection of the County of Flanders, the city recovered and flourished from the 11th century, by the 13th century, Ghent was the biggest city in Europe north of the Alps after Paris, it was bigger than Cologne or Moscow. Within the city walls lived up to 65,000 people, the belfry and the towers of the Saint Bavo Cathedral and Saint Nicholas Church are just a few examples of the skyline of the period. The rivers flowed in an area where land was periodically flooded. These rich grass meersen were ideally suited for herding sheep, the wool of which was used for making cloth, during the Middle Ages Ghent was the leading city for cloth. The wool industry, originally established at Bruges, created the first European industrialized zone in Ghent in the High Middle Ages, the mercantile zone was so highly developed that wool had to be imported from Scotland and England. This was one of the reasons for Flanders good relationship with Scotland and England, Ghent was the birthplace of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Trade with England suffered significantly during the Hundred Years War, the city recovered in the 15th century, when Flanders was united with neighbouring provinces under the Dukes of Burgundy. High taxes led to a rebellion and eventually the Battle of Gavere in 1453, around this time the centre of political and social importance in the Low Countries started to shift from Flanders to Brabant, although Ghent continued to play an important role
5.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
6.
Sport
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Usually the contest or game is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a tie game, others provide tie-breaking methods, to one winner. A number of such two-sided contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion, many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, each against each other, however, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. Sports are usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues. Sports betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport, kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013. The worlds most accessible and practised sport is running, while football is the most popular spectator sport. The word Sport comes from the Old French desport meaning leisure, other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling, hunting, and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise. Rogets defines the noun sport as an activity engaged in for relaxation, the singular term sport is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept, with sports used to describe multiple activities. American English uses sports for both terms, the precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources. They also recognise that sport can be physical, primarily mind, predominantly motorised, primarily co-ordination. The inclusion of sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted. Whilst SportAccord recognises a number of mind sports, it is not open to admitting any further mind sports. According to Council of Europe, European Sports Charter, article 2, other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all physical activity. For instance, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, in competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their result and often divided into groups of comparable performance
7.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
8.
German occupation of Belgium during World War II
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It was the second time that Germany had occupied Belgium in under thirty years. After the success of the invasion, an administration was established in Belgium. Thousands of Belgian soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, the German administration juggled competing objectives of maintaining order while extracting material from the territory for the war effort. They were assisted by the Belgian civil service, which believed that limited co-operation with the occupiers would result in the least damage to Belgian interests, food and fuel were tightly rationed, and all official news was closely censored. Belgian civilians living near possible targets such as railway junctions were in danger of Allied aerial bombing, from 1942, the occupation became more repressive. Jews suffered systematic persecution and deportation to camps, as measures were taken against potential political opposition. Despite vigorous protest, the Germans deported Belgian civilians to work in factories in Germany, meanwhile, the Belgian Resistance, formed in late 1940, expanded vastly. In September 1944, Allied forces arrived in Belgium and quickly moved across the country, Belgium was declared fully liberated in February 1945. In total,40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the occupation, Belgium had pursued a policy of neutrality since its independence in 1830, successfully avoiding becoming a belligerent in the Franco-Prussian War. In World War I, the German Empire invaded Belgium, during the ensuing occupation, the Allies encouraged Belgian workers to resist the occupiers through non-compliance, leading to large-scale reprisals against Belgian civilians by the German army. As political tensions escalated in the leading to World War II. The military was reorganised into a force and the country left several international military treaties it had joined in the aftermath of World War I. Construction began of defences in the east of the country, when France and Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Belgium remained strictly neutral while mobilising its reserves. Without warning, the Germans invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, during the following 18 Days Campaign, the Belgian army was pushed back into a pocket in the north-west of Belgium and surrendered on 28 May. The government fled to France, and later the United Kingdom and they were responsible for forming a small military force made up of Belgian and colonial troops, known as the Free Belgian Forces and which fought as part the Allied forces. Shortly after the surrender of the Belgian army, the Militärverwaltung in Belgien und Nordfrankreich was created by the Germans with Brussels as administrative centre, Germany annexed Eupen-Malmedy, a German-speaking region given to Belgium under the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. The Military Government was placed under the control of General Alexander von Falkenhausen, under von Falkenhausens command, the German administration had two military units at its disposal, the Feldgendarmerie and the Gestapo. The Germans retained the Committee during the occupation, it was responsible for implementing demands made by the Militärverwaltungsstab, the Committee hoped to stop the Germans becoming involved in the day-to-day administration of the territory, allowing the nation to maintain a degree of autonomy
9.
Summer Olympic Games
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The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad, first held in 1896, is an international multi-sport event that is hosted by a different city every four years. The most recent Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the International Olympic Committee organizes the games and oversees the host citys preparations. In each Olympic event, gold medals are awarded for first place, silver medals are awarded for second place, and bronze medals are awarded for third, the Winter Olympic Games were created due to the success of the Summer Olympics. The Olympics have increased in scope from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 nations in 1896 to 302 events with 10,768 competitors from 204 nations in 2012, eighteen countries have hosted the Summer Olympics. The United States has hosted four Summer Olympics, more than any other nation, four cities have hosted two Summer Olympics, Athens, Paris, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. Tokyo is the first city outside of the Western world to host the Summer Olympics multiple times, asia has hosted the Summer Olympics four times in Japan, South Korea, and China. The only Summer Olympics held in the Southern Hemisphere have been in Australia, the 2016 Games are the first Summer Olympics to be held in South America and the first to be held during the local winter season. Africa has yet to host a Summer Olympics, only five countries—Greece, Australia, France, Great Britain, and Switzerland—have been represented at every Summer Olympic Games. The only country to have won at least one medal at every Summer Olympic Games is Great Britain. The United States leads the medal table. Qualification rules for each of the Olympic sports are set by the International Sports Federations that governs that sports international competition, for individual sports, competitors typically qualify through attaining a certain place in a major international event or on the IFs ranking list. There is a rule that maximum three individual athletes may represent each nation per competition. Nations most often qualify teams for team sports through continental qualifying tournaments, each nation may be represented by no more than one team per competition a team is two people in some sports. The United States has hosted four Summer Olympic Games, more than any other nation, the United Kingdom hosted the 2012 Olympic Games, its third Summer Olympic Games, in its capital London, making London the first city to host the Summer Olympic Games three times. Australia, France, Germany, Greece, and Japan have all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. Other countries that have hosted the Summer Olympics are Belgium, Brazil, China, Canada, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, the Soviet Union, asia has hosted the Summer Olympics three times and will host again in 2020. In 2016, Rio de Janeiro hosted the first Summer Olympics in South America, three cities have hosted two Summer Olympic Games, Los Angeles, Paris, and Athens. Stockholm has hosted events at two Summer Olympic Games, having hosted the games in 1912 and the events at the 1956 Summer Olympics—which they are usually listed as jointly hosting
10.
1972 Summer Olympics
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The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11,1972. The sporting nature of the event was overshadowed by the Munich massacre in which eleven Israeli athletes and coaches. Five Black September Palestinian terrorists died, the 1972 Summer Olympics were the second Summer Olympics to be held in Germany, after the 1936 Games in Berlin, which had taken place under the Nazi regime. The logo of the Games was a blue solar logo by Otl Aicher, the Olympic mascot, the dachshund Waldi, was the first officially named Olympic mascot. The Olympic Fanfare was composed by Herbert Rehbein, a companion of Bert Kaempfert, the Olympic Park is based on Frei Ottos plans and after the Games became a Munich landmark. The competition sites, designed by architect Günther Behnisch, included the Olympic swimming hall, the Olympics Hall and the Olympic Stadium, and an Olympic village very close to the park. The design of the stadium was considered revolutionary, with sweeping canopies of acrylic glass stabilized by metal ropes, Munich won its Olympic bid on April 26,1966, at the 64th IOC Session at Rome, Italy, over bids presented by Detroit, Madrid, and Montréal. Montreal would eventually host the following Olympic games in 1976, the Games were largely overshadowed by what has come to be known as the Munich massacre. Two of the hostages who resisted were killed in the first moments of the break-in, the German authorities planned to ambush them there, but underestimated the numbers of their opposition and were thus undermanned. During a botched attempt, all of the Israeli hostages were killed. Four of them were shot, then incinerated when one of the terrorists detonated a grenade inside the helicopter in which the hostages were sitting, the five remaining hostages were then machine-gunned to death. All but three of the terrorists were killed as well, although arrested and imprisoned pending trial, they were released by the West German government on October 29,1972, in exchange for a hijacked Lufthansa jet. Two of those three were supposedly hunted down and assassinated later by the Mossad, jamal Al-Gashey, who is believed to be the sole survivor, is still living today in hiding in an unspecified African country with his wife and two children. A memorial ceremony was held in the Olympic stadium. The attack prompted heightened security at subsequent Olympics beginning with the 1976 Winter Olympics, security at Olympics was heightened further beginning with the 2002 Winter Olympics, as they were the first to take place since September 11,2001. The massacre led the German federal government to re-examine its anti-terrorism policies and this led to the creation of the elite counter-terrorist unit GSG9, similar to the British SAS. It also led Israel to launch a campaign known as Operation Wrath of God, in which those suspected of involvement were systematically tracked down, the events of the Munich massacre were chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary, One Day in September. An account of the aftermath is also dramatized in three films, the 1976 made-for-TV movie 21 Hours at Munich, the 1986 made-for-TV movie Sword of Gideon and Steven Spielbergs 2005 film Munich
11.
1976 Summer Olympics
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The 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, officially called the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event in Montreal, Quebec, in 1976, and the first Olympic Games held in Canada. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12,1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and it is so far the only Summer Olympic Games to be held in Canada. Calgary and Vancouver later hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1988 and 2010, the vote occurred on May 12,1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Los Angeles was eliminated after the first round and Montreal won in the second round, Moscow would go on to host the 1980 Summer Olympics and Los Angeles the 1984 Summer Olympics. One blank vote was cast in the second and final round, toronto had made its third attempt for the Olympics but failed to get the support of the Canadian Olympic Committee, which selected Montreal instead. Robert Bourassa, then the Premier of Quebec, first asked Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to advise Canadas monarch, Elizabeth II, however, Bourassa later became unsettled about how unpopular the move might be with sovereigntists in the province, annoying Trudeau, who had already made arrangements. The Oxford Olympics Study estimates the outturn cost of the Montreal 1976 Summer Olympics at USD6.1 billion in 2015-dollars and cost overrun at 720% in real terms. This includes sports-related costs only, that is, operational costs incurred by the committee for the purpose of staging the Games. The competition venues, the Olympic village, international broadcast center, and media and press center, the cost overrun for Montreal 1976 is the highest cost overrun on record for any Olympics. The cost and cost overrun for Montreal 1976 compares with costs of USD4.6 billion, average cost for the Summer Games since 1960 is USD5.2 billion, average cost overrun is 176%. The ceremony marked the opening of the Games of the XXI Olympiad, the queen entered the Royal Box with her consort, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and her son, Prince Andrew. The parade of athletes began moments later with the arrival of the Greek team, All other teams entered the stadium according to French alphabetical order. Although most would eventually boycott the Games in the days to follow, much of the music performed for the parade was arranged by Vic Vogel and was inspired by late Quebec composer, André Mathieu. Immediately following the parade, a troupe of 80 women dancers dressed in white performed a dance in the outline of the Olympic rings. Following that came the official speeches, first by Roger Rousseau, head of the Montreal Olympic organizing committee and her Majesty was then invited to proclaim the Games open, which she did, first in French, then in English. Accompanied by the Olympic Hymn, the Olympic flag was carried into the stadium, the flag was carried by eight men and hoisted by four women, representing the ten provinces and two territories of Canada. As the flag was hoisted, a choir performed an a cappella version of the Olympic Hymn. Once the flag was unfurled, a troupe of Bavarian dancers, representing Munich, host of the previous 1972 Summer Olympics, following a brief dance, that flag was then passed from the Mayor of Munich to the IOC President and then to the Mayor of Montreal
listen); born 2 May 1942) is a Belgian sports administrator and physician who served as the eighth President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 2001 to 2013. In 2013, the IOC announced that Rogge would become their Honorary President.
Media related to Jacques Rogge at Wikimedia Commons
Juan Antonio Samaranch
Thomas Bach
