OLYMPICS: The first international Special Olympics Summer Games was held this day in 1968.

Today is recognized as the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics.

According to the Special Olympics website, the organization was founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who started advocating for better treatment of people with intellectual disabilities in the 1950s and ’60s.

In 1962, Eunice held a summer camp for young people with disabilities, and by 1968, the idea of an athletic event for people with intellectual disabilities evolved to the first international Special Olympics at Soldier Field in Chicago. About 1,000 athletes from the United States and Canada participated.

The Special Olympics became officially incorporated in August 1968.

In a proclamation from Gov. Tom Wolf acknowledging today as the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics, he explains, “Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the Special Olympics on the ideal of inclusion and acceptance into society of those with intellectual impairments and felt that these individuals lived in the shadow of society and suffered from a lack of self-worth and were stigmatized by much of American society.”

She “felt that athletics were a way to overcome obstacles and therefore forming the Special Olympics with the motto, “Let me win, but if I cannot win let me be brave in the attempt.”

More than 5.7 million athletes in 172 countries now participate in the games throughout the year, the proclamation states.

MOON: We are also fast approaching the 50th anniversary of the first time man stepped, which occurred this day 49 years ago in 1969.

As the Associated Press states, “In 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon after reaching the surface in their Apollo 11 lunar module.”