A visual guide to the athletic events the Olympics left behind

An illustrated guide to the ancient Greek version of the Olympics

Go back to the original time and place of the athletic contest with this illustrated guide to the Games. For 1,200 years, the ancient Greeks would gather every four years for the Games in Elis, months after heralds had spread the word of the event to the region's many peninsulas, with its greatest athletes competing for honor.

The all-time list of every modern Olympic sport

Curious about which sports were played at the 1894 Olympics? Want to learn the rules of Breaking? This list gives a comprehensive overview of every Olympic sport ever played, sortable by game type and specific Olympic year. Click into a sport to see a brief overview, a list of rules, and an explainer video.

The evolution of the Olympics from ancient Greece to the modern world

The Olympic Games have evolved from a sacred footrace in 776 BCE honoring Zeus to a global celebration of athletic excellence and unity. Ancient Greek city-states set aside their conflicts under a sacred truce for events like wrestling and chariot racing. Though the Games ended in 393 CE, Pierre de Coubertin revived them in 1896, adding modern elements like the torch relay and the inclusion of women. Watch 1440's breakdown of the historic event here.

A fast explainer on every Winter Olympic sport

Slalom, luge, skimo: The 16 sports at the Winter Olympics aren't the most familiar to everyday audiences. They can be divided into three categories: track, indoor, and outdoor. This video breaks down each sport's rules and quirks and the variations of its events in less than eight minutes.

An exploration of what makes Olympic curling so difficult and strange

The sport is often maligned for its oddity, but this impassioned video argues it's one of the more impressive (and good-natured) sports in the Olympics. Sometimes labeled "chess on ice," curling at the Olympics uses 44-pound, 60-million-year-old granite stones all extracted from the same Scottish island.

Watch the Space Olympics from the International Space Station

From "synchronized space swimming" to "weightless sharpshooting," crew members in 2021 competed in microgravity versions of events from the summer Games. The "lack-of-floor routine" featured mid-air gymnastics as astronauts floated through space station modules.

The 1904 Olympic marathon was a bizarre spectacle

When the Olympics first came to the US, the race was still a fringe event with few established rules. That led to an absurd comedy, with competitors ingesting poison, hitchhiking 11 miles of the course, and occasionally sipping brandy.

The sports competition developed on the Alaskan tundra

Alaska's NYO Games invite high school athletes from the state's over 270 indigenous tribes to compete in numerous events based on survival tactics developed by their ancestors. This short documentary from Great Big Story walks through some of the more grueling events and speaks with the Games' coaches and young athletes about how the event preserves their shared culture.

Athletes are captured in moments of victory and defeat in 6 powerful sports images

See shots like Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston in 1965, or Brandi Chastain after winning the World Cup final in 1999.

The sordid soirées of the Olympic Village

The Olympic Village brings together some of the world's most physically fit young people for two weeks. That leads to lots of romantic connections, as this firsthand account from a few who have been there attests. The degree of connection at some Games in recent decades has required the village's medical facility to distribute more than 100,000 prophylactics.

Charting how many Olympic tickets are sold

This chart compares the total number of tickets sold for Summer Olympic sporting events with the number of tickets available. The article sources the data from the International Olympic Committee website and goes back to the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

Synchronized swimming dates back to Ancient Rome

Known for gruesome gladiatorial contests, ancient Rome's aquatic spectacles may have been even more over-the-top. This article dives into the art of synchronized swimming in ancient Rome. Lakes were dug and amphitheaters flooded to provide space for aquatic reenactments of naval battles and artistic performances. Swimmers playing the role of water nymphs would create elaborate shapes, including ships with billowing sails.

Cold War rivalries fueled fierce competition in international sports

From Olympic medal counts to hockey showdowns, the US and USSR used sports to showcase ideological superiority. Athletic victories were framed as proof that each system—capitalist or communist—produced stronger, more disciplined citizens.

Becoming an Olympic swimmer costs tens of thousands of dollars

When you see Olympic athletes win gold, it's the culmination of years of hard work and discipline. But it isn't all sweat equity. Before ever stepping foot on the world stage, these athletes have to pay or find funding for private coaching and lessons, club memberships, and meet fees, with estimates that it costs $25K to $40K to make it to the Olympics.

Gladiators fought in specialized armatures designed only for the arena

This illustrated guide breaks down the most common gladiator armatures, showing how each was highly stylized for spectacle rather than warfare. This explanation suggests why gladiators generally made poor soldiers when drafted into the legions.

The 1992 Olympics changed Barcelona

Barcelona wasn’t always a global tourist hotspot. Before hosting the 1992 Olympics, the city’s coastline was blocked by factories, green spaces were scarce, and tourism was minimal. But after securing the Olympic games, everything changed.

Extreme Games rebranded as X Games for global appeal

In 1996, ESPN shortened “Extreme Games” to “X Games” to make the name easier to translate for international broadcasts and to strengthen branding as the competition expanded to global markets.

Horse diving was a popular attraction for 50 years

The event, which took place in Atlantic City, is exactly as it sounds: horses, directed by (sometimes scantily clad) riders, would jump from diving boards into pools. Although it was a popular spectacle for decades, it fell out of favor by the late 1970s.

The origin story of the Paralympic movement and its founder, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann

Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, the founder of the Paralympic movement, revolutionized the treatment of spinal injuries. His belief in the power of sports for rehabilitation led to the creation of the Paralympic Games, now celebrated every Olympic year. This in-depth article from The History Press details the life and achievements of Dr. Guttmann, and includes historical photos and videos of the veterans-turned-athletes whose lives he changed.

'Games That Weren't' preserves lost video game history

Since 1999, this large, online, nonprofit archive has saved the stories of cancelled and unreleased video games. See prototypes, developer history, and assets for various computers and consoles of all ages, including gems like Cartoon Network's "Toon Jam!"

See the evolution of Super Bowl logos and how the NFL refined its visual identity over time

Tracing Super Bowl logos from early, varied designs to today’s standardized look shows how the NFL adapted to shifting design trends, television demands, and brand strategy.

A timeline of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour's primary rival

In 2021, the rival professional league LIV Golf Investments was unveiled. It was a move that reshaped men's professional golf. This Sports Illustrated Timeline dives into the twists and turns occurring since the announcement. Learn what star players left the PGA for LIV. Also, get details about the mutual agreement outlined in 2023, which has yet to come to fruition.

Visualizing the 75 largest underwater animals

With so many fish in the sea, which are the largest? This infographic shows fantastic illustrations of the 75 largest sea animals, ranked by average size. The detailed visual is organized in descending order of size, starting with the blue whale,...

The art and architecture of the devastated Pompeii

Long buried under feet of ash, the city of Pompeii's discovery millennia later sparked a world of imagination and tragedy. See a collection of paintings, buildings, and photographs from the city all in one easy-to-browse gallery.

A visual guide to Hollywood dystopias and their real-world locations

Even the most dire dystopias are grounded in the real world. That's especially true with dystopian movies, which turn real cities into near-future nightmares. This guide from Atlas Obscura takes readers on a tour through some of the most recognizable, from "Blade Runner" (filmed in Los Angeles) to "Total Recall" (Mexico City, Mexico), "The Matrix" (Sydney, Australia), and more.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

See images of medical cases of firework injuries shared on this 'Instagram for doctors.' (Warning: Graphic content)

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.