By Therese Eley, Director of Member Services
1. Not only will it be home to London’s 2012 Summer Olympic Games, but England is also the birthplace of the modern Olympic Games. Dr William Penny Brookes, a doctor from Much Wenlock in Shrewsbury, revived the ancient Greek tradition of the Olympic Games when he founded the Wenlock Olympian society in 1850 with his three-day festival of games. The Games became an annual event and included Greek Classical and country sports such as running, football and cricket, but also a competition for “juveniles” and such fun competitions as a “blind wheelbarrow race” or “an old woman’s race for a pound of tea”. (more…)
