Sports

It’s an iconic image: Two athletes raise their fists on the Olympic podium. The photograph, taken after the 200 meter race at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, turned African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos from track-and-field stars into the center of a ...read more

The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics have been the first Games in 34 years that Russia has not, technically, attended. After a years-long doping scandal, the International Olympic Committee stripped Russia of 41 medals and formally banned them from this year’s games, leaving ...read more

The Past in Color features the work of colorist Marina Amaral, bringing to life black and white photos with color applied digitally. LAPD officer. Bit-part Hollywood star. Nixon supporter. Trailblazer for racial integration. Kenny Washington had an eventful–and in some ways ...read more

Nearly 60 years before the first Winter Olympics, long before figure skating was even a sport, an American named Jackson Haines became known for the pirouettes, dances and dramatic jumps he performed on the ice. Haines’ road to fame and fortune wasn’t an easy one. He was laughed ...read more

The instantly-recognizable song is played before thousands of sporting events every year, but just how did the Star-Spangled Banner come to be a staple of sports in the first place? The answer, it turns out, has to do with World War I. Baseball fans in the late 19th century ...read more

Who invented the bicycle? The answer is a little more complicated than you may think. A German baron named Karl von Drais made the first major development when he created a steerable, two-wheeled contraption in 1817. Known by many names, including the “velocipede,” “hobby-horse,” ...read more

Footage taken of President Herbert Hoover along with his family and colleagues during the late 1920s or early-1930s was recently examined at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, possibly becoming the earliest color film ever taken inside the White House grounds. These seven ...read more

You haven’t heard of him because his improbable rise wasn’t possible in America. Richmond was born into slavery on what’s today the New York borough of Staten Island on August 5, 1763. When the British landed there in 1776, at the start of the American Revolution, Richmond did ...read more

1. Janet Guthrie—Racing Through the Glass Ceiling Janet Guthrie wasn’t the first woman to get behind the wheel of a race car, but she became the first woman to compete in NASCAR’s Winston Cup Series (known today as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series), in the 1976 World 600 ...read more

In the years since Mao Zedong’s communist revolution in 1949, relations between the People’s Republic of China and the United States had been clouded by Cold War propaganda, trade embargos and diplomatic silence. The two superpowers had met on the battlefield during the Korean ...read more

By February 22, 1980, the U.S. hockey team had already become the surprise story of the Lake Placid Olympics. They had blazed their way through the early stages of the competition, tying with a highly touted Swedish team before scoring four straight wins. Coach Herb Brooks’ squad ...read more

On July 1, 1903, 60 men mounted their bicycles outside the Café au Reveil Matin in the Parisian suburb of Montgeron. The five-dozen riders were mostly French, with just a sprinkle of Belgians, Swiss, Germans and Italians. A third were professionals sponsored by bicycle ...read more

1. Theagenes of Thasos One of the towering figures of ancient sports, Theagenes was a Greek pugilist who supposedly won 1,300 bouts over the course of a 22-year career. His most significant achievements came at the Olympics in 480 and 476 B.C., when he became the first athlete ...read more

The 1,500 tennis fans packed into the grandstand showered applause upon Karl Behr and Dick Williams after their thrilling fourth-round match in the 1912 Longwood Challenge Bowl. Old-timers agreed that the match had been the finest in the tournament’s history. For five sets on a ...read more

Trophy’s Best Friend A few months before the 1966 World Cup, the Jules Rimet trophy, which is awarded to each tournament’s winner, went on display at a London stamp exhibition. Despite 24-hour surveillance, thieves managed to break into the trophy’s display case and make off with ...read more