Welcome to the February edition of The Throwback, your monthly hit of entertaining and informative history tales that will make you say, “Wait! What?” If you are receiving this e-mail, you have signed up on my website or at one of my lectures or author events.
If you've tuned in to any of the skiing events during the first week of the Winter Olympics, you probably noticed something strange about the surrounding mountains—no snow.
Since Beijing has an arid wintertime climate and little natural snowfall, skiers raced on 100% manmade snow, which led many to lament that the Winter Olympics weren't being held in a place with abundant snowfall like the Alps or Sierra Nevadas.
History has shown on several occasions, however, that even at world-famous winter resorts, a lack of snow has jeopardized the Winter Olympics—particularly before the advent on artificial snow making. Here's a quick rundown:
1928: On Valentine’s Day, a freak blast of summer-like heat that could have melted a box of chocolates—let alone snow—struck St. Moritz, Switzerland, and wreaked havoc with the second Winter Games. A hot wind known as the föhn that blew down from the Alps sent temperatures soaring to 77 degrees and turned the 50-kilometer cross-country event into a slushy slog and one of the slowest races in the sport's history. Meanwhile at the outdoor speed skating oval, the ice was melting underneath the blades of the skaters in the 10,000-meter race, which organizers eventually cancelled without a winner.
1932: Locals in Lake Placid, New York, believed a heavy snowfall in early November 1931 to be a good omen. It turned out to be a tease. The Adirondack winter delivered an unprecedented lack of snow that hampered some Olympians’ training routines. Luckily, a pair of snowstorms that struck before the Opening Ceremony allowed organizers to breathe easier. Mild temperatures during the Olympics, though, caused ski jumpers to splash down in a puddle-laden patch of snow that had been trucked in from higher altitudes. The warmth also forced an adjustment in the 50-kilometer cross-country skiing course, which in spots was a mere strip of snow.
1960: With Squaw Valley, California, anything but snow white in the weeks leading up to the 1960 Games, Walt Disney began to panic. Disney, who was hired as pageantry chairman and Opening Ceremony producer, hired 10 native Paiutes to perform a ceremonial snow dance. Clouds appeared—but brought only rain.Disney next turned to meteorologist Irving Krick, who seeded clouds with silver iodine. Six weeks before the start of the Games, Krick fired up 20 cloud-seeding generators. Whether it was coincidence or not, days later three feet of snow fell on Squaw Valley with seven feet in the mountains. Ironically, Squaw Valley almost ended up with too much snow when a blizzard that struck the morning of the Opening Ceremony delayed its start by an hour.
1964: When Innsbruck, Austria, experienced one of its longest snow droughts on record, organizers enlisted the military to save the Games. A force of 2,500 soldiers lined the bobsled and luge courses with 20,000 ice blocks they harvested from a nearby valley. In addition, troops hauled 88 million pounds of snow, in some cases basket by basket, to alpine skiing courses where soldiers and volunteers packed down the slopes with their hands and feet. Mild temperatures led to the bizarre sight of sunbathers in swimsuits waving to cross-country skiers practicing on narrow ribbons of snow. After seven snowless weeks, flakes finally fell four hours after the Closing Ceremony, forcing flights out of the city to be grounded.
2010: When organizers of the Vancouver Games promised to be the “greenest on record,” they didn’t expect Mother Nature to deliver on their promise with springlike temperatures that brought blooming daffodils, drenching rains, and no snow for nearly two months leading up to the Opening Ceremony. Even artificial snowmakers were powerless amid the warmest January and February on record in Vancouver. In order to stage the freestyle skiing and snowboarding competitions, organizers employed a fleet of dump trucks and even helicopters to transport snow from locations as far as 150 miles away.
Interested in more about the Winter Games? Check out these articles:
8 Unusual Winter Olympics Sports. From soldiers shooting at balloons to skiers towed by horses, these strange and sometimes dangerous sports were once part of the Winter Games.
WHAT I’M READING: Micro-histories seem to be a hot publishing trend.Author Mark Kurlansky has been the master of the genre, writing entire books on cod, salt, milk, and paper. A recent history of mosquitoes even cracked best-seller lists. But just when I thought I'd seen everything, this book came along: A Short History of Spaghetti with Tomato Sauceby Massimo Montanari. The scholarly book, which is translated into English, is indeed short at 128 pages. It's not a breezy read, but there are some tasty historical nuggets such as that spaghetti was invented in the Middle East thousands of years ago. Montanari debunks the myth that Marco Polo introduced the pasta to Italy after his travels to China. Instead, it was the Arabs who brought spaghetti to Sicily in the 12th century. Tomatoes arrived from South America in the 1500s. Also of note: For centuries, spaghetti was typically baked or fried until boiling eventually became the most common cooking method.
WHAT I'M WRITING ABOUT: Here are some additional history-themed articles I wrote last month:
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