The Netherlands’ Olympic Committee withdrew from the Olympic games, donating 100,000 guilder, ($26,000) of its Olympic fund to Hungarian war relief.

Half the globe away from the world’s shooting wars, the vanguard of an international brigade of athletes invaded Australia. They had come, so they were told, to promote peace. But the repercussions of far-off gunfire were felt in Melbourne’s Olympic village—and might just possibly wreck the 1956 games.

Egypt…