A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 264, 4 August 1936, Page 7

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

The Olympic Games

The eleventh Olympic Games have opened at Berlin. The most celebrated chronological period among the Greeks was that of the four years which elapsed between each celebration of the Olympic Games. These “Olympiads” began to be reckoned from the victory of Coroebus in the foot-race, which happened in the year 776 B.C. Only the names of the conquerors in the foot-race were used to designate tlie Olympiad, not the conquerors in tlie other contests. The writers who make use of the periods of the Olympiads usually give the number of the Olympiad (the first- corresponding to 776 8.C.) and then the name of the conqueror in the foot-race. Some writers also speak of events as happening iu the first, second, third, or fourth year, as the case may be, of a certain Olympiad ; but others do not give the separate years of each Olympiad. Many of the ancient writers did not consider history to begin till the Olympiad of Coroebus, and regarded as fabulous the events said to have occurred in preceding times. The 1896 Marathon Race. Present at the opening of the Olympic Games in Berlin was the winner of the marathon in 1896. The revival of the Olympic Games, to be held every fou r years at some European capital, was decided on at an international congress in Paris in 1894, the first to be at Athens in 1896. The games were opened on April 5, 1896, the 75th anniversary of Greek independence. On April 10 the race from Marathon to Athens was won by: Spiridos Louis, a Greek peasant, iu the presence of 70,000 spectators. The marathon race is named from the Battle of Marathon (490 8.C.), news of the victory having been carried to Athens by a courier, sometimes called Pheidippides, who fell dead on announcing the victory. The race properly is of 26 miles 355 yards. ID is also said of Pheidippides that he ran all the way from Athens to Sparta in two days to demand aid against the Persians, and ran back again in time to be at the Battle of Marathon. The Goose Step.

For the opening of the Olympic Games there was a special cheer for the Bulgarians, who goose-stepped past Herr Hitler. “Goose-step” is the popular name for a military exercise called the balance-step. The body is balanced upon one leg, while the other is advanced without a jerk, the knee straight, the toe pointed out and the shoulders square to the front. The advanced leg is hen placed firmly on the ground, and the weight of the body thrown upon it, while the other leg is advanced in like manner, both knees being kept straight. This inarch is in slow time—7s paces to the minute. This pace is practised for ceremonial parades. In the early days of the Great War, when the Germans were overrunning Belgium and France, their troops frequently entered conquered towns of importance with the goosestep march. Hitler Youth Movement.

■ The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was performed in the presence of 40,000 boys and girls of the Hitler Youth' organisation. From the age of seven to 17, millions of young Germans are now being imbued with the idea of heroically living and, if necessary, dying for the glory of the Fatherland. Organised in the Hitler Youth Movement they begin to march and wear uniforms before their minds are aware of what it all means. Here the fundamentals of their State-life are taught to them. Here they become for the first time soldiers of Germany. They play at war and they learn to know the problems of real warfare in sham combat By the time they are old enough for the Labour Service they are mipiature soldiers. Schools are also pressed into the cause. Teachers expand the grandeur of Germany that was and the grandeur that must come. On the walls of the classrooms hang maps showing territories which Berlin “must some day rule” but which to-day are under foreign “domination.” Training of the Hitler Youth includes forms of hand-grenade throwing and shooting. The children carry proudly a dirk at their side. From seven years on life is serious, life is discipline in a uniform. The training of the children is along the lines of preparation for a future war. Before going to the university German youths must spend a year in the Labour Service, where military discipline prevails. They spend part of the day in draining swamps, building roads, and on other public projects. For the rest they march, they drill, they inure their bodies to hardship under the tutelage and commands of former army officers.

Bleriot Flies the Channel The death has occurred of M. Louis Bleriot, the first man to fly the English Channel. Louis Bleriot was bom in 1872. He invented the monoplane, and was the first to fly the English Channel, the flight of 31 miles, on July 25, 1909, taking 37 minutes. He started from Baraques, near Calais, and landed near Dover Castle, and so won a £lO,OOO prize offered by the “Daily Mail” to the one who made the first successful cross-Channel flight. Another Frenchman, Latham, was favourite fbr the prize. His first attempt was a failure, and he fell into the sea. The “Daily Mail” had an immense staff of correspondents on both sides of the Channel, and a wireless installation by which they could signal to each other. French destroyers were engaged to patrol the Channel along the proposed route. With the passing of the days, however, the destroyers’ commanders became impatient when Latham made no second attempt and informed him they would wait no longer. Next morning Bleriot flew across, and there was not a soul to see him come. Sir Philip Gibbs reports that he was one of the journalists “first on the scene to greet the man who had done the worst thing that has ever been done to England—though we did not guess it at the time. For, by flying the Channel, he robbed us for all time of our island security. . . . After Bleriot came the bombing Gothas of the Germany army. . . .” “Hallelujah Chorus.” After the German team at the Olympic Games had taken the oath of sportsmanship on behalf of all the competing nations, Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus" was sung. The name “Hallelujah Chorus” is specifically applied to the concluding chorus of Part II of Handel’s oratorio “The Messiah.” “The Messiah” was first produced in Dublin on April 13, 1742, and in London on March 23, 1743. At the London performance, the whole audience, with George 11, rose to its feet at the beginning of the “Hallelujah Chorus” and remained standing throughout, establishing a custom which remains to this day. Handel is reporter! to have said regarding, his experience when composing the chorus: “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.”