237 Olympic Shoes Trivia

Bob Smith 0:00
What Olympic athlete won a gold medal wearing mismatched shoes?

Marcia Smith 0:05
And what is the plunge for distance? Olympic event really?

Bob Smith 0:10
Plunge for distance? Answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob

Marcia Smith 0:17
and Marcia Smith. You

Bob Smith 0:34
Music. Welcome to the off ramp, a chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity with fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. We do this each week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and its internet radio station. Well, some questions on the Olympics today, Olympic shoes. Let’s start out with that, what Olympic athlete won a gold medal wearing mismatched shoes? Do

Marcia Smith 1:01
I know this person? You’ve heard of this person? Okay, we haven’t had him over for dinner. No,

Bob Smith 1:07
he’s not been over. Okay, oh, I’m sorry. I see it’s a he. Okay,

Marcia Smith 1:10
that man is, is he a runner?

Bob Smith 1:15
I don’t need to answer all these questions.

Marcia Smith 1:18
No. Boy getting a little

Bob Smith 1:20
defensive. What Olympic athlete won a gold medal wearing mismatch? Did

Marcia Smith 1:24
it make any difference? I doubt it. Here’s

Bob Smith 1:26
the answer. Marcia. He was wat bright path, a member of the Sac and Fox Potawatomi nations. Okay,

Marcia Smith 1:35
when was that? 1912 I missed that one. Bob,

Bob Smith 1:40
better known as James Francis

Marcia Smith 1:42
Thorpe, Jim Tim Thorpe. Thorpe, him I’ve heard of. Saw a movie on him, even now, he was born in

Bob Smith 1:49
either 1887 or 1888 nobody knows for sure, because he was an orphan, and he became one of the greatest athletes in the history of sports. But running in different shoes happened in the 1912 Olympics, and during those games, Thorpe had already won a gold medal for the pentathlon. To win that gold, he placed first in four of the five events, the long jump, the discus throw, sprint and wrestling. The only event he didn’t win was the javelin, and then a week later, during the three day decathlon, his running shoes went missing, haha. Nobody ever found them some skullduggery, yeah, it’s actually believed they were stolen by jealous competitors. Yeah. So what happened?

Marcia Smith 2:28
I don’t know. How did he get two different pairs of shoes?

Bob Smith 2:30
Well, you know, people like Jim Thorpe, his whole life as a Native American, was pretty much overcoming adversity. This was nothing. Yeah, he competed in shoes that not only looked different, they were different sizes too. He had to wear extra socks in one to even things out. Oh my gosh. His coach fished them out of a garbage can, found two extra shoes, and he said, Here, try these. Oh my gosh, that’s what he had to do in a garbage can. Yes, in a garbage can. He went on to win all of the decathlon events wearing these two totally mismatched shoes. What a guy the 100 meters, the long jump, the shot put, the high jump, the 400 meters, the 110 meter, high hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and the 1500 meter event, all wearing different size shoes. He won all those gold. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 3:16
it’s hard to fat that

Bob Smith 3:18
Decathlon is a one event, so you win the gold.

Marcia Smith 3:20
Okay, what didn’t they take all his medals away and just gave him back? Not that long, that’s

Bob Smith 3:25
right, they were restored 110 years later in 2022 Oh,

Marcia Smith 3:29
God bless him. Can

Bob Smith 3:30
you imagine two different shoes? There’s only one picture of them. You can see they look like two totally different styles, and he had to put socks in one of them because the shoe was too big. Talent

Marcia Smith 3:39
overcame adversity, yeah, absolutely. All right, Bob, okay, and

Bob Smith 3:44
your question is about the plunge for distance? Yes, of course, you’ve

Marcia Smith 3:47
heard of that. No, I

Bob Smith 3:48
know. What is the plunge for distance events? Okay, so

Marcia Smith 3:52
you’re saying you don’t know, Bob, I don’t know. Yes, it was an event in the Olympics in 1904 How did you miss it? Oh, it was a one and done. Basically, it was an event where the swimmers dove into a pool from a standing position and floated face down underwater, gliding underwater for 60 seconds or more, or until their head broke the surface. They were gliding forward, yeah, gliding underwater without moving their hands or their feet. Okay, okay. It’s hard to believe this guy, William Dickey, traveled 62 feet and six inches, a pretty good plunge, and it was our first swimming gold medal. Oh No, kidding, yes. And it wasn’t hard for the US to take that gold medal. Why? I don’t know. Because all five contestants were American.

Bob Smith 4:39
I’m surprised we didn’t lobby to keep that event in, you know, we won that. We want that again. Oh, is that funny? Yeah, plunge for distance. So you you dive into the water, and then you just keep your feet and your your arms still, and you just try to glide forward. Yeah? Wow. Head first. Okay,

Marcia Smith 4:54
I just love it. There were only five participants, and they were all from the US. That’s good. The plunge for distance. Remained in effect on different competitions, but only once at the Olympics, and I think it went out of favor by the 1920s

Bob Smith 5:06
All right. All right. Marsh, hey, you know I have another bit of trivia about Jim Thorpe. I bet you didn’t know this. I bet I didn’t guess who the first president of the National Football League was.

Marcia Smith 5:16
Well, Jim Thorpe,

Bob Smith 5:19
he was. How did I guess that? Because in 1920 he became the first president of the American Professional Football Association, which later became the NFL. So that means Jim Thorpe was the first NFL President. Well, kind of a I didn’t know that. Bravo. Jimbo, all right. Marcia, another question on Olympic shoes. All right. Here we go. You ready? I am okay. What was unusual about the shoes that Jesse Owens won his gold medal in Berlin in what was unusual about his shoes Jesse Owens, he was wearing shoes from the geta company GED a made by brothers Rudolph and Adolf Dassler. They eventually founded the sportswear companies, Adidas and Puma. What’s unusual about his shoes?

Marcia Smith 6:06
Don’t know, all right? Well,

Bob Smith 6:07
the story begins more than 100 years ago, but the answer is this, he was wearing shoes made by Nazis, really. This is so ironic, considering the fact that black athlete, Jesse Owens, you know, Hitler, didn’t shake his hand. He didn’t shake anybody’s hand, actually, except the German athletes. He won his events wearing a pair of shoes that were actually made by Nazis. The Dassler brothers from the small town of herzognow geta in Bavaria, they founded a shoe manufacturing company. It’s called the gibrutar Dassler schufrebik, or geta for short. Geta shoes were excellent in design and quality. They became famous among regular people and athletes, and as Adolf Hitler’s National Socialists rose to power, both the brothers did what business people did. They joined the Popular Party. They joined the Nazi Party in 1933 so that means when Jesse Owens ran in his ghetto shoes in 1936 he wore a pair of their shoes. He was wearing shoes made by Nazis when he won his four Olympic gold medals.

Marcia Smith 7:07
There’s a poke in your eye. Yeah, there’s

Bob Smith 7:09
a poke in the eye.

Marcia Smith 7:10
Okay? Bob in the 1470s Turkish women could divorce their husbands if they did not keep what filled.

Bob Smith 7:20
If the husbands didn’t keep what filled? Yeah, okay, let me see. Think about that. Oh, my goodness. Is this something to do with, something that people would drink or Okay, so if they didn’t keep the the kettle on the boil filled with water.

Marcia Smith 7:36
What is Turkey? Known for? Turkey?

Bob Smith 7:39
You mean the country or the, oh, the country, well, they’re known for coffee.

Marcia Smith 7:44
Yes, the coffee pot. Oh, okay, apparently coffee is stronger than love.

Unknown Speaker 7:49
Good to know.

Marcia Smith 7:50
The world’s first coffee house was in Kiva Han in 1470 who knew? I wonder if they had a little folk singer there, and that’s in Turkey. Yeah, okay, they began catering to Turks in Istanbul, all right, in that era, and Turkish coffee was brewed strong and black, and I believe it still is, in a pot called an Ibrik. They didn’t call it the coffee pot. It was ibrick, b, r, I K, okay, I brick. Apparently it was quite a passion, because Turkish women were allowed to divorce their husbands if the men could not keep their eye brick filled. Can you imagine? No, I can’t, honey, you know how I wine for coffee in the morning for you to get it for me, I could literally divorce you back in the day if you didn’t keep that coffee pot filled. Oh,

Bob Smith 8:39
my, all right. All right. Marsha, we watched many exciting things in the Olympics, many different competitions. Did you know that killing live animals was once part of an Olympic event? Oh, I’ll bet killing live animals was once part was it bullfighting? No, now that we’re talking the modern Olympic Games, we’re not talking about 80 degrees. We’re now. They didn’t

Marcia Smith 9:00
have those chicken fights or whatever those were. No, no, wasn’t like that. No, I don’t know. It was

Bob Smith 9:06
pigeons that were killed in shooting events. Oh, at the 1900 Paris Games, in fact, it was the only time killing live animals was part of the Olympics, just that one year. Yeah. But shooting events have continued. Shooting contests with pistols, rifles and shotguns are still part of the Olympic Games. Oh, they are. But what are they shooting at? They’re just shooting for accuracy, target practice, live animals, not

Marcia Smith 9:29
live animals that went the way of plunge for distance. Yes,

Bob Smith 9:32
apparently. Okay, here’s another one. Is there any age restriction on Olympic competitors? I don’t think so. No. In fact, Olympians in 2024 ranged from an 11 year old skateboarder to a 65 year old equestrian, a 54 year age span. Yeah, and you thought only fit young athletes could win Olympic medals, people like

Marcia Smith 9:56
yourself. Bob, what? Okay? Bob. 1910, there was a special finger stretching device. Was

Bob Smith 10:04
this in the Olympics? No, okay.

Marcia Smith 10:07
What was it for Bob? Well, it

Bob Smith 10:09
was for to stretch fingers. He told me, finger stretching device. Did this have anything to do with ring fingers, so that your wedding ring would fit on your finger?

Marcia Smith 10:17
Bell? Interesting? No, okay. It was apparently Bob the musical compositions of people like Stravinsky and Debussy and other composers of the day were so challenging that pianists were encouraged to stretch their fingers to accommodate the music. Oh, really, it was. So their music was so complex, and if your fingers weren’t long enough, you couldn’t reach the notes. You know, there were some big stretches

Bob Smith 10:42
flexibility, but it’s not it’s you actually needed more length,

Marcia Smith 10:46
yeah, to do this. And apparently it didn’t work out too great for Igor Stravinsky, because he overdid it and damaged his hands. Oh, my goodness, yeah, by the little gizmo, he overdid it too vigorously and really hurt his hands. When was this again? 1910,

Bob Smith 11:01
wow. Okay, all right, I got more Olympics. Back to the shooting. Now we’re talking about shooting. Oh, guns, yes, and that is a category where the oldest seniors can and have won gold. So that leads me to this question, who is the oldest person to ever win Olympic gold?

Marcia Smith 11:22
Well, I better chance of guessing the age. Okay, guess the age then or hers. I’ll say, Well, you said before that the equestrian was 65 Yeah,

Bob Smith 11:32
but this is shooting Marsh. I said shooting. I framed the question properly. Here we’re talking about shooting, oldest shooter. Yeah, you don’t have to ride a horse to shoot, nope. Doesn’t take as much steadiness. That’s true.

Marcia Smith 11:43
Okay, I’ll say 6363

Bob Smith 11:47
Well, we already have people in the games that are 65 we just learned that. Yeah.

Marcia Smith 11:50
So this is older than 65 Yeah, 72

Bob Smith 11:55
that’s exactly the age, really. And the winner, the winner is Oscar swan of Sweden,

Marcia Smith 12:00
Sweden. That’s a lovely alliteration. The

Bob Smith 12:04
poster boy for senior Olympians, not the Senior Olympics. That’s a separate category. This is the regular Olympics. He competed in three Olympic Games, winning six medals, including three golds. He was 60 in the 1908 Olympics. He won two golds in a bronze and deer shooting, but no actual deer were harmed. He won gold again at the age of 64 in a team shooting event, and then in 1920 at the age of 72 Swann earned a silver medal. He even qualified for the next Olympics at age 76 but decided not to participate. We would have been rooting for Oscar. That’s right. Wow. He remains the oldest Olympic competitor, the oldest medal winner, and the oldest gold medal winner in history, by the way. Guess which country is the winningest country in Olympic shooting? The USA? Yeah, yeah. Going into the 2024 Olympics, we had won 116 shooting medals, 57 gold, 31 silver, 28 bronze. Okay, and China is like number two. Of course, really

Marcia Smith 13:07
they can’t have guns in China. I’m surprised. Whereas we can have a gun in, you know, every house and every child, okay, Bob, what is the Amber Room?

Bob Smith 13:17
The what the Amber Room?

Marcia Smith 13:18
Why is it sometimes described as the eighth wonder of the world. The

Bob Smith 13:23
Amber Room was a room that was in, I believe it was in Russia, very good. It was either in the Winter Palace or it was in one of these places where the where the czar lived, yeah, and it was taken apart by the Nazis and never found again. Well, aren’t you? Isn’t that

Marcia Smith 13:38
the truth? Yes, that’s the truth. It’s a room constructed using seven tons of amber backed with gold leaf, jeez. And it was a gift from Prussia to Russia as a symbol of peace. Well, guess what? During the World War Two, the Nazis came and hauled it off almost immediately, piece by piece. Where did they take it back to? They took it back to where Prussia used to be, Germany. They started in 27 boxes. Its journey after that became a bit murky, to make a long story short bob, it has not been seen since. So they’ve never been able to find where those 27 boxes were buried. But parts of this occasionally have resurfaced over the years. Did you know that? No, I didn’t know that, just parts of it. But the most common theory is that it remains in some underground cavern on the German Czech border has yet to be found. There’s

Bob Smith 14:30
missing artwork and everything else they’ve

Marcia Smith 14:32
never found, not for lack of people trying out. Everyone’s out there looking in caverns for lost Nazi art. I’ll bet that they hid. I’ll bet the thievery, the thieves

Bob Smith 14:44
now, I know, I think the Russians have, actually, they’ve tried to recreate what it looked like in Russia. Oh, did they? It’s part of, like, a museum exhibit or something like that. Okay, okay, something that I thought was interesting, that I found out when I was doing this thing on Jesse Owens and the the shoes, uh huh. The bigger story here, actually, is about the dastler brothers. These are the two brothers that had this company, oh, that made the shoes. Okay, okay, so during World War Two, their their plant was overtaken by Germany. It was used to make an anti tank weapon called the panzerkrek, the tank terror.

Marcia Smith 15:17
What a charming name. Yeah, the pins are crack.

Bob Smith 15:20
But the geta factory was almost destroyed by troops in 1945 but Audi get his wife, managed to convince soldiers the only thing the company was making were athletic shoes. You know, you use these athletic shoes. That’s all we have here. So thing to see here kind of lied, but they saved the factory. But the interesting thing was, when American troops found out this was the shoe factory that made the shoes Jesse Owens ran in they started buying the dastler brothers shoes in droves, which led to their shoes becoming popular among American soldiers occupying Germany. Oh, no kidding. Austria. Yeah. Okay. And then this is interesting, when war broke out again in 1948 Does that make sense? That war broke out again in 1948 it was a war between the two brothers, oh and that small town. They shut down their factory. In 1948 they separated. Two reasons are cited for the feud. Their wives didn’t get along, but were forced to live in the same villa. And Rudolph’s sneaky suspicion his brother Addie was behind him being drafted into the German army, which led to his imprisonment by the Allies. So they went through a lot of trauma, but that led to the company and the family being torn apart, and that’s why we have Adidas and Puma. Now they formed two different factories, two different parts of that town, and the whole town had to divide itself, because everybody was working there for one of the fact so they had to decide which one to work for. Well, they both succeeded. Yeah. So the Adidas kept the factory by the train station in the town with two thirds of ghettos employees, and Rudolph kept the factory on woodsburger Street, and remaining third workforce, they literally split into two camps. And Adidas and Puma came out of that very same town. They’re still in that same town, the two factories, are they really? Yeah, I didn’t know that. So really interesting feud between these two brothers, Rudolph died in 1974 Adolph died in 1978 and they were buried in opposite ends of the cemetery, really, yes. But again, today, the world headquarters of both companies are there, including Adidas, which is now the number two sportswear company in the world, behind Nike, in that little town, it’s spelled H, E r, z, O, G, E n, a, u, r, A, C, H. It’s only 20,000 people. It’s a small town, okay, of course, that affects the Olympics now too, because those shoes are worn by ethics as well. Okay,

Marcia Smith 17:37
I have a quickie before we go to break okay, and that quickie is Bob. There is a five letter word that is pronounced the same with or without its last four letters. What is it?

Bob Smith 17:50
Can you give me any clue to that? A five letter word

Marcia Smith 17:53
there is a five letter word that is pronounced the same with or without its last four letters. What is it? Wow,

Bob Smith 18:01
that’s interesting. It’s pronounced the same with or without its last four letters, yeah. So the first letter is the sound of the word, yeah, oh my goodness. The first letter is the sound of the word, W, R, like ring, no, i, i i Something I don’t know. What is it?

Marcia Smith 18:22
Q, Q, U, e, u, e, okay. It’s exactly the same, all by itself. That’s true. Letter Q, true. Yeah. It’s just a little quirk that I thought was amusing. Okay, time for break. Bye. I

Bob Smith 18:35
mean, very amusing. Marsh, excellent. All right, yes, we’ll take a break now. We’ll be back with more in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith, okay, that’s our cue to begin again. Marc

Marcia Smith 18:48
very good is that with or without the last that’s a witty thing to say is

Bob Smith 18:53
what it is. Sure you’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith, we do this each week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and its internet radio station. After it airs, it is put on podcast platforms and is heard all over

Marcia Smith 19:07
the world. Did I overdo it? There was it too much?

Bob Smith 19:12
It’s still, it’s still echoing. I can’t, how do you stop that? Okay, there we go. All right, it’s clean now. All right, Marcia, what do you got?

Marcia Smith 19:19
All right, a time for aka Bob, okay, also known as All right, Marsha’s favorite game. Yes, the category is types of drums, okay. For instance, if I said Army Center,

Speaker 1 19:34
Army Center, yeah, center. It’s also known as Army Center.

Marcia Smith 19:39
There’s another word for center

Bob Smith 19:41
middle base. Base is the name for center, army base. Oh, the Army Center, like a facility, yeah? Army base. Okay, so

Marcia Smith 19:51
that was a little tough, yeah? So

Bob Smith 19:53
the categories, Army bass drums, is that? What that I don’t get. That’s not the

Marcia Smith 19:57
category types of drums. Okay, okay, ready? Latin dance line, what kind of drum?

Bob Smith 20:03
Conquer drums, conga, conga drums, okay, petroleum,

Marcia Smith 20:06
what kind of oil? Drums? Yes, okay, Hanks, Selig. Hanks, Selig. This is good type of drum. That’s

Bob Smith 20:14
a Tom Tom Tom Hanks and Tom Selleck. Okay, I get that all right. Good,

Marcia Smith 20:19
good, good. Okay, Pittsburgh metal, what kind of drums? Steel drums, correct?

Bob Smith 20:25
I got the drums. I got this category,

Marcia Smith 20:29
not the Army Center, corn cob. Corn

Bob Smith 20:33
cob. Drums, yeah, what is that? A husk? Drums? I

Marcia Smith 20:37
never heard of this drum. Pipe drums, no, what is a corn cob?

Bob Smith 20:42
It’s a husk. What is it

Marcia Smith 20:44
ear?

Bob Smith 20:45
Oh, eardrums. Oh, I never heard of ears. I’ve heard of eardrums. It’s

Marcia Smith 20:51
funny. I didn’t think of the eardrums. You listened to types of drums. You got to think of all categories. Oh, dear. Okay, eardrums. That’s pretty funny. Okay, last one, Bob, okay. Teapot, teapot

Bob Smith 21:04
drums. Type of drum, teapot drums, teapot drums, teapot drums. Oh, what

Marcia Smith 21:10
do they say in England all the time when you come in. Well, Hi, honey. I’ll go put the what on pot of tea. I’m gonna put the what, kettle

Bob Smith 21:17
drums. That’s it. Okay, jeez,

Marcia Smith 21:21
let’s put the kettle on. Yes, good. Oh, that’s those

Bob Smith 21:25
were not easy. All right, on to another subject. Okay, okay, Marcia, what’s the origin of the word stat, and what does it mean? It

Marcia Smith 21:32
means we’re

Bob Smith 21:33
watching it on TV. You watch a medical stat? Yeah.

Marcia Smith 21:37
It means right now. What was the question, the

Bob Smith 21:40
word stat, it shouted frequently emergency room dramas, yeah. What does it mean? What

Marcia Smith 21:45
does it stand for? S, T, A T, yeah. By the way, some

Bob Smith 21:49
medical professionals say it’s heard far more on TV than actually in hospital halls. I’ll bet it’s not an acronym. Oh, it’s not. No, it’s not. It’s an abbreviation for statistics, for statim, which is Latin for immediately. Oh, okay, that makes sense. That’s where it comes from. Yeah. In medicine, it’s more often seen but not heard. It’s more often read but not heard. For instance, in prescriptions and medical order, paperwork means take it immediately. Take this immediately. If your doctor puts in a order for an MRI that says, stat. You’re probably going to get to the machine right away.

Marcia Smith 22:25
Yeah. What’s the important Latin word in podcast?

Bob Smith 22:28
It’s podcast.

Marcia Smith 22:30
Podcast them. I

Bob Smith 22:31
think it’s stat. Let’s get this done right now.

Marcia Smith 22:33
Okay, all right, Bob within a democracy. What are the fourth and fifth estates, and where did they originate?

Bob Smith 22:39
The fourth estate is the press. The Fifth Estate is the what is the Fifth Estate? Is that the public? Is that the that’s not broadcasting? Is it the Fifth Estate? It is okay.

Marcia Smith 22:50
Where did they originate?

Bob Smith 22:51
Where did they originate in France? No, okay. Where were they? Ah,

Marcia Smith 22:55
within British history, the first three estates with influence over the legislation where the church the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The term fourth estate has meant different forces of influence over Parliament at different times, but it was first used to describe the press during a debate in the House of Commons in 1828, Bob, wow. It’s been used that long, yeah, and it has retained that meaning ever since the Fifth Estate was added years later to include radio and television. So

Bob Smith 23:29
they were not seen as equal to the press. It was a different kind of medium. They gave them a different name. The fifth gave it a

Marcia Smith 23:34
different name. Yeah. All right, Bob, what happens to Earth every 26 seconds?

Bob Smith 23:40
What happens to Earth every 26 seconds? It enjoys 26 seconds of existence. It turns, it spins,

Marcia Smith 23:49
uh huh,

Bob Smith 23:49
that’s it. No

Marcia Smith 23:50
something else. Something about light. Maybe scientists have noticed since the 1960s every 26 seconds a small seismic pulse, large enough to register on the seismological instruments, but small enough to go otherwise unnoticed. Occur every 26 seconds on this planet, really. Yeah. How about that? So it’s kind of emitted by the planet. They can’t figure out where it’s coming from. They’ve kind of narrowed it down. There are theories, of course, ranging from volcanic activity to waves, but there’s no consensus. There does happen to be a volcano. It’s near the Gulf of Guinea, near the pulses origin point. So they have an origin point. So they think it might be around there. Though there’s no way of knowing, or even if we’ll learn, why of this phenomenon. One thing’s for sure, it’s better to be a micro schism than a macro system. So

Bob Smith 24:42
that’s, is it called a schism? Is

Marcia Smith 24:45
that it, well, like a seismological event, you know, like, okay, yeah, you got a Richter scale. You’re, you’re monitoring seismic activity, but a macro system is not good. That’s a big earthquake, okay?

Bob Smith 24:58
Marcia,

Marcia Smith 24:59
this. That interesting every 26 seconds? Yes,

Bob Smith 25:01
I wonder what causes it? Yes, so do people whose watch is off, okay, yeah. Manila, capital of the Philippines, it is home to the oldest. What in the world say again, Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is home to the oldest. What in the world? It’s a certain neighborhood. It’s a type of neighborhood.

Marcia Smith 25:21
Geez, Manila. Yeah, I’m not getting anything today. You’re Manila in the Philippines. You know that is, yeah, asking pretty obscure things. Thank you. It’s not like, Q, oh, good, yeah. Q, that

Bob Smith 25:31
was unusual. Okay, I

Marcia Smith 25:33
don’t know, Bob, it’s

Bob Smith 25:33
home to the world’s oldest Chinatown. Oh, interesting. No, they had one. Well, I didn’t either you probably pictured San Francisco or New York City, but the world’s very first Chinatown, so the first Chinese diaspora, so to speak, where Chinese people went and started living together, and that was kind of caught the world’s attention. Was in the Philippines in 1594 that’s when the first Chinatown was founded. All right, Marcia, one more Olympic question. Going back to the 1936 Olympics Games in Germany, how many Jews competed for Nazi Germany? Oh, really, yeah. Now here’s what happened the Olympics committee, the International Olympic Committee, gave Germany, who controlled those games, an ultimatum to allow qualified Jewish athletes to join the national team, or the Olympics wouldn’t be held in Berlin. So in advance, they knew this could be a problem. I didn’t know that. So how many Jewish people competed for Germany? One, that’s exactly right, Aline mayor of fencer with a Jewish father and a Christian mother. She was the only Jewish person allowed to compete. She was good. She won the silver medal of the competition. Wow, but only one person who happened to be Jewish in a country filled with millions of Jews

Marcia Smith 26:51
in the beginning, yeah, not after the war. Man, it’s just ridiculous. Okay, I’m going to finish up speaking of the Olympics, about quotes on determination. All right, just a quickie from Thomas Edison, I failed my way to success,

Bob Smith 27:05
and he did, didn’t he? Yeah, failed my way to success. I

Marcia Smith 27:09
like that. And Albert Einstein, a river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence. That’s

Bob Smith 27:17
true. All right. Well, that’s it for today. All right, you’ve persisted to the end of the show. Marcia, I know you didn’t like some of those questions and I didn’t like some of yours, okay, but we’re here, and we’ve persisted, and we hope folks listening will persist in joining us again when we return next time with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia right here on the off ramp. The offramp has produced an association with CPL radio online and the Cedarbrook Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin, visit us on the web at the offramp, dot show at.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai