Olympic Games Evangelos Zappas, a wealthy Greek-Romanian philanthropist, first wrote to King Otto of Greece, in 1856, offering to fund a permanent revival of the Olympic Games. Zappas sponsored the first Olympic Games in 1859, which was held in an Athens city square. Athletes participated from Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Zappas funded the restoration of the ancient Panathenaic Stadium so that it could host all future Olympic Games. The stadium hosted Olympics in 1870 and 1875. Thirty thousand spectators attended that Games in 1870, though no official attendance records are available for the 1875 Games. In 1890, after attending the Olympian
Summer Olympic Games when Tokyo again becomes host city. Historically, the Summer Olympics has been held predominantly in English-speaking countries and European nations. Tokyo will be the first city outside these regions to have hosted the Summer Olympics twice; it will also be the largest city ever to have hosted the Games, having grown considerably since 1964. The 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were the first Summer Olympics to be held in South America and the first that were held during the local winter season. The only two countries in the Southern Hemisphere to have hosted the Summer Olympics have been