Streaking

According to Wikipedia, Michael O'Brien was the first known streaker at any major sporting event. On 20 April 1974, he ran out naked onto the playing field at Twickenham, where England were playing France. He preceded the more famous Erica Roe by eight years. A news photograph of PC Bruce Perry using his helmet to cover the modesty of the 25–year–old Australian won numerous awards, including World Press Photo of the Year. It was also chosen as Picture of the Year by Life magazine, and Picture of the Decade by People magazine.

The Indian blogger Lalit Kumar has a detailed piece, essentially about the celebrated photograph. According to Kumar, O'Brien streaked to win a £10 bet; but (no doubt luckily for him) he clearly came up against a magistrate with a sense of humour, because he was fined – you guessed it – £10.

Kumar goes on to tell how in 2006, O'Brien appeared on an Australian television show called Where Are they Now?, in which he said he regretted his stunt, that streaking is a stupid thing to do, and that he was not proud of starting this trend.

The show also managed to track down PC Perry, who gifted his famous helmet to O'Brien. It can now be seen in the Twickenham Museum.

Another famous streaker was Robert Opel, who performed at the 1974 Oscar ceremony – on 7 July, some two and a half months after O'Brien.

Wikipedia has a history of streaking that goes as far back as the Middle Ages, although the early examples may not have much in common with their more modern counterparts. Streaking as we know it today seems to have begun to gather some momentum at American colleges in the mid–1960s. In 1973, a "streaking epidemic" was reported to have hit a university in Texas; and in December of that year, Time magazine reported "a growing fad" that was "catching on among college students and other groups" in the Los Angeles area.

Ray Stevens's single The Streak was released in March 1974; it reached No. 1 in the USA, UK, Canada and New Zealand, and No. 2 in Australia and Ireland. It was during Stevens's run in the charts that Michael O'Brien appears to have made streaking a thing on this side of the Atlantic.