A Brief History
On May 14, 1900, the athletic competition known as “the World Amateur championship” opened at the Paris Exposition Universelle, a World’s Fair held in Paris from April to November of 1900, one of several French hosted Expositions Universelle over the years.
Digging Deeper
The events variously known as “world’s fair,” “global exposition,” or “universal exposition,” are major events often hosted by a major city or a country to celebrate all the latest in technology and innovations, a phenomenon first hosted by Bohemia in Prague back in 1791.
There have been at least 37 general expositions that could be considered world fairs since, along with many other more specialized expositions focused on specific aspects of technology, science, or horticulture.
Some of the most notable events include:
The Great Exposition of 1851 in London, featuring the incredible Crystal Palace.
The World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, also known as “The Chicago World’s Fair.”
The New York World’s Fair of 1939.
Expo ’67 in Montreal, given the tagline “Man and His World.”
Expo 2020 hosted by Dubai in the UAE, oddly enough held from 2021 to 2022.
And most recently Expo 2025 which opened in Osaka, Japan, in April of 2025.
In answer to our title question, Saudi Arabia plans on hosting Expo 2030 from 2030 to 2031.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Have you ever attended a world’s fair?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Cotter, Bill. Montreal’s Expo 67. Arcadia Publishing, 2016.
Mattie, Erik. World’s Fairs. Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.
The featured image in this article, a 1900 Summer Olympics poster from Archives nationales (France), is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
