My grandmother has glasses from the 1967 World's Fair

in #history6 years ago

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Me and my grandmother we're going through some of her old stuff today and we came across these glasses. She has a set of four, one from the USSR, Germany, Italy, and Israel.

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The USSR glass is the one that originally caught my eye since that is not a name you see much anymore. My grandmother originally thought they were from the Olympics in Montreal (which were actually held in 1976), but after a little research I found they were actually from the 1967 World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec.

For those that are interested here are some of the interesting tidbits I found while looking into the 1967 World's Fair, or Expo 67 as it was commonly known:

  • Expo 67 considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century with the most attendees to that date and 62 nations participating.

  • The fair had been intended to be held in Moscow, to help the Soviet Union celebrate the Russian Revolution's 50th anniversary; however, for various reasons, the Soviets decided to cancel, and Canada was awarded it in late 1962.

  • The fair was visited by many of the most notable people at the time, including Canada's monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, Lyndon B. Johnson, Princess Grace of Monaco, Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Ethiopia's emperor Haile Selassie, Charles de Gaulle, Bing Crosby, Harry Belafonte, Maurice Chevalier, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Marlene Dietrich. Musicians like Thelonious Monk, Grateful Dead, Tiny Tim, The Tokens and Jefferson Airplane entertained the crowds.

  • An episode of the 1970s television series Battlestar Galactica, "Greetings from Earth Part 2", was filmed at the Expo site in 1979. The Expo structures were used to represent a city on an alien world where the people had all been killed by a long-ago war.

I thought these glasses were a cool bit of modern history and that I wanted to share with you guys. If anyone is interested in reading more about Expo 67 here is the wiki page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_67