The Olympics have been canceled before — check out photos from the Inter-Allied Games that replaced the 1916 Olympic Games

World War I forced the cancellation of the 1916 Olympics, but athletes from the US, UK, France, and more competed in the Inter-Allied Games in 1919.National WWI Museum and Memorial

• The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been postponed by a full year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• While the move was historic, it certainly wasn't unprecedented, as the Olympics have been canceled on three different occasions.
• In 1916, World War I forced the cancellation of the Olympics for the first time, but the Allied powers held an Olympics-like competition three years later.
• In 1919, athletes from the US, UK, Australia, France, and more gathered outside of Paris to compete in the Inter-Allied Games.
• Check out photos, documents, and memorabilia from the one-time event courtesy of the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri.

In March, the International Olympic Committee announced that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would be postponed by a full calendar year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

While the decision has rattled the entire sporting world, it certainly wasn't an unprecedented move, as the Olympics have been canceled on three different occasions before 2020.

As World War I ravaged Europe in 1916 and pulled many of the world's powers into conflict, organizers were forced to cancel the modern Olympics for the first time. But after a sudden ceasefire in late 1918 brought an end to the fighting in France, the opportunity for a pseudo replacement for the Olympics arose.

From June 22 t0 July 6 of 1919, athletes from Allied nations — including the US, UK, Australia, France, and more — gathered outside of Paris to partake in the Inter-Allied Games. Hundreds of participants competed across 26 different sports in front of more than 500,000 spectators to help boost morale after all the devastation and sacrifice of the war.

The National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, collected artifacts from the one-time event for an exhibition it hosted in 2012, and you can check out photos, documents, and memorabilia from the Inter-Allied Games below, courtesy of the museum: