Top 10 Firsts in Olympic Games

The Olympics have come a long way since the first games were hosted in Olympia, Greece, in 776 BC. Listverse looks at few inspiring firsts:

• First Champion. A runner named Coroebus was the first-ever Olympic champ. He won the "stade"—a Greek measurement equaling about 600 feet—and, like many other ancient Olympians, he competed in the nude.
• First Women. The 1900 Olympics in Paris was the first to include female athletes. The first gal champ was Charlotte Cooper of England, who played in tennis singles.
• First Black Athletes. Also in 1900, Constantin Henriquez de Zubieta of France was the first black competitor. But the first black champion was American relay runner John Taylor in 1908.
• First Mascot. Clearly teams can't win without a giant fuzzy animal rooting them on. So a drawing of Waldi (a multicolored dachshund) became the official symbol of the 1972 Munich games.
• First Televised Games. This honor goes to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which displayed the games on huge screens. But England was the first to broadcast games into homes, at the 1948 London Olympics.

Click for the full list. (More Olympics stories.)