7. 1972: Them terrorist sons o' bitches

Contrary to American mythology, terrorism was not invented on September 11, 2001 for the sole purpose of bringing the United States to its knees. The funny thing about this is the United States doesn't think so, and when the British come up offering help: "Hey, mate. Want some help? We've kinda got experience dealing with this terrorism stuff." The yanks reply "No, sorry. You can't possibly understand what we're going through. This has never happened to anyone before. We'll solve this ourselves." Brits: "Wankers."

Terrorism has been around for as long as people have been disgruntled (or even just gruntled) at the way things are but lack the numbers or the resources to do anything overt about it. So they go for covert. The Munich Massacre, as its called, was one of the darkest days in Olympic history. People are supposed to be defeated at the Olympics. They aren't supposed to die. Yet that's what happened on September 5, when Arab terrorists (Palestinians, of course....is this all sounding like a record skipping?) snuck into the Athlete's Village and held the Israeli wrestling team hostage. With demands that they be escorted to the airport and then on a plane to Cairo, German nationals worked to take the terrorists down. The ensuing firefight at the airport culminated in so much action that if it weren't real life it would be so totally sweet to see, and by sweet I mean the flavour of awesomeness. It's amazing Hollywood hasn't made a movie about it yet. In the end, one downed helicopter, 5 terrorists dead, 3 escaped, and the 11 members of the Israeli wrestling team, to quote Jim McKay when hearing of the news live on ABC: "They're all gone."

Hey, remember Avery Brundage? Remember that wickedass quote he made? Let's say again: "...one of the basic principles of the Olympic Games: that politics play no part whatsoever in them."

Yeah, no politics. Bet you were giggling at that one, you turd.

But what was the controversy here? Well........the fact that our main man (and anti-semite) Brundage went on with the Games. I know the show must go on and everything, but--there wasn't even a moment's silence or day's mourning or anything. They didn't postpone a thing. Mass deaths at the Olympics and they treated it like a really slow breaststroke time? All the events continued as if nothing happened. Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote of it: "It's almost like having a dance at Dachau."

Or claiming there are no politics at the Olympics.