The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and Los Angeles, which later hosted the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympic Games respectively. These were the first Olympic Games held in Canada, preceding the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The vote occurred on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, Netherlands. One blank vote was cast in the second and final round. One factor favoring Montreal was that the IOC did not want the Summer games hosted in a superpower for fears of political backlash, which would be proven later on in the Olympic boycotts of 1980 and 1984.^{[citation needed]}

Robert Bourassa, then the Premier of Quebec, first pushed Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to advise Canada's monarch, Elizabeth II, to attend the opening of the games. However, Bourassa later became unsettled about how unpopular the move might be with sovereigntists in the province, annoying Trudeau, who had already made arrangements. The leader of the Parti Québécois at the time, René Lévesque, sent his own letter to Buckingham Palace, asking the Queen to refuse her prime minister's request, though she did not oblige the premier as he was out of his jurisdiction in offering advice to the sovereign.

The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event, occurring every four years, organized by the International Olympic Committee. Medals are awarded in each event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that started in 1904. The Winter Olympics were also created due to the success of the summer Olympics.

The olympics have increased from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male athletes to a 300-event sporting celebration with over 10,000 competitors from 205 nations. Organizers for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing expected approximately 10,500 athletes to take part in the 302 events on the program for the games.

The United States has hosted four Summer Olympics Games, more than any other nation. The United Kingdom will have hosted three Summer Olympics Games when they return to the British capital in 2012, all of them have been (and will be) in London, making it the first city to hold the Summer Olympic Games three times. Australia, France, Germany and Greece have all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. Other countries that have hosted the summer Olympics are Belgium, China, Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, the Soviet Union and Sweden. In the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro will host the first Summer Games in South America. Four cities have hosted two Summer Olympic Games: Los Angeles, London, Paris and Athens. Stockholm, Sweden, has hosted events at two Summer Olympic Games, having hosted the games in 1912 and the equestrian events at the 1956 Summer Olympics—which they are usually listed as jointly hosting. Events at the summer Olympics have also been held in Hong Kong and the Netherlands (both represented by their own NOCs), with the equestrian events at the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Hong Kong and two sailing races at the 1920 Summer Olympics being held in the Netherlands.

Victor 'Vic' Stefan Vogel, LLD, PhD (Concordia) (born August 3, 1935) is a jazz pianist, composer, arranger, trombonist and conductor in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Born Viktor Stefan in Montreal, he studied piano with Michel Hirvy. Vogel has written, arranged and conducted music for ceremonies at Expo 67, the Montreal Olympics in 1976, the Canada Games in 1985 and for the half-time events at the Grey Cup in 1981 and 1985. For the Olympics he arranged welcoming and theme songs from excerpts of works by André Mathieu.

He's the only musician who has played twenty years in a row at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, playing concerts with Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Jerry Mulligan, Slide Hampton, Cannonball Adderley, Chucho Valdés, Oliver Jones and Mel Torme.

In 2007, he was the subject of the feature-length documentary film, "The Brass Man" (L'homme de Cuivre).

On November 1, 2010, he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in Music from Concordia University.

William Bruce Jenner (born October 28, 1949) is a former U.S. track and field athlete, motivational speaker, socialite and television personality. He won the gold medal for decathlon in the Montreal 1976 Summer Olympics.

Following his Olympic victory and the related recognition, his professional career evolved into being a television celebrity. By 1981 he had starred in several made-for-TV movies and was Erik Estrada's replacement on the top rated TV series CHiPs. Since the 2007 debut of Keeping Up with the Kardashians he has appeared as the step-father to the Kardashian sisters.

Bruce Jenner is originally from Mount Kisco, New York. He attended Newtown High School in Newtown, Connecticut, after spending a year at Sleepy Hollow High School in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Jenner earned a football scholarship and attended Graceland College (now Graceland University) in Iowa, but a knee injury forced him to stop playing football and he switched to the decathlon. He was mentored by Graceland's track coach L. D. Weldon, who was the first to recognize Jenner's potential and encouraged him to pursue the decathlon. Jenner debuted in the decathlon at the Drake Relays in 1970, placing fifth.

George Lewis Mount (born September 14, 1955) is an American former professional cyclist.
Mount was sixth at the 1976 Montreal Olympics road race which launched his professional career and propelled the US into post-war international cycling.

Mount raced professionally in the US and Europe, the first American to break into European road racing. In 1997 Mount was inducted to the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame. He earned the nickname "Smilin' George".

Mount was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1955. He refused to register for the draft (conscription had already ended) and his father told him to leave home. In 1973, while working as a groom at a race track, he met Berkeley, California cycling enthusiast and race promoter, Peter Rich. Mount moved into a room above Rich's bicycle shop and worked for him as a mechanic. Rich called him

"... a cocky pop-off, a pleasant smart aleck. But he obviously had great potential, great pedaling form. He had a powerful smoothness about him. He would pedal without wasting energy."