The ancient olympic games began in Greece in 776 b.c.e and were held every four years until 393 c.e. it wasn’t until about 1,500 years later, in the mid-1,800s, that the games were revived in Greece. But the Olympic didn’t become the event we know today until 1894, when a French historian named pierre de Coubertin had the idea of making the games international, and founded the international Olympic committee.