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The 2008 Olympics began officially in Beijing on Friday with more than 200 countries taking part in the opening ceremony, in front of a capacity crowd of around 90,000, at the Bird's Nest stadium.

Drums, a light show and a display of fireworks throughout the city heralded a spectacular opening.

It was a huge contrast with early Games but how do they compare with those of Atlanta, Sydney and Athens?

The Olympics returned to their spiritual home in Greece after a 108-year absence.

And the hosts did not disappoint, with flaming Olympic rings on the stadium floor, an elaborate, balletic journey through Greece's rich and varied history and more fireworks than were probably necessary.

There were none of the controversies that previous ceremonies had experienced and at three hours, it did not feel overly long.

The flame was lit by Greek windsurfer Nikolaos Kaklamanakis who won Olympic gold at the 1996 Olympics.

The Sydney 2000 opening ceremony was called the most beautiful he had ever seen by International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch.

It celebrated Australia's relationship with the sea, the outback, their Aboriginal past and the development of the country from the arrival of the Europeans.

Cathy Freeman, Australia's great 400m medal hope, lit the Olympic flame, although a technical fault halted the cauldron for several minutes as it made its planned ascent up a mechanical waterfall.

It was the climax to a show that lasted an hour longer than its scheduled three.

Atlanta had the honour of staging the centennial Olympics in 1996 and unveiled one of the biggest sport stars of the 20th century to light their flame.

The torch had arrived in America 84 days earlier and embarked on a 16,000 mile trip round the country before it entered the aptly named Centennial Stadium.

The identity of the flame lighter had been a closely guarded secret and there were gasps and huge cheers when Muhammad Ali, who won Olympic boxing gold at the 1960 Games as Cassius Clay, came into view.

Ali, in turn, lit a self-propelling torch that carried the flame up a wire to the cauldron.

It will be hard for any host to compete with Barcelona's unique way of lighting the Olympic flame at the 1992 opening ceremony.

The stadium was plunged into almost total darkness as Spanish basketball star Juan Antonio San Epifanio ran the torch through the gathered athletes to where Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo was waiting.

Rebollo lit one of his arrows and fired it across the stadium and over the Olympic cauldron to spectacularly light the flame.

The other highlight was the singing of the Games' anthem, Barcelona, which had been written by Queen singer Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991.

The opening ceremony of the 1988 Seoul Olympics provided two very different images at the lighting of the flame.

An emotional start saw 76-year-old Sohn Kee-chung, the first Korean to win an Olympic medal, bring the torch into the stadium and hand it to another athlete.

Sohn won marathon gold at the 1936 Berlin Games, but as Korea was under Japanese rule he was forced to compete for them and his medal boosted their tally.

The traditional release of doves happened for the final time when a number settled in the cauldron that housed the Olympic flame as it was being lit, and were killed.

Never ones for understatement, the Americans went to town to open the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, which was held in the same stadium as the 1932 Games.

It started in spectacular fashion when a man with a jetpack strapped to his back flew onto the stadium floor before balloons carrying the word 'welcome' in the language of the 140 nations present were released into the sky.

The spectators all raised a card left under their seat to stunning effect to reveal the national flags of all the competing nations.

And 1960 decathlon champion Rafer Johnson ascended a moving staircase to light the flame through the Olympic rings.

The 1980 Moscow Olympics were hit by an American-led boycott of over 60 countries protesting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Britain sent a team, but were one of 15 to protest by marching into the opening ceremony under the Olympic Flag rather than their national one.

Part of the Lenin Stadium was transformed into alternating pictures, made by using colourful scarves, a visual display that was traditional during mass communist rallies.

At one point, Mischa, the Games' mascot, was unveiled, although she is better remembered for her closing ceremony tear.

The 1976 Olympic Games were opened in a stadium that had not been completed.

Construction problems with a leaning tower, designed to move a retractable roof, were not sorted until a decade after the Olympics left Montreal and the rising cost of the build meant the city only finished paying for the stadium, dubbed the 'Big Owe' in 2006.

The Olympic flame arrived on time, though, after being transformed into a radio signal and sent from Athens to Canada by satellite. A receiver used the stored energy to activate a laser beam which re-lit the torch.

It was then carried by foot from Ottawa to Montreal in more traditional fashion.

The 1964 Olympics were held in Tokyo and marked the first time a non-Western nation had hosted the Games.

The city had been due to stage the 1940 Games but Japan invaded China and the International Olympic Committee took them away, before the intervention of World War II put pay to any Games that year.

There was a poignant opening when 19-year-old Yoshinori Sakai, who was born near Hiroshima on 6 August, 1945, the date the atomic bomb was dropped on the city, lit the Olympic Flame.

The 1960 Rome opening ceremony appeared to be passing off without incident until the Republic of China athletes launched a protest.

They were unhappy with the International Olympic Committee's ruling which compelled the athletes to compete under the name of Taiwan despite the IOC recognising their membership as Republic of China.

As the 73-strong delegation passed the grandstands, Chef de Mission Lin Hung-tan unfurled a banner with 'under protest' scrawled on it to the delight of spectators.

Taiwan continued to participate in the Games, but did so under protest.

The Olympic flame was transported to Australia for the 1956 Games in a miner's lamp on board an aeroplane.

But before it reached the Melbourne opening ceremony it was embroiled in controversy thanks to several students protesting against the Nazi invention of the relay.

Barry Larkin presented Sydney mayor Pat Hills with a hoax torch made out of a wooden chair leg which was painted silver and had a plum pudding can on top that housed a pair of flaming underpants; he slipped away before the ruse was uncovered.

In a move that has become more common in recent years, the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 got off to a wonderful start when two legendary Finnish runners lit the flame.

Distance runner Paavo Nurmi, who won nine golds and three silvers in the 1920s, lit the cauldron on the floor of the stadium.

The 55-year-old delighted the packed stands when he entered the stadium carrying the torch.

And Hannes Kölehmainen, 62, who won four golds and a silver, and was the first man to complete the 5,000m and 10,000m double, lit a flame at the top of the Olympic tower.

When the Olympics returned to London in 1948 for the first Games since Berlin, the opening ceremony was in marked contrast to 40 years earlier.

In line with all the new bits added to the opening ceremony since 1908, the Olympic flame was shipped across the English Channel as part of the relay.

The Olympic flag was hoisted up a 35-foot pole, 2,500 pigeons were released and there was a 21-gun salute before track athlete John Mark lit the flame.

The official Olympic report stated that the ceremony gave birth to a spirit that would permeate the rest of the Games.

The Olympic flame commemorates the theft of fire from Greek god Zeus by Prometheus, and burnt throughout the ancient Games.

It was reintroduced in the modern era at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.

The Games of the IX Olympiad also saw Greece lead the parade of nations at the opening ceremony for the first time, while the host country marched in last, a tradition which continues today.

And in 1936, the organisers of the Berlin Games came up with the idea of transporting the flame, which is lit at Olympia, to the host city via a relay.

By the time the 1920 Games in Antwerp came around, the Olympics were much more established.

The opening ceremony was notable because the Olympic flag, designed in 1913 by founder of the International Olympic Committee Baron Pierre de Coubertin, was flown for the first time.

The Olympic oath, which calls for athletes to respect and abide by Olympic rules, was introduced and Belgian fencer Victor Boin had the honour of reciting it on behalf of all the athletes at the Games.

Doves being released as a symbol of peace also made their debut.

After no opening ceremony at the 1900 Games in Paris, and a low-key affair four years later in St Louis, the London 1908 Olympic heralded in a new era.

For the first time, teams paraded behind their national flags, but Finnish athletes refused to march under the Russian flag and came into the stadium without one.

Sweden's flag was not displayed above the stadium so they refused to take part.

And the United States refused to lower their flag to the Royal Box, because their flag was also missing from the top of the stadium and they claimed "this flag dips to no earthly king".

On Easter Monday in 1896 the first Olympic Games opening ceremony was played out in front of 80,000 spectators in the Panathinaiko Stadium in Greece.

It was a rather modest affair by today's standards, with a speech from president of the organising committee Crown Prince Constantine, before King George I of Greece officially declared the Games open.

The Olympic Hymn followed and that was pretty much that.

Since then, we have seen carefully choreographed dance routines, jetpacks, flaming arrows and burning doves as each host city tries to out-do its predecessor.