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N0KFQ > TODAY 06.09.10 02:33l 55 Lines 2419 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Sep 5
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From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@WW
Sep 5, 1972:
Israeli athletes killed at Munich Olympics
On this day in 1972, at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, a
group of Palestinian terrorists storms the Olympic Village
apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine
others hostage. The terrorists, known as Black September,
demanded that Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held
in Israeli jails and two German terrorists. In an ensuing
shootout at the Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were
killed along with five terrorists and one West German policeman.
Olympic competition was suspended for 24 hours to hold memorial
services for the slain athletes.
After being founded in 776 B.C. in ancient Greece, the first
modern Olympics were held in Athens in 1896, with 13 countries
and 311 athletes competing. The games were meant to foster peace
and bring people together. Germany had hoped that the 1972
Olympics would be a celebration of peace, as it was the first
time it had hosted the games since 1936, when Adolf Hitler, who
used the games to promote his Aryan master race theory, was in
power.
The Munich Olympics opened on August 26, 1972, with 195 events
and 7,173 athletes representing 121 countries. On the morning of
September 5, Palestinian terrorists in ski masks ambushed the
Israeli team. After negotiations to free the nine Israelis broke
down, the terrorists took the hostages to the Munich airport.
Once there, German police opened fire from rooftops and killed
three of the terrorists. A gun battle erupted and left the
hostages, two more Palestinians and a policeman dead.
After a memorial service was held for the athletes at the main
Olympic stadium, International Olympic Committee President Avery
Brundage ordered that the games continue, to show that the
terrorists hadn't won. Although the tragedy deeply marred the
games, there were numerous moments of spectacular athletic
achievement, including American swimmer Mark Spitz's seven gold
medals and teenage Russian gymnast Olga Korbut's two dramatic
gold-medal victories.
In the aftermath of the murders at the '72 Olympics, the Israeli
government, headed by Golda Meir, hired a group of Mossad agents
to track down and kill the Black September assassins. In 2005,
Steven Spielberg made a movie, Munich, about these events.
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