History Of Beirut.

I randomly found this on a website and thought everyone here would be interested to see how one of the coolest games was started. I take no credit for writing this article, since I just found it.



In October 1983, a brother from the currently inactive Sigma Nu fraternity on Lehigh was visiting some friends at Bucknell. While at a frat party, he observed two bucknell students who were bored and began to throw a ping pong ball back and forth at each other's cup. It was just a spur of the moment thing to pass the time. When this brother returned to Lehigh, on a random night he began to do the same thing with a fellow Sigma Nu brother. They then continued to add more cups to the ping pong table. Until they organized a game in which 2 teammates each arranged ten cups in whatever formation they desired on their side of the pingpong table. Whoever emptied all of the opponent's cups first was the winner. All empty cups were put back on the tabloe and if one sunk an empty, he had to pull a cup of his own. At this exact time, a suicide bomber attack upon the the US Marine headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon occured. The Sigma Nu brothers named the game they created "Beirut", because it was as if you were bombing your opponent. Beirut quckly became the preferred method of pregaming in the house, and soon spread in popularity throughout the many frats in Lehigh. Im not sure how soon, but within a few years all the greeks organized a beirut tournament with two brothers representing each frat. The team who won the very first tournament arranged their cups into one triangle, making it the most difficult to finish all ten when played with the empty rule. Soon after, the triangle formation became the most popular rack. Friends told friends about the game, and soon it spread across the country as the nation's most popular drinking game. This is where the great misconception come into play... Now, most people think Dartmouth invented the game. This is incorrect. Dartmouth invented BEER PONG sometime in the 1950's, and yes, they play with ping pong paddles, thus BEER PONG. There is no arguing this at all, and people who call beirut beer pong are incorrect. It is a completely different game. Go to Dartmouth and try it out. What most likely confused people on this over the last decade is probably because at Lehigh, standard 16 oz party cups have been long banned among the frats because the University is afraid it promotes binge drinking. Because of this, all beirut games were played with clear plastic 9 oz solo cups. When the game moved on to other colleges, people were not going to go out of their way to buy 9 oz cups when they already had the large 16 oz party sized ones. Because the 16oz cups arent clear for the most part, the empty cup rule has all but been forgotten. About the name confusion, beer pong existed long before beirut so people simply made the confusion. Also, beer pong is a lot easier to remember than beirut, and to someone who doesnt know about the Lebonon attacks in 1983, the name makes no sense. At lehigh, the game is as popular as ever. My house has 7 tables in our party room, including a hexagonal table which can play 3 games at a time or an altered 6 on six version of the game called "hex". The oldest tables from the early 90's the country of lebonon is painted on the table and there is a big explosion painted where beirut should be. Every house at lehigh has their own varied rules, and we still play with the 9 oz cups, and we still play with empties. Lehigh is the mecca of beirut. End of story. I hope i cleared this up for some people.