The Napelton Fair
Fun Fact #556
The Napleton Fair
In 1849, The American Agricultural Society decided it wanted to hold a fair of its own, and eager to help build his newly formed town of Naperville, Joseph Naper agreed to hold it just outside of the town which was located on the route between Chicago and Galena. This later became the Dupage county fair which aside from a break for the civil war has run continuously ever since –despite changes in location and hosts.
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As for perhaps the most famous "Fair" in history, There is "The Olympics". However after being gone for over 1,500 years just how did the Modern Olympics get started? Well it all starts with a man named Tomas Arnold, who in the early 1880s decided he was going to use sports (specifically Rugby) to help teach classes at a local college with Pierre De Coubertin among his first class. His ideas of taking these outdoor games and using them to teach mutual respect, responsibility, and more formed the basis of what we now call "The Spirit of Sportsmanship" or sometimes "Co-operation" but to Pierre he thought it was so noble that in his book "Tom Brown's School Days" he coined it as "Athletic chivalry" which struck a chord among Europe as the book quickly became a success.
Seeing that "Organized sports can create moral and social strength" Pierre then made it his life's mission to use his new platform to accelerate the adoption of "This forgotten way of teaching" through the recreation of the Athenian Gymnasiums where Physical and Intellectual development were simultaneously encouraged. Yet he needed a way to market this large and fast, leaving only one solution in his eyes. After 1,500, the time had come to revive The Olympics.
Yet here too he ran into issues as the sport as many countries didn't want to send people to this "great experiment" . Thus he began to market this more as a Foreign relations convention, really just a great way to build comradery between countries and not a legitimate competition. Surprisingly, this worked. Which only left one other obstacle: The Rights to the Olympics name which Greece was clutching onto for dear life.
The biggest issue here was the games had been cancelled in 364 AD for fear it was promoting paganism too much and this was seen as a black mark on Greece's history at the time, and most Christian countries refused to sign onto the new Olympics for fear it might return to it's old ways. The answer was simple, The Olympics and all associated organizers could not promote any Gods for the event in any way otherwise Greece could revoke the IOC's (International Olympic Committee) permission and the name would be under Greece's sole ownership once again --although individual Athletes could discuss their faith so long as it was not officially backed up by their country or the IOC itself. Thus in 1894 the Olympics were started once more first in Athens, and then spreading to othercities helping to promote sports worldwide. 
