16 Little-Known Secrets Behind Olympic Medals

Medals have wildly different perks in different nations

Any South Korean athlete who wins an Olympic medal, for example, becomes exempt from the country’s mandatory two-year military service for males aged 18 to 35.

Gold medals can still be valuable though

Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko auctioned his gold medal for a children’s charity in 1996. A buyer purchased it for $1 million—then immediately returned the medal out of respect to Klitschko and his family.

The strangest material to become an Olympic medal?

Probably a meteorite. Ten gold medals in the 2014 Sochi Games contained pieces of the massive meteor that exploded over Russia in February, 2013.

Ireland’s first Olympic medal was for painting

Jack Butler Yeats—brother of poet W.B. Yeats—won a silver medal for his oil canvas, The Liffy Swim, in 1924. He was vanquished by a Luxembourgian artist who submitted two paintings of rugby, which hardly seems fair.

Gold, silver, and bronze have a hidden meaning

Gold, silver, and bronze medals represent three of the five Ages of Man in Greek mythology. The Golden Age was a time when man and gods lived in harmony. The Silver Age saw man stray from piety, and the Bronze Age marks a period of war and violence. Supposedly we’re in the Iron Age now, but that’s all Greek to me.

For 76 years, Olympic medals were emblazoned with a big error

Beginning in 1928, the front of every gold, silver, and bronze medal showed an image of the Roman Colosseum, despite the Olympic games’ Greek roots. This blunder was finally called to attention in 2004, when it was replaced with Athens' Panathenaic Stadium.

The Rio 2016 medals will have unusual origins

Per the Games’ official website, “About 30 percent of the silver used in the new medals will be recycled waste from leftover mirrors, solder and X-ray plates. Bronze medals will be made with copper waste from the national mint.” Even the ribbons holding the medals will be woven with recycled plastic from old bottles.

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Legia�� Warszawa��-FC Sheriff ★And 35000€ fine goes to...★��

The banner, which depicts a red-eyed pig greedily clutching Legia's balls, was unveiled ahead of Warsaw's Europa League play-off game against Sheriff Tiraspol. A separate banner underneath the Euro-covered pig read: "And the 35,000 fine goes to..." The first-leg match finished 1-1, with Legia travelling to Sheriff next week, in a bid to reach the Europa League group stage. Legia were originally fined due to fans displaying a banner, which was the width of an entire stand, during a Champions League qualifier against Kazakh team Astana. The banner marked the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when Polish resistance fighters captured large parts of the capital city but were eventually crushed by occupying German forces. It's expected that Legia will see some sort of retrospective action taken by UEFA following this second, but none has been taken as yet. Perhaps we will see a third if they do face another punishment.

Top 10 Countries That Disappeared In The 20th Century

New nations seem to pop up with alarming regularity. At the start of the 20th century, there were only a few dozen independent sovereign states on the planet; today, there are nearly 200! Once a nation is established, they tend to stick around for awhile, so a nation disappearing is quite uncommon. It’s only occurred a handful of times in the last century. But when they do, they completely vanish off the face of the globe: government, flag, and all. Here then, in no particular order, are the top ten countries that had their moment in the sun but are, alas, no more. 10. East Germany, 1949-1990 East Germany , formally the German Democratic Republic or GDR ( German : Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR ), was a state in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War period. From 1949 to 1990, it administered the region of Germany that was occupied by Soviet forces at the end of World War II —the Soviet Occupation Zone of the Potsdam Agreement , bounded on th

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Satire is a genre of literature , and sometimes graphic and performing arts , in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism , using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

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