Some Of The Greatest Historical Pictures Ever

Jesse Owens’ Big Win, 1936

Adolf Hitler hoped to prove a point of racial superiority during the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, but athlete Jesse Owens had other plans when he made sporting history that would last 25 years. Owens was an American track and field athlete and a four-time Olympic gold medalist.

He made sporting history when he broke five world records, making him the most successful athlete at the Games. According to ESPN, Owens, as a Black man, “single-handedly crushed Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy.” The Jesse Owens Award is the highest accolade for the year’s best track and field athlete in the United States.