1908 Summer Olympics main venue for the 1934 British Empire Games (Commonwealth Games since 1978) and a venue for the 1966 FIFA World Cup before its demolition in 1985. The All England Tennis and Lawn Club continues to serve as host for Wimbledon's tennis events and is the only venue of the 1908 Games to serve as one for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Bisley and Henley served as venues in the 1948 Games when the Olympics returned to London forty years later. The 1908 Games featured athletes representing 22 National Olympic Committees. Finland, Turkey and New Zealand (as part of the team from
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