This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. If an article link referred you here, you might want to go back and fix it to point directly to the intended page.
The date of the Games' inception based on the count of years in Olympiads is reconstructed as 776 BC, although scholars' opinions diverge between dates as early as 884 BC and as late as 704 BC.
The Olympics were of fundamental religious importance, contests alternating with sacrifices and ceremonies honouring both Zeus (whose colossal statue stood at Olympia), and Pelops, divine hero and mythical king of Olympia famous for his legendary chariot race, in whose honour the games were held.
The 1956 Melbourne Olympics were boycotted by the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, because of the repression of the Hungarian Uprising by the Warsaw Pact; additionally, Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon, boycotted the games due to the Suez Crisis.