A parade of Greek history unfolded in the Athens Olympic Stadium tonight for the opening ceremony of the 2004 Games.
The three-hour show presented a series of vignettes depicting the ancient life of Greece and its birth on the shores of the Aegean Sea.
Divided into 17 segments, the climax of the ceremony comes with the lighting of a 31 meter long caldron hinged to lower to the floor of the stadium for the lighting, then to rise aflame above the capacity crowd of 70,000.
Often-mentioned in press leaks about the performance in past weeks, the floor of the stadium was flooded with more than 2.1 million liters of water to simulate the sea surrounding Greece.
Other Opening Ceremony fast facts:
The simulated sea in the stadium takes 6 hours to fill with water, but only 3 minutes to drain.
18 composers contributed to the music of Opening Ceremonies.
The cast includes 8,000 performers from 14 countries, but most are Greek Nationals.
The oldest performer is 70 years old, the youngest seven.
There have been more than 700 hours of rehearsals.
Athletes from a record 202 nations marched in the opening ceremony, a parade that lasted nearly two hours.
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