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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: How the Paralympics Began
Description: The first Paralympic Games - hosting 400 athletes from 23 countries - took place in Rome on 18th September, 1960. But it was only known by this name retrospectively: the day it took place, this festival of disabled sport was called The Ninth Annual International Stoke Mandeville Games.Sprung from a competition held at a hospital in Buckinghamshire, and pioneered by German-Jewish neurosurgeon Dr. Ludwig Guttman, the Games began as part of a physiotherapy programme for soldiers and civilians with spinal cord injuries. As the Stoke Mandeville Games expanded, so did the variety of sports and the level o...