The origins of the Olympic Games date back to at least the eighth century BC.
Dedicated to the Greek god Zeus, they took place on the plains of Olympia in the Peloponnese every four years.
Sports included running, wrestling, boxing, a primitive form of martial art known as pancratium, equestrian competitions, and pentathlon.
The ancient Olympic Games fell into decline when Rome conquered Greece in 146 BC and were finally abolished in 393 AD by Emperor Theodosius I.
The site of the Games, Olympia, sank into oblivion, ravaged by earthquakes and floods.
It wasn't until 1,500 years later that the modern Olympic Games were born in Athens in 1896, featuring 280 participants from 30 nations.
The Games slowly grew under the guidance of Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894.
In the 1900 Games, women were allowed to take part for the first time.
By 1924, the Olympic Games in Paris had captured the public's imagination.
More than 3,000 athletes took part from 43 nations.
The 1936 Berlin Olympics were the first to be televised to a limited audience and took place under Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.
Hitler sought to use the Games for propaganda purposes to showcase his Aryan race, but history remembers the four-gold-medal performance of African-American athlete Jesse Owens.
It wasn't until Rome 1960 that the Olympics were broadcast live across Europe, and Tokyo 1964 that they reached a worldwide audience.
At the height of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement during the 1968 Mexico City Games, African-American runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos staged a protest at the medal ceremony.
They were stripped of their medals but inspired a whole generation of black athletes.
During the 1972 Games in Munich, Palestinian militants invaded the Olympic Village, killing 11 Israeli athletes and coaches as well as a West German police officer.
Today, the Games are the world's largest sporting celebration, with more than 10,500 athletes from 206 countries taking part in Rio 2016.
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