THE 94 WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES IN LILLEHAMMER

The first historical records of the Olympic Games date back into Ancient Greece as far as 776 B.C. The last record of the Games was from 393 B.C., a year when the Games were banned by the Roman emperor Theodosius II. The Olympic Games were held together with the religious festivities dedicated to Zeus in his temple on the Mount Olympus, on the Peloponnesus peninsula. The promoter of the modern Olympic Games was the French pedagogue and baron Pierre de Coubertin. In 1894 he organized an International Congress in Paris, with the idea to form the International Olympic Committee and resume the organization of the Olympic Games. The first modern Olympis Games were held in 1896, in Athens. Their sign became the five multicoloured, interlaced circles on a white flag, symbolizing the five continents. In 1994., from February 12-27 the 17th Winter Olympic Games took place in Lillehammer, Norway. The Croatian Post and Telecommunications issued a First Day Cover and a commemorative sheet.