History
Prior to 1975 the stadium was called Cộng Hòa Stadium. The site had witnessed a number of major sporting events including an over-capacity 30.000 strong crowd to watch the elimination soccer match between South Vietnam and South Korea leading up to the 1964 Summer Olympics.
In 1966 the South Vietnamese soccer team captured the Merdeka Cup defeating Burma. The gold trophy was kept at the Cộng Hòa Stadium. Its whereabout is not known after the Fall of Saigon.
During the Vietnam War the Stadium was also the scene of terrorist attacks by the Vietcong. Explosives detonated on October 4, 1965 killed 11 and injured 42 others.
Read more about this topic: Thong Nhat Stadium
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)