-
1691 Edition of David Wedderburn's 'Vocabula'
This excerpt from David Wedderburn's 'Vocabula'. In this excerpt, which was originally written in the late 1630s, Wedderburn describes a "dribbling" game that his students have been playing. The game is football, and Wedderburn's description is a clear indication of what playing football in the 17th century would have been like. 'Vocabula' is significant because it shows just how small the game of football was before the age of industrialization caused it to be so popular internationally. -
Rudyard Kipling's 'The Islanders' Poem
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_islanders.htm This is a poem written by the English journalist and poet Rudyard Kipling. In the poem, Kipling expresses a general disdain for sport, referring to football players as "muddied oafs". This poem is significant because it is one of the many instances of upperclassmen in England rejecting team sports and painting sports associated with the working class in a bad light. -
The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin
This is a photo of the African American Olympic athlete Jesse Owens after winning a gold medal at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Owens is pictured on the top step of the podium next to an individual who is performing a Nazi salute. This photograph is significant because it shows how effectively Hitler and the Nazi party were able to camouflage their true racist and antisemitic agenda at the Olympics so they could portray Germany in a positive light. -
The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/02/15/britain-will-advise-athletes-to-boycott-olympics/d8bbfab3-107b-4063-a743-4b00cc7f7c06/
This primary source is a news article from 1980 detailing Margaret Thatcher's statement of approval and encouragement for the boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics. This news article is significant because it highlights how interconnected sports, nationalism and politics became in Europe.