David Dermott wrote:
According to the book "Orienteering" (Hans Bengtsson,1977) the first
civilian Ski-O competition was held in Sweden Mar 4, 1900! The first
civilian dry-land O competition was in Norway Oct 7 1900. Before that
there were O competitions (on and off skis) in the military.

This is correct, more or less: The first orienteering competion ever was
held in Norway a few years earlier, and it was organized by the military.

However, I believe it was open for civilians as well. (But I guess the
Swedes would like to pretend/believe they were first. :-)

The book also makes the claim that the 1949 Olympic Conference in Rome
gave Ski-O "Olympic Status"!

This just means that there's national federations for Ski-O in enough
countries to qualify for the winter olympics. This limit is
significantly lower than the one required for a summer sport.

Terje

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"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"