Ancient City’s Destruction by Asteroid Gave Rise to Biblical Sodom Story

1. The First Winner of the Ancient Olympics

Because the ancient Greeks dated events based on four-year Olympiad cycles, the winner of the stadion race – the only competition in the first half-century of the Olympic Games – achieved a degree of fame and prestige difficult to grasp today. Since the Olympiad was named after him, from then on out, people would include his name whenever they referred to all that happened in the four-year cycle of his victory. Something along the lines of: “such and such happened in the first (or second, or third, or fourth) year of [Olympic Winner’s Name] Olympiad“.

Eventually, more athletic events were added to the competition, such as wrestling, boxing, javelin, discus, long jump, and chariot racing. However, the stadion still held pride of place as the Olympic Games’ most prestigious competition, and the four-year Olympiad cycles continued to be named after its victor. Because of that, historians today are able to name just about every stadion winner. The first of them – and thus the first Olympics champion, was a cook from the city-state of Elis named Coroebus, who won the stadion in 776 BC.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Ancient History Sourcebook – Queen Tomyris of the Massegetai and the Defeat of the Persians Under Cyrus

Classical Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 1 (1999) – Pisistratus’ Leadership and the Establishment of the Tyranny

Daily Beast – The Giant Space Rock That Wiped Out Biblical Sodom

Daily Beast – Things You Probably Don’t Know About the Olympics

Drews, Robert – Early Riders: The Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe (2004)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Ancient Greek Olympic Games

Encyclopedia Britannica – Sodom and Gomorrah

Encyclopedia Britannica – Solon

Garland, Robert – Celebrity in Antiquity: From Media Tarts to Tabloid Queens (2006)

Grant, Michael – The Rise of the Greeks (1987)

Herodotus – The Histories

Hildinger, Erik – Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 BC to 1700 AD (1997)

History Collection – Digging it Up: 7 of the Biggest and Best Archaeological Finds of the 20^th Century

Holland, Tom – Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (2006)

Laertius, Diogenes – Lives of the Eminent Philosophers: The Seven Sages

Miller, Stephen Gaylord – Ancient Greek Athletics (2004)

National Geographic Magazine, April, 2013 – Bringing Them Back to Life: The Revival of Extinct Species is No Longer a Fantasy. But is it a Good Idea?

New Scientist, March 27^th, 1993 – Mini Mammoths Survived Into Egyptian Times

Roesch, Joseph E. – Boudica, Queen of the Iceni (2006)

Scientific Reports, 11, Article Number: 18632 (2021) – A Tunguska Sized Airburst Destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age City in the Jordan Valley Near the Dead Sea

Swaddling, Judith – The Ancient Olympic Games (1984)