Today in History: Olympic Games

Two Views of the Americans at the Olympic Games (1908)
Today in History–July 30–the Library of Congress features the Olympic Games, which opened on this day in 1932 in Los Angeles, California. It was the tenth Olympiad of the modern era and the first to have an Olympic Village where athletes were housed and fed. Learn more by visiting the Today in History section, then click the links below to access more primary sources and stories related to the modern Olympic games.

Olympic games image set

Olympic game images from the Bain Collection (majority from 1912)

1908 London Olympic image set

1928 Amsterdam Olympic image set

1932 Los Angeles Olympic image set

1936 Berlin Olympic image set

Images of early Olympics gathered from published books and journals

Olympic posters

Olympic Games: Finding Pictures in the Prints & Photographs Division

Olympics: Topics in Chronicling America select articles and timeline

1908 front-page newspaper coverage of Olympic athletes

Olympic games historical newspaper coverage

The Old Olympic Games” The Century, Volume 51, Issue 6, Apr 1896

The New Olympic Games” The Century, Volume 51, Issue 6, Apr 1896

The Revival Of The Olympic GamesScribner’s, Volume 19, Issue 4, April, 1896

The Olympic Games at Athens by Sullivan, James Edward (1906)

International Olympic Games by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions (1911)

Audio and video programs related to the Olympic games American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Black Champions interviews American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Modern U.S. legislation related to the Olympic games

The Olympics: A Guide to Reference Sources

Winter Olympic Games 2002 Web Archive

Library articles & blog posts

Related resources