The First Olympics - Blood, Honor, and Glory (History Channel)

Great documentary. Very informative. A must if you are a history buff.

This was DVD was enlightening. It's historical content was indeed, very educational. The facts, however, reveal how gruesome the Olympics were for the participants. It is no wonder how they lost favor for so many years. The revival of this sports event eliminated the barbaric nature of the initial efforts. Watch this DVD, as I did, only once.

A compilation of three documentaries "The First Olympics", "Blood and Honour at The First Olympics" and "The Greek Gods". It consists mainly of the same archival film footage used over and over again in "The Real Olympics", "The Games for The Gods" and "The Ancient Greek Olympics" with different narration and contradictory "facts" gleaned from a few historical writings and some Greek Pottery and then integrated with an enormous amount of hypothetical supposition and personal opinions from so-called "experts".I quote "expert" Ann Stewart (Professor College Year in Athens) "The important thing for a man to do was marry a virgin and produce children. The only way to keep virgins was the practise of homosexuality, and so it was encouraged." That's great. It leaves us with a mental picture of young Adonis screwing his friend so that he can keep little Aphrodite for a rainy day. And of course his friend obligingly "rolls over" and lets him because "Well that's what friends do for each other. Don't they?".I thought I must have reached the bottom of the bucket with this little spark of absurdity, however from there on in it's downhill all the way with such little gems as " Women had to be "tamed" for marriage, and the best way women could be "tamed" was to show them naked athletes". And it just goes on and on.The actual film footage is quite good but this is not a disk to buy.

The first two Olympic documentaries are almost the exact same, information and photos with different speakers--the 2nd one is Lenard Nemoy. The history of the ancient games are shared with artwork (bare) and interviews about how they began, the types of games of violence, and the rewards to the winners. Insightful.The third portion is a profile of the Greek myths that resided at Olympus, some of which include actor reenactments.The final portion is an unofficial chart of medals and medal winners of the 1896 Olympics which is interesting.

The First Olympics were held in Greece, Athens in August 776 B.C. during a full moon. They were held in honor of Zeus. Very brutal and to the loser may have been death. Leather strips the men wore around their fists deeply cut them. Wrestling could mean broken fingers and, although against the rules, going for the genitals was sometimes done. In 720 AD, Aosipus was a track runner who lost his loin-cloth in mid-race. So in honor of Aosipus, the other runners also took off their loin-cloths. From then on, in 776 AD, all runners competed in the nude. Homosexuality and nudity were not shameful nor uncommon in Greek society. It would guarantee female virgins. They only way to keep females a virgin was to have homosexuality. Only female virgins were allowed to watch the Olympics. Married women were "forbidden". The word "gymnasium" meant "in the nude". The main site of the original Olympics exists in ruins and was somewhat restored and used for an Olympic event in 2004 during the XXVIII Summer Olympiad in Athens, Greece. At Olympia, where chariot races were held is completely under a river that changed course in 600 AD. It would be too expensive a project to recover. The modern Summer Olympics, as we know them now, began again in Athens, Greece in 1896. The Summer Olympic Games have since been held every 4 years except during wartime. The Games of 1916, 1940 and 1944 were not held. In 2004, the Olympiad returned one more time to Athens, Greece. The Winter Olympic Games began in Chamonix, France in 1924 and was held every 4 years thereafter, except in 1940 and 1944. In 1992, it was decided that having the Winter Olympics and the Summer Olympics on the same year was too much for the officials to deal with and for the athletes that completed in both Olympiads. So they decided the next Winter Olympic Games (XX) would be held in Turin, Italy in 2006. Now they are held once again every four years.The Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games are now held 2 years apart from each other. This DVD includes 3 documentaries: The First Olympics, narrated by David Aykroyd, Blood and Honor at The First Olympics, narrated by Leonard Nimoy, The Greek Gods, narrated by David Aykroyd. Also includes a list of the medal count for the top 10 countries and leading medal winners as an extra for the 1896 Olympics.