The United States has competed in all but one of the Olympic Games since the first modern games were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. (The only Games in which the U.S. did not compete were the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which the United States boycotted.)

In the 1896 Games, the Americans took home 19 medals, 11 of them gold -- the highest gold medal total that year. Two of those U.S. gold medals were won by Robert Garrett, a Princeton athlete, who entered the Olympic discus competition for fun. Although he had never touched a discus before, Garrett shocked the heavily-favored Greeks, and the rest of the world, by taking first place and Olympic gold.