Fast Facts: Memorable Olympic Moments

The following is a timeline of major events in Olympic history:

1916 — Games cancelled due to World War I.

1936 — American Jesse Owens won four gold medals (100 and 200 meter dashes, long jump and 4x100 relay) in Berlin, a city bristling with Hitler's pre-WWII Nazism. Owens was only supposed to compete in the two solo dashes and the long jump, but a last-minute switch put him and fellow African-American runner Ralph Metcalfe in the place of two Jewish runners — a move believed to be rooted in a Hitler request to not be further humiliated by non-Aryans defeating his German athletes.

1940 and 1944 — Games cancelled due to World War II.

1968 — Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two American sprinters, bowed their heads and raised their black-gloved fists while on the medal podium in Mexico City — marking one of the most famous photographs from any Olympics as well as a memorable milestone in American civil rights.

1972 — Eight Arab terrorists broke into the athletes' compound in Munich. They killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team and took nine others hostage, demanding the release of 200 guerrillas held in Israel. Israeli leaders denied the release.

When both sides agreed to let the terrorists and their hostages out of West Germany, shots rang out as the terrorists walked the hostages onto the jet. It's unclear who fired first, but once the fighting began, the guerrillas killed all nine Israeli hostages. Five of the terrorists were killed.

1976 — Nadia Comaneci, a 14-year-old, 4-foot-11, 86-pound Romanian became the first male or female to ever receive a perfect 10 score in a gymnastics event during the Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada.

1980 — The U.S. Hockey team scored a major upset by beating the heavily-favored Russian team, in what came to be known as the "Miracle on Ice." Sports aside, the game held much more meaning, being played at the height of the Cold War and on U.S. soil in Lake Placid, N.Y. The story was later made into the Disney movie "Miracle."

1988 — Jamaica entered the bobsled event — marking a first for the sunny Caribbean country. However, during a run in the '88 games, their sled flipped onto its side, thus eliminating them from contention. The story was later made into the Disney movie "Cool Runnings."

1998 — Ben Johnson, dubbed the "World's Fastest Man," wins gold in the 100 meter sprint, but was later stripped of his medal for failing a drug test. His 1987 world record was revoked in 1989 after he admitted using steroids, and Johnson was banned for life by the IAAF in 1993 for testing positive again.

1994 — Weeks before the Lillehammer Winter Games, U.S. figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked while leaving a practice session in Detroit. She was hit in the knee by a man with a metal club, leaving her hobbled and her Olympic dreams in the air.

The investigation quickly turned to Jeff Gillooly, the husband of rival skater Tonya Harding. Gillooly, along with Shawn Eckardt, eventually confessed to the FBI that they were behind the attack. Harding then admitted prior knowledge of the assault. She was kicked off of the Olympic team, but her $25 million lawsuit kept her on the team.

Kerrigan made a miraculous recovery, and was able to skate in Lillehammer. Amid suffocating media coverage, Kerrigan won the silver medal, barely losing the gold to Ukrainian Oksana Baiul.

1996 — A bomb ripped through a recreation area inside Olympic Park in Atlanta and killed one person and injured more than 100. Richard Jewell — a security guard originally called a hero for evacuating the area — was the focus of an FBI investigation into the bombing. Jewell was later cleared of any involvement.