*Source: BetaNews (
http://www.betanews.com/article/Chin...h/1193949030)*
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First-come, first-served ticket sales for the 2008 Beijing Olympics began and ended in one hour on Tuesday when the overwhelming demand crashed the server's database.
Ticket sales for the Games were halted after demand proved to be far too much for the database to handle. The ticketing database could supposedly process 150,000 transactions an hour, but in just the first hour, the Games' site had 8 million hits, its hotline had 3.8 million calls, and 200,000 orders were taken from customers.
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